THE BOYS OF 1812
AND
OTHER NAVAL HEROES
THE BOYS OF '61;
=Or, Four Years of Fighting.= By CHARLES CARLETON
COFFIN. Fully illustrated. 8vo. Cloth. Gilt.
THE BOYS OF 1812,
=And Other Naval Heroes.= By Prof. J. RUSSELL
SOLEY. Illustrated from original drawings. 8vo.
Cloth. Gilt.
IN PREPARATION.
SAILOR BOYS OF '61.
By Prof. J. RUSSELL SOLEY.
[Illustration: "THE CUTLASS BREAKS AT THE HILT."]
THE BOYS OF 1812
AND OTHER NAVAL HEROES
BY JAMES RUSSELL SOLEY
AUTHOR OF "THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS"
[Illustration]
BOSTON
PUBLISHED BY ESTES AND LAURIAT
_Copyright, 1887,_
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.
_University Press:_
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NAVY. 11
II. BIDDLE AND THE "RANDOLPH." 28
III. WAR ON THE ENEMY'S COAST. 35
IV. PAUL JONES'S CRUISES. 42
V. BARRY AND BARNEY. 60
VI. HOSTILITIES WITH FRANCE. 85
VII. TRIPOLI. 104
VIII. IMPRESSMENT. 150
IX. THE WAR OF 1812.--THE "CONSTITUTION"
AND THE "GUERRIÈRE." 157
X. THE FIRST SLOOP ACTION. 177
XI. DECATUR AND BAINBRIDGE. 183
XII. CAPTAIN JAMES LAWRENCE. 196
XIII. THE CRUISE OF THE "ESSEX." 210
XIV. PERRY AND LAKE ERIE. 246
XV. THE SLOOP ACTIONS. 263
XVI. MACDONOUGH AND LAKE CHAMPLAIN. 280
XVII. STEWART AND "OLD IRONSIDES." 292
XVIII. THE WAR WITH ALGIERS. 307
XIX. THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 318
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
BRIG, HEAD ON _Titlepage_
"THE CUTLASS BREAKS AT THE HILT." _Frontispiece_
"BOLD AND HARDY MEN WHO HAD FOLLOWED THE SEA
SINCE THEY WERE BOYS." 16
"HE SENT COLONEL GLOVER AND MR. PALFREY IN HOT HASTE
TO RAISE THE MINUTE-MEN." 21
NICHOLAS BIDDLE. 30
HE TOUCHED AT A SMALL TOWN IN IRELAND FOR SUPPLIES. 40
THE "DRAKE" SURRENDERS TO THE "RANGER." 47
"THE SLOOP WAS SWALLOWED UP IN THE SEETHING WATERS." 73
HEAVING THE LEAD ON BOARD THE FRIGATE. 81
"EVERYWHERE THE SHIP-YARDS WERE BUSY." 91
DAVID PORTER. 95
"IT WAS TWILIGHT BEFORE HE CAME UP WITH HER." 99
THOMAS TRUXTUN,--FROM MEDAL VOTED BY CONGRESS. 102
"CROWDING ON THE RAIL WITH THEIR SCIMITARS." 109
COMMODORE EDWARD PREBLE. 114
"HE CUT AWAY THE ANCHORS, ... BUT STILL THE SHIP
HUNG FAST." 117
"THE LIGHTS COULD BE SEEN GLITTERING IN THE HOUSES." 127
"THE 'PHILADELPHIA' LIGHTS THEM ON THEIR WAY." 131
STEPHEN DECATUR. 135
"AMONG THESE WAS ONE SIXTY-FOUR, THE 'AFRICA.'" 161
"A SQUALL OF WIND AND RAIN PASSED OVER US." 167
CAPTAIN ISAAC HULL. 171
"SHE LAY A HELPLESS WRECK IN THE TROUGH OF THE SEA." 173
"JACK LANG, A BRAVE AMERICAN BLUE-JACKET, LEAPED
FIRST." 179
"THE SHIPS WERE STEERING TO THE EASTWARD ON
PARALLEL COURSES." 189
JAMES LAWRENCE. 197
"ALONG THE SHORE, UPON EVERY HILL-TOP AND HEADLAND,
PEOPLE HAD GATHERED." 203
"WHEN THE 'ESSEX' ARRIVED OFF THE ISLAND SHE LAY
TO." 213
APPROACHING THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. 222
"'WE SURRENDER,' AND DOWN CAME THE FLAG." 225
"MOSTLY CARRONADES." 239
"A SQUALL STRUCK HER AND CARRIED AWAY HER
MAIN-TOPMAST." 241
OLIVER HAZARD PERRY. 247
"A SINGLE GUN BOOMED FROM BARCLAY'S SHIP." 255
"CALLING AWAY HIS BOAT, HE ROWED UNDER THE ENEMY'S
FIRE." 259
"THE 'PELICAN' WAS GUIDED TO HER BY THE SMOKE OF
THE BURNING MERCHANTMEN." 265
CAPTAIN LEWIS WARRINGTON. 270
"ONE ROUND SHOT ENTERED HER AFTERMOST PORT." 277
"ON THE STOCKS, AND NEARLY FINISHED, THE FINE
FRIGATE 'CONFIANCE.'" 283
CAPTAIN CHARLES STEWART. 296
"ACCOMPANIED BY ABDALLAH THE DRAGOMAN, I LEFT THE
CANAL." 313
THE BOYS OF 1812,
AND
OTHER NAVAL HEROES.
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE NAVY.
Simply to defend themselves against the tyrannical encroachments of the
mother country was all that the thirteen colonies had in view when, in
