#lewis warrington

[preblesboys]

LETTER IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS

A USELESS LETTER WRITTEN BY ONE OF MY FAVORITE PREBLE’S BOYS! I keep saying I fantasize about writing a full length biography for Commodore Lewis Warrington. Having this letter gives me a peek in the window of this time period of his life.

Also what was happening with the U.S. Navy too.

INTO THE SCRAPBOOK YOU GOOOO!!!!

[rosemeriwether]

Commodore Lewis Warrington must have known there would be nosy people like me who would want to know every aspect about his life which is why he rarely left anything for biographers to work with.

Most can agree that he was very much a “behind the scenes” kind of person but that doesn’t excuse not letting people know that he had accomplishments worth mentioning! What are they? I’m not sure but I would know if the man actually said anything about his “hey I’m actually kind of interesting” life!

A lot of things I’ve read online are mostly from letters talking about or mentioning him and whatever biographers can scrape together about him. I want an actual book people because “books” are too much to ask for apparently!

The only thing I could gather about him besides being an illegitimate son of French nobility and few victories during the War of 1812 are as follows….

He replaced Commodore David Porter leading a squadron around the West Indies to eradicate pirates. John Quincy Adams even mentioned him in his State of the Union address.

After the USS Princeton explosion that killed John Tyler’s Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer, Warrington served a month until the replacement John Y. Mason took the office.

I think Warrington was involved with the creation of the Naval Academy in Annapolis but I’m not sure. There just isn’t a lot of sources that I can cross reference for accuracy.

[preblesboys]

American boarding party helmets

I’ve been trying to find more information about these helmets for the last two years but this is all I’ve been able to find. At least such things were mentioned in two separate biographies of different captains so I can believe they were actually a thing. Also they must have been used during the Second Barbary War.

[preblesboys]

Being a Virginian doesn’t help Lewis either.

It’s even funnier knowing Thomas Macdonough, William Bainbridge’s and James Biddle were Federalists according to their biographies and Isaac Hull’s.

I still don’t know what side of the aisle Lewis Warrington was because he was basically James Barron’s protégé who would be a Jacksonian. Both came from the same region and in his early years as a midshipman, Warrington would transfer to whatever ship Barron was on. Even when he got older, Lewis would 9/10 be the one replacing Barron as commander of the Gosport (Norfolk) naval yard and later the board of navy commissioners every time. And yet somehow, Warrington was on good terms and even friends with James Biddle who rarely liked ANYBODY.

Another thing about Lewis Warrington is as far as I know, didn’t say anything about the Barron-Decatur duel which was splitting the navy into factions. Having ties to both men certainly made it difficult but because he was so high on the captain list when it happened and therefore influential, there’s a good possibility that not speaking about it helped the navy heal. Warrington was too behind the scenes/ private to really know what his thoughts and views were.

[preblesboys]

”Climb aboard loser, we’re shipping out!”

Trust me, this makes sense so roll with it. But I admit I did Thomas Macdonough dirty on this. If you followed me long enough then you know I always call William Bainbridge and James Biddle “mean girls”.

[preblesboys]

[preblesboys]

The Petty Officers (mostly Bainbridge) are being mean

[preblesboys]

James Biddle vs HMS Cornwallis

April 12th, James Biddle of the USS Hornet and Lewis Warrington of the USS Peacock were part of Stephen Decatur’s squadron sailing out together towards South Africa and the Indian Ocean; unaware that Decatur himself was captured when he sailed out ahead of them a few days prior.

On the 27th a sail was spotted and Warrington was able to identify the HMS Cornwallis first, signaling to Biddle that it was a ship of the line and an enemy. Rear Admiral Sir George Burlton was on board the HMS Cornwallis but his captain after siting the two ships had to decide which to pursue. Correctly believing the Peacock was the swifter ship, the Cornwallis’s captain went after the Hornet.

It was a long chase lasting about two days before the Cornwallis gave up on the 29th and headed eastward then out of sight.

Plz accept this terrible edit but there needed to be more Preble’s Boys/ War of 1812 content.