Beau's References for the War of 1812

Here are just a few terms that might be of interest to some of you.

Before the mast – refers to the sailors’ quarters, which were located in the fore part of the ship (the bow), whilst the officers’ quarters were near the stern. The term can also be used as a synonym for a common sailor.

Clap on – to increase power by adding more rigging or deploying more men. Also: to set more sails.

Deck passage – accommodation for passengers on deck when there was insufficient cabin space. Often used on short voyages.

Hail – a greeting at sea

Handsomely – slowly and carefully; particularly when handling ropes under tension.

Maiden Voyage – the first voyage of a ship that has recently been fitted out and is finally fit for service.

Salt – nickname for a sailor. Also ‘Old Salt’ for a very experienced sailor.

Slew – to turn something around its own axis: to swing a mast round.

Stand by – to be ready

Stave off – to push a boat or floating object away from a jetty or the side of a ship using a pole, a boat hook or a similar tool.

Back to the first Barbary War, I’ve mentioned before that younger Bainbridge got himself into a duel which Stephen Decatur was his second right? Thus began the beautiful (yet temporary) friendship and unwavering loyalty on Bainbridge’s part. One of the attacks Commodore Edward Preble set up upon the bashaw’s gunboats fleet set up reputations for better or for worse, young officers in the US navy. For men like Stephen Decatur and John Trippe, if they weren’t already admired by their comrades then they were borderline worshipped by them. On the other hand, because for one reason or another their gunboats weren’t in the heat of battle, men like Joshua Blake and Joseph Bainbridge were called cowards for not being as involved. This caused Joshua Blake to leave the navy but Joseph stayed. His relationship with Decatur began to crumble though.

No firm reason why so I will speculate; this particular attack that happened, James Decatur Stephen Decatur’s younger brother was shot after a Turk “allegedly” surrendered. Younger Decatur died the next day and soon Stephen Decatur would also lose his best childhood friend Richard Somers in the explosion of the Intrepid. During Preble’s campaign against the Barbary powers, William Bainbridge and his crew were held prisoner. I suspect subconsciously Joseph Bainbridge was looking to Stephen Decatur as a substitute for an older brother or someone to look up to and Stephen while grieving couldn’t be bothered with the projection.

Between this time and the beginning of the War of 1812, Joseph Bainbridge became well acquainted with the bottle. Skip to when Joseph Bainbridge was promoted to master commandant and was sent to New England to receive command of a ship. Isaac Hull’s book says younger Bainbridge was supposed to come to him but, Joseph ended up at the yard his older brother William was running. There was a race between Massachusetts and New York to release the new sloops of war to be known as the Frolic, Peacock and Wasp. Since William was tasked with the Frolic and Wasp, he was going to make sure bby bro Joe was going to get the best of the best! That meant at the cost of pulling men from Hull’s yard in Portsmouth and taking first pick of cannonades delaying Johnston’s chance to fit his ship.

The Frolic won the race being sent out to open waters February 18th and sailed south towards Puerto Rico, Cuba and Jamaica. Typical cruise stuff; chasing, escaping, capturing a ship or two until April 18th. The Frolic encountered the British frigate Orpheus accompanied by the schooner Shelbourne (formerly known as the Racer a ship from Baltimore.)

Joseph Bainbridge after identifying the enemy vessels decided to mill around a bit before heading to Matanzas Bay Cuba seeking refuge at hopefully a neutral port.

Blah, blah, blah the chase was on. Joseph Bainbridge ordering anything and everything be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. Not long after until Bainbridge realized that the situation was pretty hopeless so he consulted his officers what to do. All agreed that it was best to strike their colors.

As soon as the star spangled banner came down, it was absolute anarchy on board! Men fighting over private possessions, sacking the purser’s room, captain’s room, any room really and drinking in the spirit room; the most “Fuck it” scene that could happen!

