Hometown: Philadelphia, PA
Branch: U.S. Navy (Continental)
Unit: Randolph
Date of Sacrifice: March 7, 1778 - KIA in the Caribbean Sea, off the island of Barbados
Age: 27
Conflict: Revolutionary War, 1775-1783

Nicholas Biddle was born into a desperate situation on September 10, 1750, but would rise to fame quickly, with a reputation for uncommon courage—in the American colonies that were becoming a new nation.

Born to a prominent family with nine children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, their future took a turn for the worse when Biddle’s father, William Biddle III, failed at business and lost the family fortune. After William died, Nicholas’s mother Mary (Scull) Biddle was forced to leave home to work in her father’s profession as a surveyor.

The older children scrambled to earn income for the family. By the time Nicholas was 14 years old (1764), he signed on with a two-masted merchant vessel as a “ship’s boy”—attending to the needs of the officers on their trade voyage to the West Indies.

According to the U.S. Naval Institute:

His first voyage exposed to him to every aspect of a sailor’s lot: pleasant days of progress mixed with gales and terrific storms; idyllic islands fraught with blackguards and thieves. With pluck and ambition, he earned a mate’s rank, surviving a shipwreck for good measure. At 20 he had grown to 5 feet, 9 inches, handsome and unassuming—as long as he was not crossed.

With the American colonies under the rule of the British crown, Biddle joined the Royal Navy in 1770 as a midshipman. Rumors of war between England and Spain over control of the Falkland Islands—east of the southern tip of South America—drew young Nicholas Biddle with the promise of adventure.

A different adventure took him in the opposite direction. While in the service of the king, Biddle volunteered “for an expedition to try how far navigation was practicable towards the North Pole.” Another ambitious teen on the ship was Horatio Nelson, who would later—as Admiral Nelson/Lord Nelson—be regarded as the greatest officer in the history of the Royal Navy.

When the expedition returned to England, Biddle expected to join a similar discovery expedition “to the Southern Ocean” with naturalist Sir Joseph Banks. Before Biddle could join the voyage, word of the Boston Massacre reached him in England. Years of anger toward British exploitation of its American colonies was sparked into a full rebellion.

He resigned his Royal Navy position and sailed for home. Immediately joining the cause of freedom from British rule, Biddle sailed a two-masted merchant ship to Santo Domingo disguised as a trade vessel bringing molasses to the colonies.

Instead of molasses, the ship’s hold was filled with half barrels of gunpowder. On the return trip, a Delaware River pilot warned Biddle of a British warship ahead that was stopping American vessels and seizing smuggled contraband. In a bold and clever move, Biddle raised a French flag up the mast, sailed past the British ship without detection, and docked with his cargo in Philadelphia.

A new Continental Navy was established on October 13, 1775, by the Continental Congress. Biddle was offered a commission as a captain, along with four others—the first five captains in American naval history.

Biddle was given command of the 14-gun Andrea Doria, a merchant ship being outfitted for war. Eager to join the fray, Biddle and his new crew had to wait as ice prevented them from going to sea. As the initial enthusiasm for action turned into weeks of waiting, some of the crew jumped ship and ended up in a Lewes, Delaware jail.

The U.S. Naval Institute describes Biddle’s reaction:

Their leader was William Green, a hulking malcontent who convinced the others to overcome their guards. Barring the door and arming themselves, the jail became their fortress. Biddle sent a detachment of Marines ashore to retrieve them. When they returned empty-handed, he decided to quell the mutiny himself, and found the jail surrounded by timid militiamen and curious townsfolk. “Oh, damn,” Biddle swore, and ordered the door broken down. He crossed the jail’s threshold to find the muzzle of Green’s musket pointed right at him. Holding a cocked pistol in one hand, Biddle calmly said, “Now Green, if you do not take good aim, you are a dead man.” Green dropped his weapon. Word of Biddle’s bravado leapt from ship to ship: Here was a captain not to be trifled with.

Andrea Doria spent the following months at sea, engaging and defeating British ships off American shores. Congressman Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island ordered Biddle and Andrea Doria to “sail forth and annoy the Enemy.” Biddle did just that, seizing prize after prize from the British along the American coast.

News of Biddle’s bravado and success spread throughout the young Continental Navy. In a letter to his brother Charles, Biddle concluded with, “I fear Nothing but what I ought to fear.”

Captain Biddle left his command of Andrea Doria when on June 6, 1776, he was selected to command the 32-gun Randolph, one of four new frigates built in Philadelphia for the Continental Navy. After a difficult start—including Randolph’s mast being struck by lightning three times in the same storm—Biddle’s command was marked by success after stunning success.

Biddle’s fame grew as news of his successes spread across the colonies. His victories also had the attention of the Royal Navy. As he searched for enemy ships in the Atlantic, the British were also hoping for a confrontation—and bringing superior firepower.

On March 7, 1778, that confrontation took place in the Caribbean Sea, off the island of Barbados. The 32-gun Randolph encountered the British 64-gun HMS Yarmouth. In the ensuing battle the leadership of Captain Biddle and the skill of the men aboard Randolph shocked the crew of Yarmouth.

Despite the disparity in firepower, eyewitnesses reported that Randolph’s gunners fired four broadsides to Yarmouth’s one. “The fight was only minutes old, and [Yarmouth’s] rigging and sails were already shot to pieces; her bowsprit and mizzen topmast useless from American round shot.”

Biddle was wounded in the thigh, but with Randolph seemingly on the verge of another stunning victory, he inspired his men and refused to be brought below decks.

Then, twenty minutes into the battle, something unknown—perhaps a random spark—ignited Randolph’s magazine (ammunition storage), and in one sudden, blinding flash the ship disintegrated. All but four of the 305 aboard Randolph were lost, including Captain Biddle.

The loss of the Randolph and of the famed Captain Biddle were a crushing blow to the tiny Continental Navy and the hopes of the colonists. The courage and skill of Nicholas Biddle would live on in American Naval lore for centuries to come.

Over time, the United States Navy would name four ships USS Biddle in his honor.

Sources
U.S. Naval Institute, Naval History Magazine, August 2015: ‘I Fear Nothing’
The United States Navy Memorial: Nicholas Biddle
Naval History and Heritage Command: The Navy: The Continental Period, 1775-1890
Naval History and Heritage Command: Andrew Doria I (Brigantine)
Naval History and Heritage Command: Randolph I (Frigate)
Burial Site: Find a Grave