New London and the War of 1812: The Bachman Collection
The late Robert Bachman, a teacher and historian from Waterford, Connecticut, carried out a great deal of research in the 1970s for a book about the War of 1812 as it affected the New London area. Regrettably, the book was never written, but his extensive notes, photocopies, and printed items were preserved and given to the Maritime Society in 2010.
Fragments From an Unwritten Book was the title of a 2012 exhibit of highlights from the collection mounted to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812.
Gene MacMullan agreed to write a Finding Aid for the collection and arranged the folders alphabetically in five archival boxes. Introductory pages are shown below. For an interesting glimpse into the collection, Box 4 (see below) contains information about HMS Ramillies, flagship of the Royal Navy squadron that blockaded New London for much of the war.
The flagship of the British squadron blockading New London was HMS Ramillies, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line launched in 1785 at Rotherhithe on the Thames. Compared with Connecticut's famous tall ships, at 170 feet Ramillies was somewhat larger than Mystic Seaport’s 134-foot whaler, Charles W. Morgan, but over 100 feet shorter than the U. S. Coast Guard’s 295-foot training bark Eagle.
Robert Bachman photocopied dozens of Admiralty records in London, among them instructions in the form of letters from Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy aboard Ramillies “off New London” to other captains of the squadron as they operated in Long Island Sound, off Block Island, Montauk, and beyond.
Hardy and Ramillies led the attack on Stonington in August, 1814. One of the most informative and interesting items in the collection is a notebook of Mr. Bachman's handwritten transcriptions from the log of Ramillies, from Oct. 7, 1812, when she was leaving England, to Nov. 23, 1815, nine months after the war ended.
The following examples cover the days of the attack on Stonington, beginning Aug. 9 and ending on the 12th when the squadron sailed into Fishers Island Sound and soon returned to New London. HMS Terror is mentioned frequently, a new "bomb ship" equipped with the mortars that bombarded the village. A month later Terror lay off Baltimore's Fort McHenry, contributing to "the rocket's red glare" immortalized in "The Star-Spangled Banner." She was later converted to a polar exploration ship, it being thought her stout construction could withstand the pressure of sea ice. It didn't, and her wreck was discovered in the Arctic as recently as 2016.
The letter below, shown in part, was photocopied by Robert Bachman in the Admiralty archives, one of several negotiating with Capt. Stephen Decatur about his proposal for the blockaded USS Macedonian (formerly HMS Macedonian) to engage in a duel with one of the ships of the blockading squadron. The duel never took place.
As was customary, it is written out by a sailor-scribe then signed by its author, the captain - "Ramillies Off New London, 20th Jan'y 1814."
