Press Gangs

Press Gangs, gangs of soldiers or sailors sent out to force naval or military service on able-bodied but unwilling men, usually by violent coercion. This practice was called impressment (also known as 'shanghai-ing' or 'crimping') and was common in all the world's ports until about 1820. It was widely used by Britain's Royal Navy to maintain full crews on its warships.

As a rule, the press gangs targeted vagrants and waterfront riffraff, whom they pulled out of brothels, boardinghouses, or taverns. But in the years just after 1800, when Britain's manpower was stretched to the limit in the war against Napoleon Bonaparte of France, British warships frequently halted United States merchant ships, ostensibly to search for deserters from the British Navy, and recruited U.S. citizens by impressment. Americans bitterly resented impressment, which was one of the principal grievances leading to the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.