A fourth document contains Secretary Paul Hamilton's reaction to news of the storm which had reached Washington before Shaw's report. Reports such as these afford an appreciation of the weakness of the naval forces on the New Orleans station and show how vulnerable they were to natural catastrophes.

Following this account are two from Lieutenant Daniel Dexter who provides a vivid description from the perspective of a gunboat division commander. The first is Captain Shaw's, written only four days later. It set back military preparations many months, with great material damage and some loss of lives, as detailed in the reports that follow.

The 19 August hurricane was the worst experienced there in years. Just as Captain Shaw was attempting to set his small force on a war footing, a devastating hurricane struck the Mississippi delta. Captain John Shaw, USN, commandant of the station, had at his command some four hundred officers and men, distributed among two brigs of war and eleven gunboats. Congress in Washington, D.C., had declared war on Great Britain arrived at New Orleans, the location of the US naval station the farthest from the nation's capital. On 9 July 1812, news that three weeks earlier the U.S.

New Orleans, Louisiana, Hurricane of 19 August 1812

Navy and army in war of 1812