The Navy has commissioned seven vessels named Saratoga into the service of the United States, but at least four others flew the nascent nation’s colors into battle. Indeed, the first three predated the Continental Navy’s “Sara.” All four were privateers; three fought in the Revolutionary War, the last in the War of 1812.
The consensus about the American Revolution’s naval war is that the Continental government relied on privateering to harass British maritime commerce with the intention of seizing ships and their valuable cargoes. However, especially in the early months of the war, the government had not deferred to privateering as its primary course of action. While privately owned vessels were converted for fighting, they were not independent contractors. The Continental Congress leased the ships and paid their expenses, thus making them, at least temporarily, government property. The intent was not simply commerce raiding, but actively engaging British warships as well.
At the start of the War of 1812, the U.S. Navy boasted only 16 ships, 9 of them frigates. The Royal Navy, on the other hand, had more than 500 active warships, with 85 sailing in U.S. waters when war was declared.
Six months into the conflict, with most of the U.S. fleet either hamstrung or blockaded in port, the government turned to commerce raiding to prolong the war and force significantly increased protection costs on Great Britain. By war’s end the United States had commissioned 515 privateers, which captured 1,345 British vessels and 30,000 seamen. Damage to British shipping cost more than $39 million and raised insurance rates.
Of the first unrecognized Saratoga, most of what is known is found in a Letter of Marque and Reprisal that was issued on 20 October 1777 to “Alexander Murray Master of the Brig Saratoga mounting 12 Carriage Guns and 8 Swivels navigated by 20 Men belonging to Samuel & Robert Purviance and others of Baltimore.” Although it is unknown when the brig was built and commissioned, she predates the Continental Navy’s sloop Saratoga, which was launched in April 1780.
The brig Saratoga was involved in the abortive attempt of the Continental Navy frigate Virginia to break out of the Chesapeake Bay in March 1778. On board the Saratoga, her pilot, alleged to be “one of the best in the bay,” was to lead the trailing frigate past the blockading squadron and the dangerous shoals of the Middle Ground under cover of darkness.
As the ships passed the blockaders at 0130 on 31 March, the Saratoga was spotted and pursued by HMS Solebay, leaving the Virginia to fend for herself. The brig safely escaped, but the Virginia ran onto the shoals. Badly damaged, she was forced to anchor. Later that day, two British frigates accepted the U.S. frigate’s surrender. Fifteen months later, the brig Saratoga was captured in an action with HMS Galatea, a 20-gun post ship.
The Massachusetts Colonial Navy had two Saratogas in service from 1778 to 1781. The first was an eight-gun, 120-ton brig commissioned on 1 July 1778. Her commander, John Tittle of Beverly, was also the owner and principal bonder. She was reported condemned and sold at Beverly on 21 November 1781.
The second was the Massachusetts privateer brigantine Saratoga, which over her brief 14-month career was commissioned three times and made four cruises. She was first commissioned in 1779. The 120-ton vessel carried 12 guns and 26 crewmen. Recommissioned later that year, she carried 10 guns and 31 sailors. The following May, commissioned once again, she added two guns and her crew more than doubled to 71. She captured the brig Joseph in April 1780, but two months later, she crossed paths off Newfoundland with the frigate HMS Maidstone and sloop HMS Cygnet. She was captured and taken as prize to St. Johns.
Of the early privateer Saras, perhaps the most significant was an 18-gun schooner during the War of 1812 described by historians William Dudley and Michael Crawford as “one of the most active American privateers in the Caribbean during the first year of the war.” Under three commanders, she took at least 22 ships. Among them, the large, 690-ton ship Neptune was, according to a contemporary report in The Weekly Register by Hezekiah Niles, “probably one of the most valuable ships taken during the war.”
This Saratoga was one of the conflict’s earliest privateers to set sail. In the autumn of 1812, she departed New York City with a crew of 140 to begin her career. She quickly captured the 16-gun ship Quebec out of Jamaica with a cargo valued at $300,000. On 10 December, 24 days out of New York off La Guaira, Venezuela, she captured the British schooner Mariah with goods worth $20,000. But the next morning began the fight for which she is most noted.
According to the Saratoga’s second lieutenant, John Backus, “At 1/2 past 8 aM made all Sail in chase of the Brig [Rachel] at 9 Set English Ensign and Pendant on which she Hoisted an English Ensign, Called all hands to quarters and cleared for action at 10 gave her a shot and hoisted American Ensign and Pendant.” The Rachel, 58 days out of Greenock, Scotland, carried 14 guns, had a 36-man crew, and was ready for a fight. The ships were within sight of La Guaira, and according to a contemporary report, “almost the entire population, from the beggar to the commander, turned out to see the conflict from the house-tops.” The fight lasted until 1500, when after boarding the brig, a Saratoga officer pulled down the Rachel’s colors.
The Saratoga was not done. On 9 February 1813, she captured the 600-ton Lord Nelson, “one of the finest vessels in the British merchant service,” and sent her into New Orleans. In quick succession during August she captured the brig Lloyd on the 12th, and a week later the 10-gun British privateer Vestal in the Cape Verde Islands. The Saratoga fought these two at a deficit. On 12 July, she had been chased by a British frigate and, to escape, threw 12 of her guns overboard. She rearmed with the Vestal’s guns.
Off Brazil, she escaped after running for two days from two British ships, one of which might have been a 74. Then, on 18 October after nearly a full day’s chase off Surinam, the New Yorker closed an English packet brig “nearly within musket shot.” The packet opened fire, cutting away portions of the Saratoga’s fore rigging and damaging the mainsail. After significant maneuvering, the two ships exchanged fire for more than an hour, until the Americans got within grappling range. But the British fought off attempts to pull the ships together. The firing continued for nearly another half-hour before the Americans boarded and captured the Morgiana.
In his History of American Privateers, historian Edgar Stanton Maclay described the engagement as “one of the most obstinately contested actions between an American privateer and a British government packet.”
The Saratoga left on her last War of 1812 voyage on 24 July 1814 from New Bedford, Massachusetts. She added to her list of captures the schooners Henry and James, brig Swiftsure, and vessels Mary, Enterprise, and Ann Dorothy. On 11 November the schooner docked at Wilmington, Delaware, loaded with a captured cargo that included indigo, ivory, and furs. Barely six months earlier, the second “official” Sara, a U.S. Navy corvette, had been launched on Lake Champlain.
As for the fourth “unofficial” Saratoga, the story of her subsequent career has been lost to history.