Marines and sailors splashing ashore from landing boats has become a defining image of the history of the U.S. Marine Corps. It happened for the first time at the town of Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas on March 3, 1776. While the operation itself was a tactical success, its impact on the broader war for American independence was marred by inexperience and poor judgment. Despite this, the raid of Nassau offers important insights for contemporary naval forces, including the challenge of command and control across vast distances with limited communication, the need for adaptability during sustained expeditionary operations, and the inherent interconnectedness of military operations and political outcomes.
The Dawn of an American Naval Force
The formation of an American Navy in the fall of 1775 was an exercise in hubris and ambition. At least, that was how many delegates of the Second Continental Congress saw it. Samuel Chase of Maryland believed, “It is the maddest Idea in the World, to think of building an American Fleet.” The Royal Navy was the most powerful maritime force in the world. Some believed it was folly to even challenge it. Others pointed to the immense cost of starting a navy — especially if the British were likely to capture its ships. Chase himself made both arguments. Nevertheless, build a navy they did. The economic interests of influential New Englanders in Congress drove the creation of the Continental Navy and Marine Corps. In October 1775, Congress resolved to begin preparing armed, “swift sailing” ships to intercept British transports. By the end of the year, it authorized converting 4 merchant vessels to warships, recruiting marines, and building 13 purpose-built frigates.
The plucky American rebellion faced two main military challenges at the start of the Revolutionary War. The first was operational: The Royal Navy offered British forces in the American colonies a frustrating level of operational flexibility. Reliable logistics, high levels of readiness and professionalism, and the sheer number of ships made it feel like the British were everywhere all at once. In the summer and autumn of 1775, as Gen. George Washington’s forces laid siege to Boston, British seapower gave its troops garrisoned there a lifeline: The isolated forces could hold the city as long as they wanted because they were resupplied by sea.
Meanwhile, to the south, a different dynamic was playing out. When patriot militias seized control of the Virginia capital of Williamsburg and swarmed into the port of Norfolk, Lord Dunmore took himself, his family, his garrison, and its supplies — including gunpowder — aboard Royal Navy ships into the Chesapeake Bay. From there, British and loyalist vessels blockaded maritime traffic and raided patriot-held areas ashore.
The royal governor’s decision illustrated the second challenge facing the American military: logistics. It lacked all sorts of supplies, particularly gunpowder. Washington’s army besieging Boston was desperate for powder, as were the Virginian militias in Norfolk and Williamsburg, and the forces being raised to protect Philadelphia. If Congress was to form a navy, it would need reliable access to gunpowder — it would be difficult to defeat the British with silent guns. This was the reality in which the Continental Navy and Marine Corps were launched.
In December 1775, Congress appointed Esek Hopkins — a sailor, merchant, and militia commander from Rhode Island — as commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy. In the cold winter months that followed, he prepared his ships for sea.
Setting Course for the Bahamas
The first Continental Navy squadron consisted of eight ships, each of which were converted merchant ships, armed and reinforced in the shipyards of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Providence. Each ship carried a crew of sailors and a detachment of marines — a total force of nearly 1,000 men, including a newly commissioned lieutenant named John Paul Jones and the senior officer of the Continental Marine Corps, Capt. Samuel Nicholas. The squadron left Philadelphia and headed south to Cape Henlopen in mid-February 1776, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. The naval committee of the Congress gave Hopkins clear orders: Once his force rendezvoused at the cape, they were to sail south to relieve the Royal Navy’s pressure on the southern colonies by first sweeping the Chesapeake of Dunmore’s forces before heading to the Carolina coasts to preempt a suspected British attack on Wilmington or Charleston.
In the weeks before sailing from the Delaware Bay, Hopkins received intelligence about the presence of a large Royal Navy force in the Chesapeake and the Carolinas. Sensing his primary mission was far too risky, he took advantage of a discretionary “escape clause” at the end of his orders allowing him to follow his “best judgment” if faced with unexpected circumstances. Consequently, Hopkins decided to bypass the southern colonies and head for the Bahamas. The colony was reportedly poorly defended and hosted a large stockpile of gunpowder, an attractive prize.
