The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 Part 4

COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR

Painting by Thomas Sully, 1811. In the Comptroller's Office, owned by the City of New York.

"CONSt.i.tUTION" AND "GUERRIeRE"

An old print, ill.u.s.trating the moment in the action at which the mainmast of the Guerriere, shattered by the terrific fire of the American frigate, fell overside, transforming the former vessel into a floating wreck and terminating the action. The picture represents accurately the surprisingly slight damage done the Const.i.tution; note the broken spanker gaff and the shot holes in her topsails.

CHAPTER VI

MATCHLESS FRIGATES AND THEIR DUELS

It was soon made clear that the impressive victory over the Guerriere was neither a lucky accident nor the result of prowess peculiar to the Const.i.tution and her crew. s.h.i.+p for s.h.i.+p, the American navy was better than the British. This is a truth which was demonstrated with sensational emphasis by one engagement after another. During the first eight months of the war there were five such duels, and in every instance the enemy was compelled to strike his colors. In tavern and banquet hall revelers were still drinking the health of Captain Isaac Hull when the thrilling word came that the Wasp, an eighteen-gun s.h.i.+p or sloop, as the type was called in naval parlance, had beaten the Frolic in a rare fight. The antagonists were so evenly matched in every respect that there was no room for excuses, and on both sides were displayed such stubborn hardihood and a seamans.h.i.+p so dauntless as to make an Anglo-Saxon proud that these foemen were bred of a common stock.

The Wasp had sailed from the Delaware on the 13th of October, heading southeast to look for British merchantmen in the West India track. Her commander was Captain Jacob Jones, a name revived in modern days by a destroyer of the Queenstown fleet in the arduous warfare against the German submarines. Shattered by a torpedo, the Jacob Jones sank in seven minutes, and sixty-four of the officers and crew perished, doing their duty to the last, disciplined, unafraid, so proving themselves worthy of the American naval service and of the memory of the unflinching captain of 1812.

The little Wasp ran into a terrific gale which blew her sails away and washed men overboard. But she made repairs and stood bravely after a British convoy which was escorted by the eighteen-gun brig Frolic, Captain Thomas Whinyates. The Frolic, too, had been battered by the weather, and the cargo s.h.i.+ps had been scattered far and wide. The Wasp sighted several of them in the moonlight but, fearing they might be war vessels, followed warily until morning revealed on her leeward side the Frolic. Jacob Jones promptly shortened sail, which was the nautical method of rolling up one's sleeves, and steered close to attack.

It seemed preposterous to try to fight while the seas were still monstrously swollen and their crests were breaking across the decks of these vessels of less than five hundred tons burden. Wildly they rolled and pitched, burying their bows in the roaring combers. The merchant s.h.i.+ps which watched this audacious defiance of wind and wave were having all they could do to avoid being swept or dismasted. Side by side wallowed Wasp and Frolic, sixty yards between them, while the cannon rolled their muzzles under water and the gunners were blinded with spray. Britisher and Yank, each crew could hear the hearty cheers of the other as they watched the chance to ply rammer and sponge and fire when the deck lifted clear of the sea.

Somehow the Wasp managed to shoot straight and fast. They were of the true webfooted breed in this hard-driven sloop-of-war, but there were no fair-weather mariners aboard the Frolic, and they hit the target much too often for comfort. Within ten minutes they had saved Captain Jacob Jones the trouble of handling sail, for they shot away his upper masts and yards and most of his rigging. The Wasp was a wreck aloft but the Frolic had suffered more vitally, for as usual the American gun captains aimed for the deck and hull; and they had been carefully drilled at target practice. The British sailors suffered frightfully from this storm of grape and chain shot, but those who were left alive still fought inflexibly. It looked as though the Frolic might get away, for the masts of the Wasp were in danger of tumbling over the side. With this mischance in mind, Captain Jacob Jones s.h.i.+fted helm and closed in for a hand-to-hand finish.

