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Congressional Gold Medal.com |
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Congressional Gold Medal Recipient
William Bainbridge
William Bainbridge b. Princeton, Mercer, New Jersey, 7 May 1774
d. Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 27 July 1833
Wednesday, 3 March 1813
Resolution requesting the President of the United States to present medals to Captain William Bainbridge and the officers of the frigate Constitution. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States be, and he is hereby requested to present to Captain William Bainbridge of the frigate Constitution, a gold medal, with suitable emblems and devices, and a silver medal, with suitable emblems and devices, to each commissioned officer of the said frigate, in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of the gallantry, good conduct and services of Captain Bainbridge, his officers and crew, in the capture of the British frigate Java, after a brave and skilful combat. 2 Stat. 831
Captain William Bainbridge, USN,
Commanding Officer of USS Constitution.
Engraving of the medal authorized by the United States Congress in honor of Captain Bainbridge's 29 December 1812 victory in the battle between USS Constitution and HMS Java. A gold version of the medal was struck for Bainbridge and a silver one for each of Constitution's other commissioned officers.
Commodore William Bainbridge, USN, (1774-1833) William Bainbridge was born in Princeton, New Jersey, on 7 May 1774. He went to sea in the merchant marine in 1789 and was captain of a ship before reaching the age of twenty. Bainbridge was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in August 1798. Though his first command, the schooner Retaliation, was captured by two much more powerful French frigates in November, Lieutenant Bainbridge was subsequently promoted to the rank of Master Commandant and then to Captain. During 1800-1803 he commanded the U.S. warships George Washington, Essex and Philadelphia during operations in the Mediterranean, but was taken prisoner with his entire crew when
Philadelphia ran aground off Tripoli on 31 October 1803. After regaining his freedom in 1805, Captain Bainbridge supervised naval facilities and the construction of gunboats and, while on leave, again served in the merchant marine. He returned from the last of his commercial voyages in 1812, shortly before the United States went to war with Great Britain. In September he was given command of the frigate
Constitution, took her to sea on the second of her War of 1812 cruises, and destroyed HMS Java in battle on 29 December 1812. Bainbridge was stationed at Boston, in charge of building the ship of the line Independence, during most of the rest of the war. In July-November 1815, she was flagship of his squadron during an expedition to the Mediterranean to suppress the renewed threat posed by the Barbary states. Commodore Bainbridge was commander of Navy forces afloat at Boston for much of the rest of the decade, and in 1820-21 flew his flag in the ship of the line Columbus during another Mediterranean cruise. He was later Commandant of the Boston Navy Yard, served as a Naval Commissioner in 1825-1828 and then was Commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Bainbridge returned to the Boston command in 1832, but ill health forced him to leave that post in 1833. He died at Philadelphia on 27 June of that year. The U.S. Navy has named four ships in honor of William Bainbridge, including:
USS Bainbridge (1842-1863);
USS Bainbridge (Destroyer # 1), 1902-1920;
USS Bainbridge (DD-246), 1921-1945; and
USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25, later CGN-25), 1962-1997.
USS Bainbridge (1842-1863) USS Bainbridge, a 259-ton brig built at the Boston Navy Yard, was commissioned in December 1842. She operated with the Home Squadron until mid-1844 and then alternated in service with the Brazil and African Squadrons until 1860. In 1859-60 Bainbridge participated in the punitive expedition against Paraguay. In May 1861, soon after the Civil War began, Bainbridge was sent to the Gulf of Mexico to enforce the blockade of the Confederacy and to protect United States shipping. While in that area in May and June 1862, she participated in the capture of three blockade runners. Following a brief trip north, Bainbridge returned to the Gulf area in August 1862. She encountered a damaging storm at Aspinwall, Columbia (later Panama) in late November 1862 that forced her to jettison much of her equipment, armament and supplies. Repaired at New York in May-August 1863, USS Bainbridge was en route south on 21 August 1863 when she capsized off Cape Hatteras. Only one of her crewmen survived this disaster.
USS Bainbridge (Destroyer # 1), 1902-1920
USS Bainbridge, a 420-ton destroyer that was the first of her class, and the first ship classified as a destroyer by the U.S. Navy, was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Commissioned in November 1902, she remained in reserve status until February 1903 and then operated with the North Atlantic Fleet. In December 1903 Bainbridge left the United States on a long voyage to the Philippines. Accompanied by four of her sister destroyers, she steamed across the Atlantic, transited the Mediterranean, passed through the Suez Canal and crossed the Indian Ocean, arriving at Cavite, near Manila, in April 1904. She served in the Far East for the next thirteen years, mainly in the Philippine Islands and along the China coast. Bainbridge left Asian waters in August 1917 to reinforce the U.S. Navy's battle against the German U-Boats in the eastern Atlantic. Between September 1917 and mid-1918 the destroyer operated in the vicinity of Gibraltar, escorting convoys and conducting patrols. She steamed across the Atlantic to Charleston, South Carolina, in July 1918 and spent the rest of World War I, and the early post-war months, serving along the U.S. East Coast. Decommissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in July 1919, USS Bainbridge was sold for scrapping in early January 1920.