The Continental Navy squadron arrived off Great Abaco Island on March 1. After seizing two local sloops, Hopkins devised a plan to load the captured boats with a force of nearly 250 sailors and marines to launch a surprise attack against the port of Nassau on New Providence Island.
At dawn on March 3, an American landing force approached the harbor to seize control of the town before local defenses could raise the alarm. The audacious plan failed the moment it met the reality of busy island merchant traffic coupled with inexperienced leadership. Earlier, local ship captains had spotted Hopkins’ force at Great Abaco Island and alerted the British governor, giving time to organize a hasty defense of Nassau. Hopkins also followed too closely behind the captured raiding vessels and was easily spotted that morning. Realizing the element of surprise was lost, Hopkins abandoned the assault and chose a new landing point. In the early afternoon, sailors and marines landed unopposed about a mile and a half from Fort Montagu, which protected the eastern approach to the harbor. The force captured the fort easily and with sunset approaching, decided to spend the night before closing in on Fort Nassau, overlooking the harbor.
The pause in the operation gave the Bahamian militia time to remove the stockpile of gunpowder from Fort Nassau. Under the cover of darkness, over 150 casks of gunpowder were loaded onto two ships which then sailed out of Nassau harbor, bound for British forces in the southern colonies.
Afterwards, Hopkins sent word into town announcing his intent to seize any remaining supplies from public buildings, assuring residents that if they did not resist, he would leave them unharmed. The Bahamians duly surrendered. On March 4, the Americans marched into town and took Fort Nassau, which had 88 cannons and 15 mortars cached inside. It took Hopkins’ men nearly two weeks to load all the guns and resupply for the voyage home. To his credit, Hopkins kept his promise to leave the town untouched — for the most part. The British governor later said the sailors and marines drank all his liquor while holding him under house arrest. On March 17, the American force sailed for New England.
Before dawn on April 6, the squadron had reached the eastern end of Long Island when it spotted an unidentified vessel. The American ships organized themselves and engaged what turned out to be HMS Glasgow, a 20-gun British warship. Thanks to an experienced and well-trained crew — and a bit of luck — Glasgow had “given better than she received,” damaging a few American ships in the fight before escaping to the northeast.
The dissatisfying engagement with Glasgow only worsened Hopkins’ reputation. His battered force limped into the port of New London, Connecticut, on April 8 where they delivered the captured guns and artillery to his friends in the Connecticut and Rhode Island militias.
The Aftermath
The inexperienced American force pulled off the Nassau operation without a single casualty and captured more than 100 pieces of artillery. But Hopkins turned that tactical success into a political and policy failure, which blunted the strategic impact of the mission. Word spread of the Glasgow debacle and that Hopkins had not delivered the captured guns to Gen. Washington or asked Congress for direction. He did not even consider that Congress might have its own idea about how to distribute the artillery to support the war effort. Combined with the fact that he bypassed the Chesapeake and the Carolinas, many southern delegates, including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia and Thomas Lynch of South Carolina, questioned his decision-making. Congress launched investigations in May, and in July of 1776 they called Hopkins and his two senior captains to Philadelphia for a hearing to defend themselves.
The hearing went badly. Southerners and northerners took up opposing interpretations of events. Benjamin Harrison of Virginia pointed to Hopkins’ apparent disregard of his orders and the fact he never consulted Congress about where the captured guns should go. Northerners, like Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Stephen Hopkins, Esek’s older brother, cited the wisdom of avoiding a face-off with the mighty Royal Navy as well as the success of the Nassau mission. But they also looked past the fact that Hopkins’ delay allowed the gunpowder to escape. Jefferson did not buy the defense of Hopkins and joined calls for his relief, while John Adams backed his fellow New Englander. In the end, the delegates reached a compromise: Congress formally censured Hopkins but left him in command. It didn’t last long. Continued problems with his leadership eventually led to his dismissal in 1778. The position of commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy was never filled again. Some of the captured guns from Nassau were reclaimed under Congressional orders and turned over to Gen. Washington to fortify the defense of New York City. (Most of them were recaptured by the British when they took the city later in 1776.)
Ultimately, the Nassau raid had little direct impact on the outcome of the war. The squadron, which had begun to train together on the cruise to and from the Bahamas, never sailed as a unit again. Afterwards, Hopkins focused his efforts on logistics and personnel issues and provided no strategic direction which he might have learned from the operation.