For a few minutes the two s.h.i.+ps plunged ahead so near each other that the rammers of the American sailors struck the side of the Frolic as they drove the shot down the throats of their guns. It was literally muzzle to muzzle. Then they crashed together and the Wasp's jib-boom was thrust between the Frolic's masts. In this position the British decks were raked by a murderous fire as Jacob Jones trumpeted the order, "Boarders away!" Jack Lang, a sailor from New Jersey, scrambled out on the bowsprit, cutla.s.s in his fist, without waiting to see if his comrades were with him, and dropped to the forecastle of the Frolic. Lieutenant Biddle tried it by jumping on the bulwark and climbing to the other s.h.i.+p as they crashed together on the next heave of the sea, but a doughty mids.h.i.+pman, seeking a handy purchase, grabbed him by the coat tails and they fell back upon their own deck. Another attempt and Biddle joined Jack Lang by way of the bowsprit. These two thus captured the Frolic, for as they dashed aft the only living men on deck were the undaunted sailor at the wheel and three officers, including Captain Whinyates and Lieutenant Wintle, who were so severely wounded that they could not stand without support. They tottered forward and surrendered their swords, and Lieutenant Biddle then leaped into the rigging and hauled the British ensign down.

Of the Frolic's crew of one hundred and ten men only twenty were unhurt, and these had fled below to escape the dreadful fire from the Wasp. The gun deck was strewn with bodies, and the waves which broke over the s.h.i.+p swirled them to and fro, the dead and the wounded together. Not an officer had escaped death or injury. The Wasp was more or less of a tangle aloft but her hull was sound and only five of her men had been killed and five wounded. No sailors could have fought more bravely than Captain Whinyates and his British crew, but they had been overwhelmed in three-quarters of an hour by greater skill, coolness, and judgment.

No sea battle of the war was more brilliant than this, but Captain Jacob Jones was delayed in sailing home to receive the plaudits due him. His prize crew was aboard the Frolic, cleaning up the horrid mess and fitting the beaten s.h.i.+p for the voyage to Charleston, and the Wasp was standing by when there loomed in sight a towering three-decker-a British s.h.i.+p of the line-the Poictiers. The Wasp shook out her sails to make a run for it, but they had been cut to ribbons and she was soon overhauled. Now an eighteen-gun s.h.i.+p could not argue with a majestic seventy-four. Captain Jacob Jones submitted with as much grace as he could muster, and Wasp and Frolic were carried to Bermuda. The American crew was soon exchanged, and Congress applied balm to the injured feelings of these fine sailormen by filling their pockets to the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars in prize money.

It was only a week later that the navy vouchsafed an encore to a delighted nation. This time the sport royal was played between stately frigates. On the 8th of October Commodore Rodgers had taken his squadron out of Boston for a second cruise. After four days at sea the United States was detached, and Captain Stephen Decatur ranged off to the eastward in quest of diversion. A fortnight of monotony was ended by a strange sail which proved to be the British thirty-eight-gun frigate Macedonian, newly built. Her commander, Captain Carden, had the highest opinion of his s.h.i.+p and crew, and one of his officers testified that "the state of discipline on board was excellent; in no British s.h.i.+p was more attention paid to gunnery. Before this cruise the s.h.i.+p had been engaged almost every day with the enemy; and in time of peace the crew were constantly exercised at the great guns."

The United States was a sister frigate of the Const.i.tution, built from the same designs and therefore more formidable than her British opponent as three is to two. Captain Carden had no misgivings, however, and instantly set out in chase of the American frigate. But he was unfortunate enough to pit himself against one of the ablest officers afloat, and his own talent was mediocre. The result was partly determined by this personal equation in an action in which the Macedonian was outgeneraled as well as outfought. And again gunnery was a decisive factor. Observers said that the broadsides of the United States flamed with such rapidity that the s.h.i.+p looked as though she were on fire.