USS Bainbridge (DD-246), 1921-1945
USS Bainbridge was a 1190-ton Clemson class destroyer built at Camden, New Jersey. She was commissioned in February 1921 and served in the Western Atlantic and Caribbean areas until October 1922, when she steamed to the Mediterranean to operate near the then-troubled nation of Turkey. On 16 December 1922, Bainbridge saved nearly 500 people from the French transport Vinh-Long, which was burning in the Sea of Marmora near Constantinople, and act for which her crew was officially commended and her Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Commander
Walter A. Edwards, was awarded the
Medal of Honor. After returning to the United States in 1923, Bainbridge was assigned to the Scouting Fleet, which was stationed in the Atlantic but made regular visits to the Caribbean and occasionally passed through the Panama Canal for combined exercises with the West Coast based Battle Fleet. The destroyer patrolled off Nicaragua with the Special Service Squadron in 1927 and was employed at times for training Naval Reservists. She was out of commission between December 1930 and March 1932 and then spent more than a year in reduced commission as part of the Rotating Reserve. Bainbridge rejoined the Special Service Squadron in 1933 and, late in the following year, was transferred to the Pacific, where she was active until decommissioning in November 1937. In late September 1939, soon after the outbreak of World War II in Europe, Bainbridge was recommissioned. Based in the Panama Canal Zone, she made Neutrality Patrols in that area until mid-1940, when she began operations out of Key West, Florida. During most of 1941 Bainbridge served in the North Atlantic, where she escorted convoys to and from Iceland as relations with Germany became increasingly hostile. Once war formally began in December 1941, she continued her escort and patrol work off the Atlantic coast and in the Caribbean. She was slightly damaged by an enemy mine off Chesapeake Bay in June 1942. In 1943 Bainbridge extended her reach across the ocean when she escorted several convoys between the U.S. and North Africa. In the middle of that year she was part of a task group, built around the escort aircraft carrier Santee (CVE-29), that sank several U-boats. No longer needed after Germany's surrender, USS Bainbridge was decommissioned in July 1945 and sold for scrapping at the end of November.
USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25, later CGN-25), 1962-1997
USS Bainbridge, a 7800-ton nuclear-powered guided missile frigate, was built at Quincy, Massachusetts. Commissioned in October 1962, she shook down off the U.S. East Coast and in the Caribbean area until February 1963, when she began her first Mediterranean deployment. This included demonstrations of her long-range high speed dash capabilities and operations with the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise (CVAN-65). Bainbridge returned to the Mediterranean in May 1964, this time joining Enterprise and the guided missile cruiser Long Beach (CGN-9) to form the all-nuclear-powered Task Force 1. At the end of July the three ships began Operation "Sea Orbit", a two-month unrefueled cruise around the World. In October 1965 Bainbridge again rounded the Cape of Good Hope, en route to the Western Pacific for the first of eleven Seventh Fleet cruises. Operating for much of this deployment off strife-torn Vietnam, she screened aircraft carriers, served as a radar-picket ship, and performed search and rescue missions. In June the frigate crossed the Pacific to her new home port, Long Beach, California. Her next five Far Eastern tours, in 1966-67, 1969, 1970, 1971 and 1972-73, also involved Vietnam War combat operations, as well as voyages to Australia and, beginning in 1970, the Indian Ocean. In 1967-68 Bainbridge underwent shipyard overhaul and her first nuclear refueling. The ship's seventh trip to the Far East, beginning in November 1973, included a lengthy visit to the Arabian Sea, a locale that would become very familiar in the coming decades. Bainbridge received an extensive modernization and refueling between June 1974 and September 1976, with post-overhaul work lasting until April 1977. While in the shipyard, at the end of June 1975, she was reclassified from frigate to cruiser, receiving the new designation CGN-25. Her next Seventh Fleet deployment ran from January to August 1978 and included visits throughout the region, from Japan and Korea to Thailand and Singapore, with her homeward-bound voyage taking her to Australia and through the South Pacific. Bainbridge made three more WestPac tours, in 1979-80, 1981 and 1982-83. Each of them involved extensive operations in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. After receiving her final nuclear refueling overhaul in 1983-85, Bainbridge left the Pacific after two decades, transited the Panama Canal and rejoined the Atlantic Fleet. Her operations thereafter included counter-drug smuggling patrols in the Caribbean, several deployments to northern European waters and four Mediterranean cruises (1986-87, 1988-89 -- including combat operations off Libya, 1991-92 -- with a Red Sea and Persian Gulf tour, and 1994 as Flagship of the Standing Naval Forces, Atlantic). Inactivated in October 1995, USS Bainbridge decommissioned in September 1996. She was towed to the Bremerton, Washington, in mid-1997 and in October of that year entered dry dock to begin "recycling", the process by which nuclear-powered warships are scrapped.
Capture of USS Philadelphia, 31 October 1803
USS Constitution
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