Hindsight and Heritage
For many years, the history of Nassau overlooked the complications of the mission. Through the 19th century, historians tended to focus on the tactical success and the plucky daring of the American force. Hagiographies of leaders like Hopkins focused on a narrative of patriotic zeal. In the 20th century, as the Marine Corps looked to build a new identity based on amphibious warfare capability, Nassau became understood as central to the service’s purpose and culture. Despite the fact that there was almost no fighting involved, it was cast as a display of valor and skill. Even today, it is the “astonishing” abilities of the landing force at Nassau that marines themselves remember.
In the late 20th century, however, historians like William Fowler in Rebels Under Sail and Tim McGrath in Give Me a Fast Ship brought forward some of the shortcomings of the operation, which helped shape a more balanced view of Nassau. Fowler analyzed the disorganized nature of the Continental Navy’s command structure. He showed Nassau as an example of how a lack of strategic direction from political leaders, and the lack of a clear uniformed chain of command, resulted in an early officer corps that often foundered. Future leaders of the Continental Navy saw their fair share of failures: The first six frigates built after the return of Hopkins’ squadron from Nassau were sunk or captured. Others were set on fire to keep the British from seizing them, and large missions like the Penobscot expedition resulted in spectacular failures. McGrath focused on the overall inexperience of Hopkins and his subordinates, and how their lack of naval background and professionalism undermined operational effectiveness. Both historians added important balance to how we understand the raid, particularly in the broader context of the Continental Navy’s history.
Why Nassau Matters Today
While the raid of Nassau holds historical and cultural importance for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, it also offers some valuable insights for maritime operations in the 21st century. Command and control of Continental naval forces during the age of sail was an enormous challenge, and the raid was just one example. The naval committee in Congress had clear ideas about what it wanted Hopkins’ squadron to achieve. But once ships sailed, it would be nearly impossible to reach them with a new set of updated orders. As a result, caveats in the orders giving commanders latitude to respond to changing circumstances were common. Hopkins conducted the entire operation in Nassau without any knowledge by either the political leaders at home or other military units in the war. In today’s age of distributed maritime operations, this challenge is likely to affect modern militaries accustomed to constant communication. Nassau demonstrates the importance of balancing the initiative of the commander with the doctrinal expectations and orders of senior leaders, important for an environment of contested networks and cyber denial.
The raid also offers interesting fodder for today’s discussion of “stand-in forces” and new visions of expeditionary operations by smaller, more distributed units. Despite the complications of the mission, it was a tactical feat. The ability of naval leaders to adapt their planning on the fly, take advantage of littoral mobility, and accept limited objectives in order to preserve their force inside enemy territory are all considerations for contemporary archipelagic operations by small maritime forces in the Indo-Pacific.
Finally, the experience of Hopkins demonstrates the importance of senior officers understanding the political dynamics of their orders and decisions. Hopkins used the caveat in his orders, which gave him broad discretion, to sail for the Bahamas. Operationally, his decision proved wise since British forces in the Chesapeake and Carolinas outnumbered his own. But he also clearly understood the intent of the naval committee in the orders and made no effort to gain clarity on what to do if outgunned. Additionally, he seemed genuinely surprised that Congress thought it should decide who received the captured artillery. His defensiveness on the issue belied a tension between military and political leadership. Thus, Hopkins’ experience is a cautionary one for military leaders: Even in an assuredly non-partisan military, senior officers operate within a political landscape that they ignore at their peril.
The first foray of the Continental Navy and Marine Corps was a daring mission into enemy territory, punctuated by the first amphibious landing in American military history. While the raid itself was a tactical success, the overall operation was undermined by inexperience, poor judgment, and a lack of political and strategic awareness. Nevertheless, 250 years later, the raid on Nassau gives us vital insights into naval and expeditionary operations which remain relevant to our modern world.
Capt. Benjamin “BJ” Armstrong is an associate professor of war studies and naval history at the U.S. Naval Academy. He is the author or editor of seven books including Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy.
The opinions expressed here are in his personal and academic capacity and do not reflect the policies or position of any U.S. government entity.
Image: V. Zveg for the Navy Art Collection via Wikimedia Commons