Early in the fight Captain Carden bungled an opportunity to pa.s.s close ahead of the United States and so rake her with a destructive attack. Then rashly coming to close quarters, the Macedonian was swept by the heavy guns of the American frigate and reduced to wreckage in ninety minutes. The weather was favorable for the Yankee gun crews, and the war offered no more dramatic proof of their superbly intelligent training. The Macedonian had received more than one hundred shot in her hull, several below the water line, one mast had been cut in two, and the others were useless. More than a hundred of her officers and men were dead or injured. The United States was almost undamaged, a few ropes and small spars were shot away, and only twelve of her men were on the casualty list. Captain Decatur rightfully boasted that he had as fine a crew as ever walked a deck, American sailors who had been schooled for the task with the greatest care. English opinion went so far as to concede this much: "As a display of courage the character of our service was n.o.bly upheld, but we would be deceiving ourselves were we to admit that the comparative expertness of the crews in gunnery was equally satisfactory. Now taking the difference of effect as given by Captain Carden, we must draw this conclusion-that the comparative loss in killed and wounded, together with the dreadful account he gives of the condition of his own s.h.i.+p, while he admits that the enemy's vessel was in comparatively good order, must have arisen from inferiority in gunnery as well as in force."

Decatur sent the Macedonian to Newport as a trophy of war and forwarded her battle flag to Was.h.i.+ngton. It arrived just when a great naval ball was in progress to celebrate the capture of the Guerriere, whose ensign was already displayed from the wall. It was a great moment for the young lieutenant of the United States, who had been a.s.signed this duty, when he announced his mission and, amid the cheers of the President, the Cabinet, and other distinguished guests, proudly exhibited the flag of another British frigate to decorate the ballroom!

Meanwhile the Const.i.tution had returned to sea to spread her royals to the South Atlantic trades and hunt for lumbering British East-Indiamen. Captain Isaac Hull had gracefully given up the command in favor of Captain William Bainbridge, who was one of the oldest and most respected officers of his rank and who deserved an opportunity to win distinction. Bainbridge had behaved heroically at Tripoli and was logically in line to take over one of the crack frigates. The sailors of the Const.i.tution grumbled a bit at losing Isaac Hull but soon regained their alert and willing spirit as they comprehended that they had another first-rate "old man" in William Bainbridge. Henry Adams has pointed out that the average age of Bainbridge, Hull, Rodgers, and Decatur was thirty-seven, while that of the four generals most conspicuous in the disappointments of the army, Dearborn, Wilkinson, William Hull, and Wade Hampton, was fifty-eight. The difference is notable and is mentioned for what it may be worth.

Through the autumn of 1812 the frigate cruised beneath tropic suns, much of the time off the coast of Brazil. Today the health and comfort of the bluejacket are so scrupulously provided for in every possible way that a battles.h.i.+p is the standard of perfection for efficiency in organization. It is amazing that in such a s.h.i.+p as the Const.i.tution four hundred men could be cheerful and ready to fight after weeks and even months at sea. They were crowded below the water line, without proper heat, plumbing, lighting, or ventilation, each man being allowed only twenty-eight inches by eight feet of s.p.a.ce in which to sling his hammock against the beams overhead. Scurvy and other diseases were rampant. As many as seventy of the crew of the Const.i.tution were on the sick list shortly before she fought the Guerriere. The food was wholesome for rugged men, but it was limited solely to salt beef, hard bread, dried peas, cheese, pork, and spirits.

Such conditions, however, had not destroyed the vigor of those hardy seamen of the Const.i.tution when, on the 29th of December and within sight of the Brazilian coast, the lookout at the masthead sang out to Captain Bainbridge that a heavy s.h.i.+p was coming up under easy canvas. It turned out to be His Britannic Majesty's frigate Java, Captain Henry Lambert, who, like Carden, made the mistake of insisting upon a combat. His reasons were sounder than those of Dacres or Carden, however, for the Java was only a shade inferior to the Const.i.tution in guns and carried as many men. In every respect they were so evenly matched that the test of battle could have no aftermath of extenuation.

The Java at once hastened in pursuit of the American s.h.i.+p which drew off the coast as though in flight, the real purpose being to get clear of the neutral Brazilian waters. The Const.i.tution must have been a picture to stir the heart and kindle the imagination, her black hull heeling to the pressure of the tall canvas, the long rows of guns frowning from the open ports, while her bunting rippled a glorious defiance, with a commodore's pennant at the mainmast-head, the Stars and Stripes streaming from the mizzen peak and main-topgallant mast, and a Union Jack at the fore. The Java was adorned as bravely, and Captain Lambert had lashed an ensign in the rigging on the chance that his other colors might be shot away.

