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John Barry

1745–1803

 

The creator of the American navy and its traditions, John Barry, was born in Ireland at Tacumshane, County Wexford, in 1745, the year of the last Jacobite uprising against the Hanoverians.  In the British Isles this was the last military gesture of the old Catholic order, to which his family belonged.  He was brought up with a strong religious sense, which he retained to the end of his life.

      Barry went to sea as a boy, at fourteen it is said, eventually becoming a shipmaster in the port of Philadelphia, which had many Irish connections even at that time.  He was engaged in the trade to and from Latin America and the ports of the West Indies up until 1774.

      In 1775 he sailed to British ports on the Black Prince, the largest, finest, and fastest of the American merchant marine fleet.  He was one of those involved in signing the non-importation act, which was one of the colonies' first moves towards breaking the link with Britain.

      When the American Revolution broke out, John Barry was one of the very first captains to be commissioned by the Continental Congress.  Seeing the trend of events at home, he hurriedly left Liverpool on the Black Prince to return to Philadelphia.  He arrived there on 13th October, the very day that the Continental Congress resolved to outfit two armed cruisers, one fourteen guns, the other of ten.

      Though he was then in the full flow of his own trading prosperity, he threw in his hand with the patriotic colonial movement and enlisted in the Continental navy.  From that day to his death, his name stood at the head of the Navy List in which the seniority of naval officers is recorded; he had no other commander over him and reported directly to Congress, the president, or the government committees.

      In command of the brig Lexington (with fourteen guns), names for one of the first battles of the Revolutionary War, he captured the British sloop Edward off Chesapeake Bay on 7th April 1776.  This action was historical, as it was the first capture of a foreign vessel by a commissioned American warship in which the enemy was forced to lower its flag to the Stars and Bars.  In fact, his vessel was the first to carry the Continental flag to victory at sea.  Later the same year, Barry led a raid of four ships on a British contingent on the Delaware River below Philadelphia, seizing important supplies.

      At sea he captured three more ships before returning to Philadelphia to superintend the construction of warships on the Delaware River.  He was given command of a ship, but it had to be destroyed - despite his protests - to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

      With four small boats he rowed down to Philadelphia and with his twenty-seven men captured a British ship which held 136 officers, men, and marines.  It was an extraordinary feat of arms that unsettled the British, and it is thought that it hastened their withdrawal from the city.   Then he came to the aid of Gen. George Washington, helping him and his despairing army cross the Delaware River.  For a while he served in the US army, commanding a volunteer artillery company at the Battle of Trenton on 26th December 1776.

      He took over the naval command at Philadelphia, and from 1780 to the end of the war commanded the frigate Alliance, engaging in several sea battles.  He carried the US envoy General Lafayette to France, and on the return trip captured two English men-of-war.  He was badly wounded in this engagement.

      On another cruise he captured nine prizes, that is enemy ships which would later be sold to reward his own men.  His engagement with the British man-of-war Sybil, on 10th March 1783, was the last sea battle of the American War of Independence.  (A log of the Alliance, kept by John Kessler, gives a vivid impression of the days at sea between 1781 and 1783.)

      With the peacetime reorganization of the navy, Barry was made senior captain, offered his services to Washington to fight the Barbary pirates.  From then until his early death he supervised the creation and progress of the US navy.  In 1794 he was given the command of the new frigate United States, and was named a commodore on the Navy List.

      During the sea war with revolutionary France, Barry's command covered all the US ships in the West Indies.  This war arose from the United States' failure to fulfil the treaty obligations it had entered into with France during the Revolution.  Under his command, the United States carried the commissioners who negotiated the end of the war to France.  On 22nd February 1797, the last birthday he spent in government, Washington personally conveyed to him a naval commission Number One, making him commander-in-chief of the naval forces of the United States.

      Though a strong man for discipline, Barry was much admired by his sailors and officers, and never had any trouble in making up a crew.  He was affable and humorous, and like many of his countrymen from Ireland he had a quick temper, but any excess violence he at once apologized for.  On his ships he saw to it that religious duties were strictly observed (even though he was a Catholic and his men mostly Protestants).

      For many years he had suffered from asthma, which finally killed him soon after he retired.  When John Barry died, at his home in Philadelphia on 13th September 1803, his name still headed the serving list of US Navy officers.  He was buried in St Mary's Catholic churchyard in Philadelphia, where his grave was almost lost sight of, though his reputation never faded.  There is now a statue of him in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

      'Commander Barry,' Joseph Dennie wrote as early as 1813, 'may justly be considered the Father of our navy.  His eminent services during our struggle for independence, the fidelity and ability with which he discharged the duties of the importance which he filled, give him lasting claim upon the gratitude of this country.'

      For his countrymen he was an example of distinction in an area largely thought to be dominated by British talents.  Another statue of him now dominates the quays along the harbour in Wexford, one of the few memorials to sailors in Ireland.  For Irish nationalists, his courage was an example of just what the Irish race could achieve in war.  To Americans, he left a gallant naval tradition which has lasted to this day.