Captain John Lawrence coins the Navy motto "Don't give up the ship" - June 1st, 1813

On this day in 1813, after being mortally wounded at the Battle of Boston Harbor, Captain James Lawrence issued his final command: “Don’t give up the ship.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio,
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that flies the flag of history every day of
the week. I'm Gay Bluesier, and in this episode, we're
looking at the origin of an enduring motto of the

(00:20):
US Navy, including the bloody sea battle and impulsive tactical
blunder that gave rise to it. The day was June one,
eighteen thirteen. After being mortally wounded at the Battle of

(00:41):
Boston Harbor, Captain James Lawrence issued his final command, don't
give up the ship. The ship in question was the
USS Chesapeake, a frigate which Lawrence had taken command of
just two weeks earlier. It was in the process of
being boarded by Britainish soldiers when Lawrence issued his order,

(01:02):
and although his crew tried to comply, the ship was
ultimately captured just a few minutes later. By the end
of May eighteen thirteen, the fledgling American Navy was riding
high on a string of victories over British naval forces.
Captain Lawrence, for instance, had led a successful campaign in

(01:23):
late February which had resulted in the sinking of the
HMS Peacock. Americans were feeling pretty confident in their naval prowess,
so when the city of Boston began to swirl with
rumors of an impending ship to ship duel, the locals
turned out in droves to watch what they assumed would
be another decisive US victory. The day's combatants would be

(01:46):
the celebrated Captain Lawrence, who commanded the freshly repaired USS Chesapeake,
and Captain Philip B. V. Broke, the commander of a
thirty eight gun Royal frigate called the HMS Shannonon. Broke
had caught sight of the Chesapeake and the Boston Harbor
that morning, and seeing that it was being prepped to sail,

(02:06):
he scribbled out a letter to Captain Lawrence issuing him
a challenge to a ship to ship duel. In a
strange twist, Lawrence never received that letter because by the
time it arrived, he had already spotted broke ship and
set out to confront it. To be clear, Lawrence's official
mission was to slip through the British blockade and prey

(02:28):
on enemy merchant ships in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence,
engaging in a ship to ship duel a few miles
from the Boston Harbor was not in the US Navy
strategic interest. Not only was that kind of naval contest
ineffectual in the grand scheme, it was also an unnecessary risk.
At the time, the American Navy had only a limited

(02:50):
number of ships at its disposal and couldn't afford to
have any of them laid up for repairs thanks to
a one on one battle that could have been avoided
that dead. Captain Lawrence had taken part in such skirmish
as before and had always come out on top, so,
like the people of Boston, he fully expected to rack
up another easy victory. On June first, shortly before six pm,

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the Chesapeake caught up with the Shannon, which had been
waiting almost stationary, a few miles outside of Boston. In
a bold and fairly reckless move, Captain Lawrence brought the
Chesapeake right up alongside the Shannon's starboard side, making it
easy for the ships to exchange broadsides or coordinated cannon
fire at an extremely close range. The close proximity of

(03:40):
the ships also put the respective crews within a pistol
shot of each other, allowing them to exchange volleys of
small arms as well. For whatever reason, be it better training,
a stronger position, or just luck of the draw, the
British sailors quickly claimed the upper hand. Out of the
one hundred and fifty men's stationed on the upper deck

(04:01):
of the Chesapeake, nearly a hundred of them had been
killed or wounded within the first two minutes of action,
including almost all of the officers. The constant barrage of
broadsides and musket fire also shot away the vessel's rigging
and steering wheel, causing it to drift ever closer to
the Shannon than providing an easy target for British sharpshooters.

(04:25):
When the ships finally did collide, Captain Broke pressed his
advantage by leading a boarding party onto the Chesapeake's quarter deck. Meanwhile,
Captain Lawrence, who'd been injured by a musket ball, was
taken to his cabin below deck to receive medical treatment.
As he lay there grappling with his wounds, he exhorted
his men to fight on in the face of defeat,

(04:47):
reportedly saying, don't give up the ship. Fight her till
she sinks despite the crew's best effort. Though that's not
what happened. Instead, they were overwhelmed by brokes Fie, losing
control of the Chesapeake within minutes of its boarding. Technically,
the Americans never formally surrendered, but that's only because there

(05:09):
were no officers left alive on deck to make that call.
Not only did the Americans lose the Battle of Boston Harbor,
it was one of the quickest and bloodiest naval battles
of the War of eighteen twelve. The fighting lasted less
than fifteen minutes in total, but by the end of
it more than two hundred men were killed or wounded,

(05:31):
mostly Americans. To make their victory official, the crew of
the Shannon lowered the Chesapeake's American flag and replaced it
with the white ensign of Saint George, a crushing site
not only for the surviving crew, but for the crowds
of Bostonians who had gathered on coastal hills and city
rooftops to get a glimpse of the fight. Instead, if

(05:53):
they saw anything at all, it was only the defeated
and captured crew being borne away to a British naval
base in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Captain Lawrence succumbed to his
wounds during the five day journey, and was laid to
rest with full military honors when they reached Halifax. His
remaining crew members were imprisoned, and their ship, after being repaired,

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was taken into service by the Royal Navy, becoming the
HMS Chesapeake. In death, Captain Lawrence became even more of
a hero in the eyes of the American public. His
deathbed command, don't give up the Ship was first reported
in late June in a Baltimore newspaper. The notion that
Lawrence had died bravely was readily accepted by the American public,

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with the narrative helping to ease the sting of a
largely unexpected defeat. For the remainder of the war, Lawrence's
dying words became a kind of rallying cry for American forces.
In fact, just a few months after the battle, a
banner emblazoned with don't give up the Ship was flown
from the masthead of a namesake vessel, the USS Lawrence.

(07:02):
The ship's captain, commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, was a friend
of Lawrence and a war hero in his own right.
Perry had commissioned Margaret Forster Stewart to make the memorial
flag for him by stitching the phrase in bold white
letters onto his blue battle ensign. Then, on September tenth,
eighteen thirteen, Perry won a decisive victory over British naval

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forces in the Battle of Lake Erie, with Lawrence's final
command flying proudly above the ship that bore his name.
From then on, Perry's flag and the phrase inscribed on
it became an indelible part of Navy culture. The original
flag is now on display at the US Naval Academy
Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, and a large replica of it

(07:47):
presides over the school's Memorial Hall. All these years later,
Don't give up the Ship is still something of an
unofficial motto for the US Navy, and even today, you'll
still hear the battle cry at every Navy football game,
and you might even spot those five memorable words flying
high on the masts of naval ships. Captain Lawrence made

(08:09):
some foolhardy choices at the Battle of Boston Harbor, ones
that ultimately cost him his ship, his crew, and his life,
but nonetheless, his last order and the fighting spirit it
represents still resonates with enlisted sailors today. A legacy, made
all the more poignant by the fact the order went unfulfilled.

(08:32):
I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little
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(08:54):
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