HMS Macedonian (1810)

Type

Frigate

Period

19th Century

Nation

Great Britain

Overview: HMS Macedonian was a 38-gun Lively-class fifth-rate frigate built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched in 1810, remembered chiefly for her dramatic capture by the USS United States during the War of 1812. She subsequently served for over two decades in the US Navy under her original name before being broken up in 1834. Specifications: As built she measured 1,082 tons burthen, 154 ft in length with a 38 ft 9 in beam and 18 ft 4 in draft, with a complement of around 306 men and an armament of 28 x 18-pounder long guns plus 14 x 32-pounder carronades. Modelers should note the discrepancy between her British-measured tonnage and the larger figure (around 1,325 tons) recorded once she was remeasured under American rules after capture. Service History: Commissioned in June 1810 under Captain Lord William FitzRoy, she initially ferried troops to Lisbon and patrolled against French naval activity before being intercepted off Madeira on 25 October 1812 by the more powerful 44-gun USS United States under Stephen Decatur; dismasted and battered, she struck her colors and was taken into Newport, Rhode Island as the first British warship brought into an American port. Recommissioned as USS Macedonian under Captain Jacob Jones, she went on to serve in Decatur's 1815 Mediterranean squadron during the Second Barbary War and cruised off South America and in the West Indies before being broken up in 1834, with her keel reused for a second USS Macedonian in 1836. Notable Facts: The captured ship's original figurehead, a carved bust of Alexander the Great, survives and now forms the centerpiece of the Macedonian Monument at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, along with four of her captured 18-pounder long guns. Crew member Samuel Leech, aboard during the original commission and the fateful battle, later wrote a well-known memoir describing conditions aboard the frigate. The action became one of the most celebrated single-ship victories in early US Navy history and inspired numerous contemporary paintings and prints, including several by American marine artist Thomas Birch, one of which (1813, Historical Society of Pennsylvania collection) is the image on file here.