The Backdoor at Nassau: America's First Fleet Action

In March 1776, a fleet of eight converted merchantmen — crewed by men who'd never fought together, commanded by a 60-year-old merchant captain, and carrying a Marine Corps that was three months old — sailed a thousand miles from Delaware to the Bahamas on a mission that wasn't even in their official orders. What they found was a British stockpile of gunpowder and cannon guarded by a governor who'd been warned and did almost nothing about it.This episode covers the Raid of Nassau: the first fleet action of the Continental Navy, the first amphibious landing of the Continental Marines, and the operational blunder — an unwatched harbor channel — that let most of the gunpowder slip away in the middle of the night. We follow the raid from Washington's nine-rounds-per-man gunpowder crisis, through the botched dawn assault and the quiet, unopposed landing that followed, to the lopsided fight against HMS Glasgow on the voyage home, and the congressional fallout that ended Commodore Esek Hopkins' career — and, almost by accident, produced America's first whistleblower protection law.In this episode:Why Washington's army had gunpowder for nine shots per soldier — not nine volleys, nine shotsHow British gunpowder ended up sitting undefended in the BahamasThe Continental Navy's first attempted landing — and why it aborted at the last secondFort Montagu's quiet, unopposed surrender and the Marine Corps' first amphibious assaultThe blockade gap that let Governor Montfort Brown ship 80% of the gunpowder to Florida overnightThe lopsided fight against HMS Glasgow, and the death of Lt. John Fitzpatrick — the first U.S. Marine killed in combatEsek Hopkins' court-martial, censure, and dismissal from the NavyHow a petition from ten Continental Navy officers — delivered to Congress by Marine Captain John Grannis in March 1777 — accused Hopkins of torturing British prisoners of war, and how Congress's response led to the first whistleblower protection law in American history (July 30, 1778)Why two of those ten officers, Midshipman Samuel Shaw and Third Lieutenant Richard Marven, ended up jailed in Rhode Island on Hopkins' own libel suit — and how Congress paid for their defenseSeparating myth from record: what John Paul Jones actually did — and didn't do — at NassauKey figures: Commodore Esek Hopkins • Captain Samuel Nicholas (Continental Marines) • Lt. John Paul Jones • Governor Montfort Brown • Lt. John Fitzpatrick • Midshipman Samuel Shaw & Third Lieutenant Richard Marven (whistleblowers) • Marine Captain John GrannisSources referenced: Continental Congress journals (Nov. 1775–Jan. 1778), Samuel Eliot Morison's biography of John Paul Jones, contemporaneous letters of George [email protected]@usnhistorypod