1775, they took up arms against Great Britain. At this time the people
hoped, and many of them expected, that by making a determined resistance
they would induce the King and Parliament to treat them with fairness,
and to give them their rights as English citizens. It was only
gradually, during the summer and autumn of the first year,--after the
battle had been fought at Bunker Hill, and after Washington had been for
some time in command of the army which was laying siege to Boston, that
they began to feel that they could make a new nation by themselves, and
that independence was a thing that was worth fighting for, even though
it cost a long and bloody struggle, in which all of them would pass
through bitter suffering and many would give up their very lives.
As we look back upon it now, it is wonderful to think what a daring
thing it was for this small and scattered people, living in their little
towns along the seacoast from Maine to Georgia, or on farms and
plantations in the country, without an army or navy, without generals,
and above all without money,--for money is needed to carry on war more
than almost anything else,--to have thus made up their minds to stand up
bravely and manfully against such a power as Great Britain (one of the
greatest in the world), with all her troops and ships and immense
revenues. That we should have come out successfully from a contest so
unequal seems little short of marvellous; and we cannot but think that
it was the hand of an overruling Destiny that enabled us to succeed, by
giving us a general as skilful and prudent as Washington, statesmen as
wise as Franklin and Jefferson and Adams, an enemy as indolent as Sir
William Howe, and allies as powerful as our good friends the French.
Still, even from the beginning the colonists had some reason to hope for
success, at least in the war on land. They had no standing army, it is
true, but they were not without experience in the business of fighting.
In the Seven Years' War, which had come to an end only twelve years
before, they had furnished the soldiers who filled the ranks of the
English armies on American soil. These were the men who had fought the
bloody battles at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and whom the gallant
Wolfe had led on the Plains of Abraham. The veterans of the old war were
as ready to shoulder their muskets to protect themselves against the
tyranny of the King as against the incursions of their Canadian and
Indian neighbors. They knew something, too, of the soldiers who would be
sent to subdue them, and what they had seen did not give them much
reason to be afraid. They knew how hard it was for an invading army,
thousands of miles away from home, marching through a thinly-settled
country that was filled with enemies, to protect itself from those
incessant and harassing attacks that wear out its strength and destroy
little by little all its confidence and pluck. They knew that these
gayly-dressed redcoats, who made war according to rule, would find a new
kind of work before them among the wooded hills and valleys of America,
where every patriot was fighting for his own homestead, where every
farmer was a woodsman, and where every woodsman was a crack shot. When
that quiet but observant young Virginian, Major Washington, went out
with Braddock on his expedition against Fort Duquesne, and saw how the
gallant Colonel of the Guards insisted blindly upon following in the
backwoods his Old World tactics, and how easily his regulars were
defeated in consequence, he learned something that he never afterward
forgot; for neither Howe nor Clinton nor Earl Cornwallis himself was the
man to teach him a new lesson.