The two s.h.i.+ps began the fray at what they called long range, which would be about a mile, and then swept onward to pa.s.s on opposite tacks. It was the favorite maneuver of trying to gain the weather gage, and while they were edging to windward a round shot smashed the wheel of the Const.i.tution which so hampered her for the moment that Captain Lambert, handsomely taking advantage of the mishap, let the Java run past his enemy's stern and poured in a broadside which hit several of the American seamen. Both commanders displayed, in a high degree, the art of handling s.h.i.+ps under sail as they luffed or wore and tenaciously jockeyed for position, while the gunners fought in the smoke that drifted between the frigates.

At length Captain Lambert became convinced that he had met his master at this agile style of warfare and determined to come to close quarters before the Java was fatally damaged. Her masts and yards were cras.h.i.+ng to the deck and the slaughter among the crew was already appalling. Marines and seamen gathered in the gangways and upon the forecastle head to spring aboard the Const.i.tution, but Captain Bainbridge drove his s.h.i.+p clear very shortly after the collision and continued to pound the Java to kindling-wood with his broadsides. The fate of the action was no longer in doubt. The British frigate was on fire, Captain Lambert was mortally wounded, and all her guns had been silenced. The Const.i.tution hauled off to repair damages and stood back an hour later to administer the final blow. But the flag of the Java fluttered down, and the lieutenant in command surrendered.

The Const.i.tution had again crushed the enemy with so little damage to herself that she was ready to continue her cruise, with a loss of only nine killed and twenty-five wounded. The Java was a fine s.h.i.+p utterly destroyed, a sinking, dismasted hulk, with a hundred and twenty-four of her men dead or suffering from wounds. It is significant to learn that during six weeks at sea they had fired but six practice broadsides, of blank cartridges, although there were many raw hands in the crew, while the men of the Const.i.tution had been incessantly drilled in firing until their team play was like that of a football eleven. There was no shooting at random. Under Hull and Bainbridge they had been taught their trade, which was to lay the gun on the target and shoot as rapidly as possible.

For the diminutive American navy, the year of 1812 came to its close with a record of success so ill.u.s.trious as to seem almost incredible. It is more dignified to refrain from extolling our own exploits and to recall the effects of these sea duels upon the minds of the people, the statesmen, and the press of the England of that period. Their outbursts of wrathful humiliation were those of a maritime race which cared little or nothing about the course of the American war by land. Theirs was the salty tradition, virile and perpetual, which a century later and in a friendlier guise was to create a Grand Fleet which should keep watch and ward in the misty Orkneys and hold the Seven Seas safe against the naval power of Imperial Germany. Then, as now, the English nation believed that its armed s.h.i.+ps were its salvation.

It is easier to understand, bearing this in mind, why after the fight of the Guerriere the London Times indulged in such frenzied lamentations as these:

We witnessed the gloom which that event cast over high and honorable minds... . Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate strike to an American, and though we cannot say that Captain Dacres, under all circ.u.mstances, is punishable for this act, yet we do say there are commanders in the English navy who would a thousand times rather have gone down with their colors flying than to have set their fellow sailors so fatal an example.

Good G.o.d! that a few short months should have so altered the tone of British sentiments! Is it true, or is it not, that our navy was accustomed to hold the Americans in utter contempt? Is it true, or is it not, that the Guerriere sailed up and down the American coast with her name painted in large characters on her sails in boyish defiance of Commodore Rodgers? Would any captain, however young, have indulged such a foolish piece of vain-boasting if he had not been carried forward by the almost unanimous feeling of his a.s.sociates?

We have since sent out more line-of-battle s.h.i.+ps and heavier frigates. Surely we must now mean to smother the American navy. A very short time before the capture of the Guerriere an American frigate was an object of ridicule to our honest tars. Now the prejudice is actually setting the other way and great pains seems to be taken by the friends of ministers to prepare the public for the surrender of a British seventy-four to an opponent lately so much contemned.