As the british frigate caught up, Captain Pigot was like “WTF???” And decided if the American captain couldn’t get his men under control, guess he would have to. So the royal marines shot a single, harmless volley overhead to restore order and secured the prisoners without protest.

There was a court martial for Joseph Bainbridge and the court asked the officers if Joseph Bainbridge was addicted to intoxication which there was a rumor going around. Fearing the wrath of the elder Bainbridge, the officers agreed to deny everything in front of the court and each other the rumors.

When the new secretary of the navy Benjamin Crownshield came into office, he asked Commodore John Rodgers to give an evaluation of officers as he was the most senior and a Board of Navy Commissioners was being created. Commodore Rodgers stated “Captain Bainbridge the junior, I do not think qualified for any command, as I have reason to believe him intemperate, and I am induced to mention this that you may be guarded against giving him a command at sea.”

So was the end of Joseph Bainbridge.

In all of this, receiving the best by his older brother, Joseph Bainbridge hardly even used any of it. William Bainbridge even took special care supervising the Frolic leaving the Wasp and Johnston Blakeley high and dry so the tiny North Carolinian had to improvise and make do with what he had.

I'm so glad you find it useful! It's honestly kind of my magnum opus as far as getting an idea, researching it, and actually presenting it in a format people seem to understand in a timely matter (that last one is my downfall as I am not good at finishing things).

I worked on the nickname followup for about four months after I did the Regency guide, but was (and still am) at a loss with how to both measure and present my findings.

The problem with nicknames is there is hardly any quantifiable data.

With the first name survey I used two pre-existing databases for my info - so my workload was pretty much just making a spreadsheet, eliminating any duplicate records, and counting how many times each name occurred.

I was also working in only one very specific area (7 parishes in London) so I didn't have to worry about regional variations.

Due to the strict formally of the Regency era, nicknames do no not often appear in legal records, and were usually only used privately among families and very close friends.

When they were used publicly it was often only with members of the 'lower' classes - and I don't mean that in the modern economic sense, but rather referring to people who were seen as 'lesser' in social status - this included children, unmarried women, servants (both free and enslaved) and the poor.

Nicknames do sometimes appear in vital (birth/marriage/death) records, but even then it's often impossible to tell what the nickname is actually short for - e.g. is Patty short for Martha or Patience? is this person listed as Eliza because it was their given name or was it short for Elizabeth?

Nicknames also vary heavily by region - to the point that some are specific to only a handful of counties. I considered focusing on only nicknames used in London, but honestly the regional variation is one of the most interesting features of nicknames to me.

All these facts mean that my research process was exceedingly more complicated than with the first name survey.

With a lack of quantifiable data I approached the project with three basic questions:

Was this nickname in use during the Regency era?

Was it common?

Was it regional?

I then had to determine this individually for every single possible nickname used with common Regency names. Do you know how many possible nicknames there are for Catherine? For Elizabeth? (Many. There are so, so many you guys.)

On top of having to research each nickname individually, I also didn't have a single source of information like in my previous project, and ended up using everything from period literature to newspapers to court testimony.

As I keep finding new sources, my info keeps changing and so far all my attempts to do a decent write-up have failed. But here's a bit of what I've found so far...

Nicknames for Common Regency Names

Mary - Polly, Mally (northern England/Scotland), Molly (Lancashire), Pally (Yorkshire)

Elizabeth - Eliza, Bets(e)y, Betty, Lizzy, Bess - NOT Beth

Ann - Nancy, Nanny (northern England), Annie (Scotland)

Sarah - Sally

Jane - Jenny, Jessy/Jessie (Scotland)

Hannah - ??? but likely the same as Ann

Susannah - Susan, Sukey, Susy, Suckey (southern US)

Margaret - Peggy, (Maggy, Meggy, Moggy, Madge (Scotland))

Catherine - Kitty, Kate, Cat(e)y (US), Catty (Ireland), Katie (Scotland)