But all this was fighting on land. At sea, the colonists had had no such
training. The mother country, with her great fleets, had needed no help
from them in her sea-fights, and indeed was rather jealous of any
attempts that they might make toward a colonial navy. The colonists in
the old wars had fitted out a few privateers that harried the enemy's
commerce, but real naval warfare was wholly unknown to them. They had
had no ships-of-war of their own to serve in, and such of them as had
been admitted into the Royal Navy under the King's commission remained
in it almost to a man.
On the ocean, therefore, the colonists were badly off, for Great Britain
was here the worst enemy they could have. Her wooden walls had always
been her chief reliance, and from the days when Drake and Howard and
Raleigh defeated the Great Armada of Spain, they had asserted and
maintained British supremacy at sea. During this long period of two
hundred years the names of England's great naval captains had been a
terror to all her enemies. There was Robert Blake, who beat off the
Dutch, when Tromp sailed across the channel with a broom at his masthead
as a sign that he would sweep the English from the seas. There were Sir
Cloudesley Shovel and Sir George Rooke, who worsted the French in the
great battle of Cape La Hogue; there was the doughty old Benbow, who,
deserted by his captains, with his single ship kept at bay the squadron
of M. Ducasse in the West Indies; there was Boscawen, who captured the
fortress at Louisburg; Hawke and Anson, and finally Rodney and Howe,
already famous, and destined to become yet more so in the war that was
just begun.
The fleets that these famous admirals led into action were composed of
line-of-battle ships,--immense structures, with two, three, or even four
gun-decks, some of them carrying as many as one hundred guns, and the
smallest of them rated at sixty-four. After these came the frigates,
which had only one gun-deck, but which carried a battery on the
spar-deck also. These were not thought of sufficient strength to be
really counted as a part of the fighting force, although the largest
size, the 50-gun frigates, were sometimes taken into the line of battle.
But generally they served as scouts or outposts for the great fleets, or
they cruised by twos and threes in light squadrons, or even singly, to
attack privateers or unarmed merchantmen, or to make a raid on
unprotected coasts and seaports, or to carry orders to the different
stations. For all these uses they were of great service, being generally
faster than the line-of-battle ships, and yet carrying guns enough to
make them formidable to all the lesser craft. After the frigates came
the sloops-of-war, ship-sloops, and brig-sloops, as the English called
them; not the little boats with one mast that we are accustomed to call
sloops, but square-rigged vessels with three or two masts, as the case
might be, and carrying twenty guns or so. With all these three classes
of vessels the British were well supplied, and the larger ships carried
what at that day were heavy guns, 18-pounders and 24-pounders. In 1775,
when the war broke out, the Royal Navy numbered one hundred
line-of-battle ships, one hundred and fifty frigates, and three hundred
of the smaller vessels, and before the war ended it had two hundred and
fifty thousand seamen in its service.
The colonies, on the other hand, began the struggle without a single
armed vessel afloat. They had merchantmen which they could fit out as
privateers to cruise against the British merchantmen, but they had
nothing that could stand up against a ship-of-war. Even in guns they
were sadly deficient; for though there were scattered here and there in
the colonies a few 12-pounders and 9-pounders, they had to depend
largely upon sixes and fours, which were not much better than popguns;
while of eighteens and twenty-fours they had scarcely any for naval use.
Sailors they had, to be sure, all along the coast from New England down;
and especially in the northern part there were numbers of bold and hardy
men who had followed the sea since they were boys, some in
fishing-smacks that made long voyages to the Banks, some in coasters,
and some in the large merchant-ships that traded at ports beyond the
sea. But of what use are sailors without ships or guns? Besides, as the
Continental Navy was slow in forming, many of the best men went into the
army, which promised an easier life, or into the privateer service,
which held out greater prospects of reward; and when the navy finally
got to work, it was very hard to man the vessels.
[Illustration: "BOLD AND HARDY MEN WHO HAD FOLLOWED THE SEA SINCE THEY
WERE BOYS."]