It was when the news reached England that the Java had been destroyed by the Const.i.tution that indignation found a climax in the outcry of the Pilot, a foremost naval authority:

The public will learn, with sentiments which we shall not presume to antic.i.p.ate, that a third British frigate has struck to an American. This is an occurrence that calls for serious reflection,-this, and the fact stated in our paper of yesterday, that Lloyd's list contains notices of upwards of five hundred British vessels captured in seven months by the Americans. Five hundred merchantmen and three frigates! Can these statements be true; and can the English people hear them unmoved? Any one who would have predicted such a result of an American war this time last year would have been treated as a madman or a traitor. He would have been told, if his opponents had condescended to argue with him, that long ere seven months had elapsed the American flag would have been swept from the seas, the contemptible navy of the United States annihilated, and their maritime a.r.s.enals rendered a heap of ruins. Yet down to this moment not a single American frigate has struck her flag. They insult and laugh at our want of enterprise and vigor. They leave their ports when they please and return to them when it suits their convenience; they traverse the Atlantic; they beset the West India Islands; they advance to the very chops of the Channel; they parade along the coasts of South America; nothing chases, nothing intercepts, nothing engages them but to yield them triumph.

It was to be taken for granted that England would do something more than scold about the audacity of the American navy. Even after the declaration of war her most influential men hoped that the repeal of the obnoxious Orders-in-Council might yet avert a solution of the American problem by means of the sword. There was hesitation to apply the utmost military and naval pressure, and New England was regarded with feelings almost friendly because of its opposition to an offensive warfare against Great Britain and an invasion of Canada.

Absorbed in the greater issue against Napoleon, England was nevertheless aroused to more vigorous action against the United States and devised strong blockading measures for the spring of 1813. Unable to operate against the enemy's s.h.i.+ps in force or to escape from ports which were sealed by vigilant squadrons, the American navy to a large extent was condemned to inactivity for the remainder of the war. Occasional actions were fought and merit was justly won, but there was nothing like the glory of 1812, which shone undimmed by defeat and which gave to the annals of the nation one of its great chapters of heroic and masterful achievement. It was singularly apt that the n.o.ble and victorious American frigates should have been called the Const.i.tution and the United States. They inspired a new respect for the flag with the stripes and the stars and for all that it symbolized.

WILLIAM BAINBRIDGE

Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the Corporation.

ISAAC HULL

Painting by J. W. Jarvis. In the City Hall, New York, owned by the Corporation.

CHAPTER VII

"DON'T GIVE UP THE s.h.i.+P!"

The second year of the war by sea opened brilliantly enough to satisfy the American people, who were now in a mood to expect too much of their navy. In February the story of the Wasp and the Frolic was repeated by two s.h.i.+ps of precisely the same cla.s.s. The American sloop-of-war Hornet had sailed to South America with the Const.i.tution and was detached to blockade, in the port of Bahia, the British naval sloop Bonne Citoyenne, which contained treasure to the amount of half a million pounds in specie. Captain James Lawrence of the Hornet sent in a challenge to fight, s.h.i.+p against s.h.i.+p, pledging his word that the Const.i.tution would not interfere, but the British commander, perhaps mindful of his precious cargo, declined the invitation. Instead of this, he sensibly sent word to a great seventy-four at Rio de Janeiro, begging her to come and drive the pestiferous Hornet away.

The British battles.h.i.+p arrived so suddenly that Captain Lawrence was compelled to dodge and flee in the darkness. By a close shave he gained the open sea and made off up the coast. For several weeks the Hornet idled to and fro, vainly seeking merchant prizes, and then off the Demerara River on February 24, 1813, she fell in with the British brig Peac.o.c.k, that flew the royal ensign. The affair lasted no more than fifteen minutes. The Peac.o.c.k was famous for s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s work, spotless paint, and the immaculate trimness of a yacht, but her gunnery had been neglected, for which reason she went to the bottom in six fathoms of water with shot-holes in her hull and thirty-seven of her crew put out of action. The sting of the Hornet had been prompt and fatal. Captain Lawrence had only one man killed and two wounded, and his s.h.i.+p was as good as ever. Crowding his prisoners on board and being short of provisions and water, he set sail for a home port and anch.o.r.ed in New York harbor. He was in time to share with Bainbridge the carnival of salutes, processions, dinners, addresses of congratulation, votes of thanks, swords, medals, prize money, promotion-every possible tribute of an adoring and grateful people.