Martha - Patty, Matty (northern England/Scotland/Ireland/US), Patsy (southern US)

Eleanor - Nelly, Nell

Frances - Fanny, Franny

John - Jack(y), Johnny, Jock(ey) (Scotland)

William - Bill(y), Will(y)

Thomas - Tom(my)

James - Jem(my), Jamie (Scotland) - NOT Jim

George - Georgey, Geordie (Northern England/Scotland)

Joseph - Joe(y)

Richard - Dick(y)

Robert - Bob(by), Robb(y/ie) (Scotland), Robin

Charles - Charley, Charlie (Scotland)

Henry - Harry

Edward - Ned(dy), Ted(dy) (Ireland)

A general rule - Y not IE endings unless you are Scottish

Lizzy not Lizzie, Sophy not Sophie, Charley not Charlie

IE endings were still associated with French names

Since Part 1 has become very large and somewhat confusing, I am hereby opening Part 2., because I have come across a lot of new literature. You will notice that it is not only about women at sea, but also about women in military service in general. Since they are also mentioned in this context, I am including this literature here as well.

Karen Hagemann: History and Memory of Army Women and Female Soldiers 1770s-1870s, in: Karen Hagemann; Stefan Dudink; Sonya O. Rose (ed.): The Oxford handbook of gender, war, and the Western world since 1600. Oxford 2020, pp. 176–200.

Stefan Dudink / Karen Hagemann: War and Gender: From the Thirty years’ war and colonial conquest to the wars of Revolution and Independence, in: Karen Hagemann; Stefan Dudink; Sonya O. Rose (ed.): The Oxford handbook of gender, war, and the Western world since 1600. Oxford 2020, pp. 37–73.

Dugaw, Dianne: Warrior Women and Popular Balladry, 1650 – 1850, Chicago and London 1989.

Karstens, Simon: 101 Historische Lieder (1480 – 1880), Trier 2023.

Erik S. Hinckley. ed., Merchant and Naval Shipping 1764-1799. International Notices from the Connecticut Courant, Jefferson, NC, 2025. ! primary source !

Lynn, John A.: Essential Women, Necessary Wives and exemplary Soldiers. The military reality and cultural representation of Women’s military Participation (1600-1815), in: Barton C. Hacker (ed.): A companion to women’s military history. Leiden 2012, pp. 93–136.

Sowande’​ Mustakeem: Slavery at Sea: Terror, Sex, and Sickness in the Middle Passage Chicago 2016

Carl Herzog: Women On Board, at:https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2024/06/27/women-on-board/ Published 2024

Hello,

Now he would lower his flag/ colour to signal that he has giving up.

Common expressions would then be:

Struck my colours/ Striking the colours: The standard term for surrender.

The colours were lowered: A slightly more passive, descriptive phrase.

Taken possession of: Used after surrender and means that the enemy has boarded the ship.

I deemed it necessary to surrender, to avoid a further waste of life: A commonly used phrase to justify the surrender of a hopelessly damaged ship.

Rendered unmanageable or Reduced to a wreck: Used to explain why the ship surrendered.

Johnson's Dictionary Online (thanks @yellowbelliedtoad!) – 1755 and 1773

Green's Dictionary of Slang – 1300s to today

A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – 1788

I painted a reproduction of James Lawrence's portrait. i added a burning boat to make the background make more sense. In the original painting it looks like there's a pillar of smoke behind him with no source.

And also it looks cooler that way.

Here you can see and hear a broadside from HMS Victory. Just wanted to share this so you can get an impression of what it looked like when a first-rate ship of the line fired its guns.

American naval heroes kissing in the afterlife.

Stephen Decatur (left) died from a shot through the pelvis, and Thomas MacDonough (right) died from tuberculosis infection in the lungs.

I improved it

Now I'm batting my hands away. I have to stop. I have to leave it alone now.

Tried to do something with the clouds a la @cleverreports, whose work I adore!