Battle of Lake Borgne The Battle of Lake Borgne was a naval battle between the Royal Navy and the United States Navy in the American South theatre of the War of 1812 . It occurred on December 14 , 1814 on Lake Borgne and was part of the British advance on New Orleans . Background . The defeat of the British attack in September on Fort Bowyer prevented the British from taking Mobile , Alabama , and moving to cut off U . S . trade via land towards the Mississippi River . Next , the British decided to attack New Orleans and the Americans began receiving warnings of a British fleet approaching Louisiana . The warnings reached Commodore Daniel Patterson of the New Orleans Squadron , who immediately began to assemble any and all types of naval defenses to protect the state ' s waterways and naval ports . When the British forces under Admiral Alexander Cochrane arrived off the Louisiana coast on December 9 , Patterson dispatched Lieutenant Thomas ap Catesby Jones and a small flotilla to patrol Lake Borgne . The American force consisted of five Jeffersonian gunboats - " No . 156 " , " No . 163 " , " No . 5 " , " No . 23 " , and " No . 162 " - the schooner USS " Sea Horse " with Sailing - Master Johnson commanding , and two sloops - of - war , USS " Alligator " and USS " Tickler " , serving as tenders . Gunboat No . 156 , the flagship of the squadron , mounted one long 24 - pounder , four 12 - pounder carronade s , and four swivel gun s . She had a crew of forty - one men . In all , the squadron comprised 245 men , sixteen long guns , fourteen carronades , two howitzer s and twelve swivel guns . Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane , British Commander - in - Chief of the North American Station , ordered HMS " Seahorse " , " Armide " and " Sophie " from Pensacola to Lake Borgne . They were to proceed to the Bayou Catalan , or De Pecheurs , at the head of the lake and from the troopship anchorage . This was to be the disembarkation point for the attack on New Orleans . The three British vessels reported that as they passed Cat Island , Mississippi , two American gun boats had fired at them . Furthermore , lookouts on the masts had seen three more . When the fleet arrived on December 11 , Cochrane decided to hunt out the Americans . Cochrane put all the boats of the British fleet under the command of Commander Nicholas Lockyer of " Sophie " , with orders to find and defeat the American flotilla . The boats came from " Tonnant " , " Norge " , " Bedford " , " Royal Oak " , " Ramillies " , " Armide " , " Cydnus " , " Seahorse " , " Trave " , " Sophie " , " Belle Poule " , " Gorgon " , " Manly " and " Meteor " . The British deployed forty - two longboats , launches and barges with one 12 , 18 or 24 pounder carronade each , as well as three gig s , each mounting a long brass 12 pounder cannon . The force consisted of some 1200 sailors and Royal Marines At night on December 12 , the British boats , under Lockyer , set off to enter Lake Borgne . Before reaching Lake Borgne , they encountered the one gun schooner " Sea Horse " . She was on a mission to destroy a powder magazine at Bay St . Louis in order to prevent its capture by the Royal Navy . The schooner , with the protection of a shore battery , fought off two of Lockyer ' s longboat attacks but then was burnt later that night to prevent the main British fleet from capturing her . Battle . After rowing for about thirty - six hours , the British located the five American vessels drawn up in line abreast to block the channel between Malheureux Island and Point Claire on the mainland . As the British advanced , they spotted " Alligator " and immediately sent a few longboats under Roberts to cut her off and the British quickly captured her . At 10 o ' clock on the morning of December 14 , the boats had closed to within long gunshot by St . Joseph ’ s Island . At this point Lockyer ordered the boats ' crews to breakfast . Lockyer formed the boats into three divisions . He took command of the first and gave Montresor of " Manley " command of the second and Roberts of " Meteor " command of the third . When the British had finished their breakfast they returned to their oars and pulled up to the enemy . The main battle came at 10 : 30 am . The Americans in the gunboats saw the British rowing towards them and opened fire while the boats were still out of reach . The British were rowing against a strong current and under a heavy fire of round and grapeshot . The Americans fired as many times as possible before the range closed . They were able to sink two of the attacking longboats and damaged many others . They killed or wounded a number of Britons in the process , including most of the men in Lockyer ' s boat . Eventually the range closed and the British sailors and marines began to board the American vessels . Lockyer personally boarded Gunboat No . 156 , Jones ' s ship . In the close quarters combat the two sides used cutlass es , pike s , bayonet s and musket s . Both Lockyer and Jones sustained severe wounds . The British captured Gunboat No . 156 and turned her guns against her sister ships . The gunboat fired her broadsides and assisted the capture of the remaining American watercraft . One by one the British took the other four American gunboats ; boarding and capturing the entire American flotilla took five minutes . " Tickler " , the small fifty ton sloop , anchored a short distance behind the five gunboats , watched the battle but stayed out of the fight as Jones ordered beforehand . When her captain saw that the British had captured all five American gunboats , he scuttle d and burnt his vessel . It is not known if the crew was captured or escaped to New Orleans on their life boats . Aftermath . In all , the engagement lasted around two hours , though the actual hand - to - hand fighting had only lasted five minutes . The British forced the greatly outnumbered American seamen to surrender but the Americans had inflicted considerable damage . The British won control of the lakes but the delay gave General Andrew Jackson more time to prepare his defenses . The Americans lost their gunboats , a sloop , six men killed , thirty - five wounded and eighty - six captured . The American casualties numbered 10 killed , 35 wounded and 86 captured according to the British , and 60 killed , wounded , or captured according to the Americans . Jones was a prisoner of war for three months and would later be decorated for his bravery and delaying the British advance . The British reported that in the fighting they had lost 17 dead and 77 wounded , some of whom died later . Captain Lockyer was among the wounded . The British also lost two longboats sunk and had several others damaged . Originally the Americans claimed that the British had suffered some 300 killed or wounded , as well as losing four boats sunk . Cochrane rated the captured flotilla as the equivalent of a 36 - gun frigate and appointed Lockyer to its command as soon as his wounds permitted . Montresor took command " pro tem " ; in March 1815 , Lockyer received promotion to post captain . The British took the five gunboats into service under the names " Ambush " ( or " Ambush No . 5 " ) , " Firebrand " , " Destruction " , " Harlequin " , and " Eagle " . Several of these vessels remained in Royal Navy service into June 1815 , and at least one perhaps beyond . Lake Borgne would become the landing zone for British forces preparing to attack New Orleans . After the population of the city learned of the engagement on Lake Borgne , panic overtook some of New Orlean ' s population so Andrew Jackson declared martial law . Medal . In 1847 the Royal Navy issued a clasp ( or bar ) for the Naval General Service Medal marked " 14 Dec . Boat Service 1814 " to survivors of the battle that wanted to claim the clasp . In all , 205 survivors claimed it .