The Raid on New Providence–March 3, 1776

The raid on New Providence is probably one of those situations where we couldn’t really represent everything that was going on on this particular island, because there were a lot of moving parts. We especially overlooked the part at the end. Two of the ships went to St. Augustine, laden down mostly with gunpowder. Of the others, they headed further north, where they encountered the HMS Hawk and then the HMS Bolton. They ended up caputuring both ships. Then they bumped into the HMS Glasgow off the coast of Long Island. Despite being outnumbered, the Glasgow got away while simultaneously damaging one of the Navy ships. Initially, the Navy was given kudos for the raid, but the failure to capture Glasgow, plus complaints about some of the captains in the fleet led to investigations and courts-martial. One ship’s captain, that of the Providence, lost his command and it was given to John Paul Jones. Division of the spoils was also disputed. The commander of the entire action, Esek Hopkins, was censured for not patrolling the Virginia and Carolina Coasts (never mind he was secretly told to do so), and he was eventually dismissed from the Navy. What’s more, Nassau remained poorly defended and was subject to capture several times throughout the war. The post The Raid on New Providence–March 3, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.