In spite of all these discouragements, the leaders in the country boldly
resolved that they would face Great Britain on the sea as well as on the
land. They bought or built their little ships, fitted them out with guns
and stores that were partly captured from the British, manned them with
crews from the sturdy mariners along the coast, and sent them forth to
war upon the enemy as best they might,--by capturing his transports and
storeships, by fighting his smaller cruisers when they could be found
alone, and sometimes even by daring raids upon his very coasts. Their
officers were volunteers from the merchant service; and though hardly
any had ever served in ships-of-war, there were some among them whose
name and fame have lived to our own day, and will live forever,--Biddle
and Manley, Paul Jones and Conyngham, Barry and Barney, and Wickes and
Dale,--the first men to show that American naval officers can hold their
own against any others in the world.
* * * * *
The beginnings of the Continental Navy were made by Washington. When on
July 3, 1775, he took command of the army under the old elm-tree at
Cambridge in Massachusetts, he had a discouraging task before him. Not
only was it necessary for him to organize the troops and train them in
the art of war, but they had to be supplied with arms and ammunition and
all kinds of equipments. Not only was there a scarcity of money to buy
these things, but the things themselves were hardly to be got in the
colonies either for love or money. At the battle of Bunker Hill the
patriots had retired, not because they were beaten, but because their
ammunition was exhausted. During the whole summer Washington was writing
to the governors of the neighboring colonies, entreating them to send
him a little powder and lead. "No quantity," he said, "however small, is
beneath notice."
All this time the British, securely established in Boston, were
receiving supplies of all kinds from England. Though they were three
thousand miles away from home, they could get what they needed with more
certainty than the colonists, who were fighting in their own country: of
such importance is it in war to have the control of the sea. Washington
himself saw this, and he determined to dispute the control with the
enemy by sending out little vessels, just strong enough to attack the
transports and storeships coming to Boston. So he despatched to the
north shore, as it is called, to Beverly and Salem and Marblehead, two
of his trusted officers, Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, and Stephen
Moylan, the Muster-master-general of the army, to procure and fit out
the vessels. Late in October the first two schooners got to sea, the
"Lynch" and "Franklin," under Captain Broughton, who sailed for the Gulf
of St. Lawrence to intercept ships bound for Quebec. Ten days later
Moylan and Glover, by dint of hard work, got off two more of these
diminutive cruisers,--the "Lee," under Captain John Manley, and the
"Warren," under Captain Adams of the New Hampshire troops. These were
also schooners, and carried each four 4-pounders and ten
swivels,--little guns throwing a half-pound bullet mounted on pivots on
the gunwales, just as gatlings are mounted to-day. Each had fifty men,
most of whom were drafted from the army; but there was hardly any
ammunition to spare for them, and it went against the grain to give
them twenty rounds for each gun, which was all they carried.
At Plymouth, also, Washington had his small navy-yard, but it gave him
more trouble than it was worth. The schooner "Harrison," under Captain
Coit of Connecticut, was here, though she was old and weak; and a larger
ship, the "Washington." The "Washington" was a fine brigantine, and she
mounted ten carriage guns which had been brought by boats and wagons
from Bristol. But her captain, Martindale, was too ambitious, and wished
his ship to have all the equipments of a real man-of-war. The general
and his aides, Reed and Moylan, who had the work in charge, were sorely
tried by all this useless preparation, which delayed the vessel during
the precious weeks of autumn, when she should have been at sea. "Shall
we ever hear," wrote Moylan in the middle of November, "of Captain
Martindale's departure?" For he knew that the captain's business was to
seize the English stores, and to let ships-of-war alone. Coit's
schooner, also, the "Harrison," was delayed in port, and the sailors
were troublesome. "They are soured by the severity of the season," wrote
the agent, "and are longing for the leeks and onions of Connecticut." By
the third week in November the two ships got out; but the brigantine was
presently captured by an enemy's frigate, which showed that the
general's apprehensions had been right from the beginning. So the navy,
especially the Plymouth fleet, was a source of much anxiety and
discouragement to him during the month of November.
