Combat· War of 1812
Constitution captures Susannah
Still cruising in ignorance of the peace, the Constitution took the British merchant ship Susannah in the Atlantic off Lisbon, Portugal, with her Marines taking part in the boarding.
The capture came on 16 February 1815, the day the United States ratified the Treaty of Ghent and the war legally ended, though word had not yet reached the ship. It was one of Stewart's last prizes of the cruise, taken only four days before he fought the Cyane and Levant. Captures like the Susannah, made by ships that had no way of knowing the conflict was over, were a recurring feature of the war's end: the slow pace of communication across the oceans meant that American and British crews kept fighting and seizing each other's vessels for weeks, and in some theaters months, after the statesmen had made their peace.
Podcast episodes on War of 1812
Record no. 254