Qualla: Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zeete, CC BY-SA 3.0. Three hundred and eighty-six barrels of gunpowder were rowing toward shore in the fog. It was the morning of June 29, 1776, and the British frigates Orpheus and Kingfisher had chased the American brig Nancy into Turtle Gut Inlet on the New Jersey coast. Captain John Barry, the man Americans would later call the Father of the Navy, had a choice to make. He could fight the better-armed British and lose. He could surrender and hand the Royal Navy enough powder to deny the rebellion its supply line for months. Or he could improvise. Barry split his crew - half to fire the cannons and hold the British at bay, half to ferry the powder ashore where local Cape May residents waited to hide it behind the dunes. The day America declared independence in Philadelphia was still five days away.

Image: Zeete | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: A Cargo Worth a Country

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Larry Pieniazek, CC BY 2.5. The Nancy was not a warship. She was a brigantine - a swift cargo vessel with six cannons and an eleven-man crew under Captain Hugh Montgomery, chartered out of Philadelphia by financier Robert Morris of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety. In the spring of 1776, Morris was the ...

Image: Larry Pieniazek | CC BY 2.5

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: The Royal Navy Blockade

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Humberto Moreno, CC BY 2.0. The British understood Philadelphia's importance and had thrown a blockade across the mouth of Delaware Bay. More than two hundred and forty cannons floated on Royal Navy decks between the open Atlantic and the city's wharves. The Americans had responded with cheveaux-de-frise - ...

Image: Humberto Moreno | CC BY 2.0

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: Fog and Longboats

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zeete, CC BY-SA 3.0. Late on June 28, the Kingfisher's lookout spotted the Nancy beating toward Cape May. The Orpheus joined the chase, and Captain Barry's escort squadron - the fourteen-gun Lexington and the larger Reprisal under Lambert Wickes - moved to intercept. By morning the wind had failed an...

Image: Zeete | CC BY-SA 3.0

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: The Wickes Brothers

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zeete, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lieutenant Richard Wickes commanded one of the boats. He was the younger brother of Captain Lambert Wickes, who was at the same moment fighting his own action aboard the Reprisal a short distance offshore. Near the end of the battle, a British cannonball struck Lieutenant Wickes ...

Image: Zeete | CC BY-SA 4.0

Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet: The Only Battle Here

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Zeete, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet was the only Revolutionary War engagement ever fought in Cape May County, and the first privateer battle of the war. Its consequences ran beyond the gunpowder saved. The British took the lesson and pulled their blockade further out to sea, opening a...

Image: Zeete | CC BY-SA 3.0