Battle of Cape Henry

The Battle of Cape Henry was a naval battle in the American War of Independence which took place near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on 16 March 1781 between a British squadron under Vice-admiral Mariot Arbuthnot and a French squadron under Admiral Charles René Dominique Sochet, Chevalier Destouches. Destouches, based in Newport, Rhode Island, had sailed for the Chesapeake as part of a joint operation with the Continental Army to oppose the British army of Brigadier General Benedict Arnold that was active in Virginia. Destouches was asked by General George Washington to take his fleet to the Chesapeake to support military operations against Arnold by the Marquis de Lafayette. Sailing on 8 March, he was followed two days later by Admiral Arbuthnot, who sailed from eastern Long Island. Arbuthnot's fleet outsailed that of Destouches, reaching the Virginia Capes just ahead of Destouches on 16 March. After manoeuvring for several hours, the battle was joined, and both fleets suffered… Read by Evan Duggan. Recorded May 21, 2020; the article may have changed since. The article as it stood when recorded: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=957006898 Article today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Henry Original recording: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EN-BattleofCapeHenry-article.ogg License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This episode is a format-shifted (MP3) copy redistributed under the same license. Chapter images come from the recorded article via Wikimedia Commons; each chapter links its file page for credits. This show is an independent community project, not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation.