Terror Weapons of the War of 1812

US Naval History Podcast

Mines! Torpedoes! Improvised Explosive Devices at sea!

When the War of 1812 broke out there was no way that the United States could sustainably go toe-to-toe with the far larger royal Navy, and so Congress authorized “An Act to encourage the destruction of the armed vessels of war of the enemy.”

The Torpedo Act promised one-half the value of any ship to any private citizen or groups who used “torpedoes, submarine instruments, or any other destructive machine whatever” to destroy a British warship.

The act encouraged private citizens with financial incentives to attack the Royal Navy in new and spectacular fashion, and not just merely prey upon the British merchant marine like privateers.

Of course, The Torpedo Act also created a significant problem: it blurred the lines of who was a legal combatant and who was not by allowing civilians to change the methods of naval war. If American civilians launched attacks against Royal Navy warships, would British commanders respond in kind?

find out all of these answers and more in my conversation with Andrew Fageal.

Andrew's paper on The Torpedo Act: jstor.org/stable/newyorkhist.94.3-4.221

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