But suddenly the tide turned, for on the 29th of that month the news
came from Cape Ann that the "Lee" was in, and that Manley had captured
the brigantine "Nancy," loaded with all kinds of military stores. We
can fancy how the general must have felt as he read the invoice of her
stores: two thousand muskets and bayonets, thirty-one tons of
musket-shot, three thousand round shot for 12-pounders, eight thousand
fuzes, one hundred and fifty carcasses,--great frames for combustibles
to set buildings on fire,--a 13-inch mortar, two 6-pounders, and several
barrels of powder, besides great quantities of other valuable stores. No
wonder he sent Colonel Glover and Mr. Palfrey in hot haste to the Cape
to raise the minute-men from all the neighboring towns and land the
stores, and bring them under escort to headquarters! And the same day he
wrote to the President of Congress to tell him of Manley's fine capture,
and said: "I sincerely congratulate you, sir, on this great acquisition;
it more than repays all that has been spent in fitting out the
squadron."
Manley was off to sea again in a day or two, and a week later he
captured three more vessels, the cargoes of which were sold, some of
them bringing a high price. For these services Manley was placed by
Congress on the list of Continental captains, and put in command of a
frigate. His schooner, the "Lee," was given to Captain Waters, who
cruised in her for several months, capturing a number of transports with
troops on board.
The other vessels also took their share of prizes, even the leaky old
"Harrison" bringing in a sloop and a schooner. Broughton's ships, the
"Lynch" and the "Franklin," seized several vessels that were supposed to
belong to Tories, but most of these were released. After their return
the "Franklin" was given to James Mugford, a daring Marblehead captain.
This was in the spring after the British had evacuated Boston, but
ships laden with supplies were still coming to America. One of these,
the "Hope," of six guns, fell in with Mugford near Boston, and he
determined to attack her, though an English squadron was in sight not
many miles away. He had just boarded her, when the English captain
ordered his men to cut the topsail-halliards, so that the ship would be
delayed until the squadron could come up. But Mugford roared out that
any man who carried out the order would suffer instant death, and no one
dared to move. The prize had fifteen hundred barrels of powder in her
hold, and it was almost hopeless to try to get her into the harbor by
the usual channel in the face of the enemy's fleet. But just then the
"Lee" came up, and Captain Waters, who knew every shoal and winding
passage in Boston harbor, told Mugford he would carry her in through
Shirley Gut, a narrow channel where none of the English ships would dare
to follow her. He made good his promise; for though the "Hope" did run
ashore on Handkerchief Shoal, he got her off, and brought her with her
precious cargo safely into Boston.
[Illustration: "HE SENT COLONEL GLOVER AND MR. PALFREY IN HOT HASTE TO
RAISE THE MINUTE-MEN."]
Poor Mugford did not long survive his exploit; for, leaving port a few
days later by this same Shirley Gut, he too grounded, and while he was
lying hard and fast, the boats from the enemy's fleet put off to capture
him. There were three times as many men as Mugford had on board the
"Franklin;" but he gave them a warm reception with his muskets and such
guns as he could bring to bear. They came alongside and prepared to
board; but as soon as any of them put their hands upon the rail, the
crew hacked them off with cutlasses. Mugford himself was in the hottest
of it, and as he leaned over the gunwale a bullet struck him in the
breast. He called his first lieutenant and said to him, "I am a dead
man: do not give up the vessel; you will be able to beat them off." And
so he died; but the enemy were driven back, with two of their boats
lost, and the ship was saved.
While General Washington was making his beginning of a Continental navy
about Boston, aided by the Massachusetts people, the other colonies were
working by themselves in the same direction. In Long Island Sound, on
the Hudson River, in the Delaware and Chesapeake bays, and along the
inlets of the southern coast, flotillas were fitted out to protect the
towns and to prey upon the enemy's commerce. In October, 1775, the
Continental Congress, which was then in session at Philadelphia,
following the example of Washington, decided to have a navy for the
general service of the colonies. With this early movement Stephen
Hopkins, a delegate from Rhode Island, had much to do; for Narragansett
Bay with its thriving farms and plantations offered a tempting prize to
the British raiders, whom the little colony would find it hard to keep
off. There were others, too, who took a deep interest in the
project,--above all John Adams, and Silas Deane of Connecticut, and
Robert Morris of Pennsylvania. Through their efforts a beginning was
made by purchasing two brigs, the "Lexington" and "Providence." These
were followed by two larger vessels, the "Alfred" and "Columbus,"
carrying each about twenty 9-pounders. Then two more brigs were bought,
the "Andrew Doria" and the "Cabot," which like Washington's schooners
carried only 4-pounders, though they had more of them. The "Lexington"
went to sea alone, but the others were assembled at Philadelphia in
December, ready to start out as the first Continental squadron.
