The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777 (The Revolution Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Atkinson

Turtle carried on her back a hollowed oak powder magazine that was attached by a rope to a sharp iron auger; Lee was to screw the auger into the frigate’s keel, using a handle above his head near the hatch. He would then set the timing mechanism, made for Bushnell by a watchmaker and connected to a gunlock trigger, to detonate the powder in an hour. After jettisoning the magazine—still tied to the auger embedded in Eagle’s hull—he would make his escape. But there would be no blast, no shattered ship tossed from the sea like a hogshead of rocks. The auger would not bite; by mischance, Lee was trying to drill into a heavy metal bar that held the frigate’s rudder hinge to the stern. When he shifted Turtle in search of better purchase, she abruptly bobbed to the surface next to the frigate, “like a porpoise.” With dawn breaking through his little deadlights, as Lee later reported, “I thought the best generalship was to retreat as fast as I could.” Cranking his propeller furiously, he crept back across the bay in a heavy swell, surfacing frequently to check his heading. Abreast of Governors Island and fully exposed by the morning light, Lee spotted several hundred redcoats crowding the parapet, pointing and gaping at the odd craft zigzagging toward Manhattan. Abruptly a twelve-oared British barge put in and gave chase. When the pursuers had closed within fifty yards, Lee armed his powder charge and cut loose the oak magazine.