One of the awards bestowed upon Lawrence was the command of the frigate Chesapeake. Among seamen she was rated an unlucky s.h.i.+p, and Lawrence was confidently expected to break the spell. Her old crew had left her after the latest voyage, which met with no success, and other sailors were reluctant to join her. Privateering had attracted many of them, and the navy was finding it difficult to recruit the kind of men it desired. Lawrence was compelled to sign on a scratch lot, some Portuguese, a few British, and many landlubbers. Given time to shake them together in hard service at sea, he would have made a smart crew of them no doubt, as Isaac Hull had done in five weeks with the men of the Const.i.tution, but destiny ordered otherwise.

In the spring of 1813 the harbor of Boston was blockaded by the thirty-eight-gun British frigate Shannon, Captain Philip Vere Broke, who had been in this s.h.i.+p for seven years. In the opinion of Captain Mahan, "his was one of those cases where singular merit as an officer and an attention to duty altogether exceptional had not yet obtained opportunity for distinction. It would probably be safe to say that no more thoroughly efficient s.h.i.+p of her cla.s.s had been seen in the British navy during the twenty years' war with France."

Captain Broke was justly confident in his own leaders.h.i.+p and in the efficiency of a s.h.i.+p's company, which had retained its ident.i.ty of organization through so many years of his personal and energetic supervision. Indeed, the captain of the British flags.h.i.+p on the American station wrote: "The Shannon's men were trained and understood gunnery better than any men I ever saw." Every morning the men were exercised at training the guns and in the afternoon in the use of the broadsword, musket, and pike. Twice each week the crew fired at targets with great guns and musketry and the sailor who hit the bull's eye received a pound of tobacco. Without warning Captain Broke would order a cask tossed overboard and then suddenly order some particular gun to sink it. In brief, the Shannon possessed those qualities which had been notable in the victorious American frigates and which were lamentably deficient in the Chesapeake.

Lawrence's men were unknown to each other and to their officers, and they had never been to sea together. The last draft came aboard, in fact, just as the anchor was weighed and the Chesapeake stood out to meet her doom. Even most of her officers were new to the s.h.i.+p. They had no chance whatever to train or handle the rabble between decks. Now Captain Broke had been anxious to fight this American frigate as matching the Shannon in size and power. He had already addressed to Captain Lawrence a challenge whose wording was a model of courtesy but which was provocative to the last degree. A sailor of Lawrence's heroic temper was unlikely to avoid such a combat, stimulated as he was by the unbroken success of his own navy in duels between frigates.

On the first day of June, Captain Broke boldly ran into Boston harbor and broke out his flag in defiance of the Chesapeake which was riding at anchor as though waiting to go to sea. Instantly accepting the invitation, Captain Lawrence hoisted colors, fired a gun, and mustered his crew. In this ceremonious fas.h.i.+on, as gentlemen were wont to meet with pistols to dispute some point of honor, did the Chesapeake sail out to fight the waiting Shannon. The news spread fast and wide and thousands of people, as though they were bound to the theater, hastened to the heights of Malden, to Nahant, and to the headlands of Salem and Marblehead, in hopes of witnessing this famous sight. They a.s.sumed that victory was inevitable. Any other surmise was preposterous.

These eager crowds were cheated of the spectacle, however, for the Chesapeake bore away to the eastward after rounding Boston Light and dropped hull down until her sails were lost in the summer haze, with the Shannon in her company as if they steered for some rendezvous. They were firing when last seen and the wind bore the echo of the guns, faint and far away. It was most extraordinary that three weeks pa.s.sed before the people would believe the tidings of the disaster. A pilot who had left the Chesapeake at five o'clock in the afternoon reported that he was still near enough an hour later to see the two s.h.i.+ps locked side by side, that a fearful explosion had happened aboard the Chesapeake, and that through a rift in the battle smoke he had beheld the British flag flying above the American frigate.

This report was confirmed by a fis.h.i.+ng boat from Cape Ann and by the pa.s.sengers in a coastwise packet, but the public doubted and still hoped until the newspapers came from Halifax with an account of the arrival of the Chesapeake as prize to the Shannon and of the funeral honors paid to the body of Captain James Lawrence. The tragic defeat came at an extremely dark moment of the war when almost every expectation had been disappointed and the future was clouded. Richard Rush, the American diplomatist, wrote, recalling the event: