USS Chesapeake


USS CHESAPEAKE, frigate, 36 guns, 1244 tons, keel laid 10 Dec. 1798, launched 2 Dec. 1799. Originally designed as a 44-gun frigate, one of five sister ships of the CONSTITUTION. The CHESAPEAKE was attacked by the British LEOPARD off Cape Henry in 1807 which affair led to the duel between Commodores James Barron and Stephen Decatur, and was one of the causes leading to the War of 1812. She was captured off Boston, 1 June 1813, by the British frigate SHANNON, on which occasion her commander, Capt. James Lawrence, uttered his celebrated dying words, “Don’t Give Up the Ship”, which have become a tradition in the Navy. The CHESAPEAKE was taken into the Royal Navy and, in 1820, broken up at Portsmouth, England, her timbers being used to build a flour mill at Wickham. Painting by F. Muller.
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