It was not an easy thing to select a commander for the new squadron, for
there was hardly a man in the colonies who had seen any naval service.
Young Nicholas Biddle, of Philadelphia, had been a midshipman in the
Royal Navy, and had resigned his post to fight for his country; but he
was thought to be too young, though he had seen more real service than
his fellow officers. Finally, Hopkins's brother, Esek Hopkins, an old
Rhode Island sea-captain who had been made a brigadier-general, was
chosen to command the force. His son John was made captain of one of the
ships, and his cousin Abraham Whipple of another, while Hazard, who was
also a Rhode Islander, was assigned to the "Providence." Biddle, who, as
it turned out, was the best of them all, was given the little brig
"Doria." From an obscure place in Virginia, far away in the country,
came a letter from a young Scotchman named Paul Jones, who had followed
the sea from his boyhood but had finally settled in America, asking them
that he might have a commission. Although no one knew much of him, he
was offered one of the smaller brigs; but he preferred to go at first as
a lieutenant, and he was placed on board the "Alfred," the commodore's
flagship.
The squadron was fitted out to cruise upon the southern coast; but it
was frozen up for six weeks in Delaware Bay, and when it sailed in
February, 1776, it made first for the Bahama Islands. It came to anchor
off Abaco, the northernmost of the islands. Here the commodore learned
that there was a fort, with many guns and a great quantity of powder,
but defended only by a feeble garrison, at New Providence, on the
Island of Nassau, the same place which afterward gained such fame during
the Rebellion as the refuge of the blockade-runners. Commodore Hopkins
resolved to attempt its capture, but advancing incautiously with his
whole fleet, gave a timely warning to the inhabitants; and the governor,
who till that moment had not dreamed of the near approach of an enemy,
succeeded in getting his powder to a place of safety. The marines were
landed and marched to the fort, which they captured with little
difficulty. The guns were taken, as well as all the stores except the
powder, and the governor was carried off a prisoner.
The squadron had now accomplished such results that Hopkins thought it
best to defer his operations on the southern coast, and made sail for
home. He arrived safely in New London, meeting only one of the enemy's
ships on the way, with which he had a battle; but neither side could
claim the victory. The captured guns were sent off to the points where
they were needed most, and Commodore Hopkins went to Philadelphia. But
Congress was not very well satisfied with him, especially the Southern
delegates, who had been promised protection for their shores. The old
commodore, too, was fussy and impatient, and as he stayed on in
Philadelphia, everybody began to grow tired of him; and finally Congress
passed a resolution in which they announced to him, rather harshly
perhaps, that they had no further use for his services. No doubt he had
meant well; but he was too old to be the leader of the new Continental
Navy, and this is the last we shall hear of him.
Before the squadron started on its cruise Congress had undertaken more
ambitious measures. Thirteen frigates were ordered to be built, and
different places were selected where the work should be done, so that
whatever part of the country the British might overrun, some of the new
ships might be finished and sent out. Thus the "Raleigh" was built at
Portsmouth, the "Hancock" and "Boston" in Massachusetts, the "Warren"
and "Providence" in Rhode Island, the "Trumbull" in Connecticut, and the
"Virginia" at Baltimore. Of the other six, two were begun at
Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and four at Philadelphia; but the only one
of the six that got to sea was the "Randolph," of Philadelphia, the
others being destroyed at one time or another to prevent their falling
into the hands of the enemy. More vessels were built later, and a few
were bought in Europe; but among them all there were no line-of-battle
ships, and even for frigates they were not very large or strong. But
they were the best that the colonies could get; there was not money
enough to build great fleets, and there were not guns enough to arm
them. Few and small as they were, they performed their part, and no
small part it was, in showing the King and the Parliament that the
colonies were thoroughly in earnest in the struggle upon which they had
entered, and that they would spare no labor, and would encounter any
danger, in order to secure their independence.