THE NAVY ON BLUE WATER
It has pleased the American mind to regard the War of 1812 as a maritime
conflict. This is natural enough, for the issue was the freedom of the
sea, and the achievements of Yankee ships and sailors stood out in
brilliant relief against the somber background of the inefficiency of
the army. The offensive was thought to be properly a matter for the land
forces, which had vastly superior advantages against Canada, while the
navy was compelled to act on the defensive against overwhelming odds.
The truth is that the navy did amazingly well, though it could not
prevent the enemy's squadrons from blockading American ports or raiding
the coasts at will. A few single ship actions could not vitally
influence the course of the war; but they served to create an
imperishable renown for the flag and the service, and to deal a
staggering blow to the pride and prestige of an enemy whose ancient
boast it was that Britannia ruled the waves.
The amazing thing is that the navy was able to accomplish anything at
all, neglected and almost despised as it was by the same opinion which
had suffered the army system to become a melancholy jest. During the
decade in which Great Britain captured hundreds of American merchant
ships in time of peace and impressed more than six thousand American
seamen, the United States built two sloops-of-war of eighteen guns and
allowed three of her dozen frigates to hasten to decay at their mooring
buoys. Officers in the service were underpaid and shamefully treated by
the Government. Captain Bainbridge, an officer of distinction, asked for
leave that he might earn money to support himself, giving as a reason:
"I have hitherto refused such offers on the presumption that my country
would require my services. That presumption is removed, and even doubts
entertained of the permanency of the naval establishment."
But, though Congress refused to build more frigates or to formulate a
programme for guarding American shores and commerce, the tiny navy kept
alive the spark of duty and readiness, while the nation drifted
inevitably towards war. There was no scarcity of capable seamen, for
the merchant marine was an admirable training-school. In those far-off
days the technique of seafaring and sea fighting was comparatively
simple. The merchant seaman could find his way about a frigate, for in
rigging, handling, and navigation the ships were very much alike. And
the American seamen of 1812 were in fighting mood; they had been whetted
by provocation to a keen edge for war. They understood the meaning of
"Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," if the landsmen did not. There were
strapping sailors in every deep-water port to follow the fife and drum
of the recruiting squad. The militia might quibble about "rights," but
all the sailors asked was the weather gage of a British man-of-war. They
had no patience with such spokesmen as Josiah Quincy, who said that
Massachusetts would not go to war to contest the right of Great Britain
to search American vessels for British seamen. They had neither
forgotten nor forgiven the mortal affront of 1807, when their frigate
_Chesapeake_, flying the broad pennant of Commodore James Barron,
refused to let the British _Leopard_ board and search her, and was fired
into without warning and reduced to submission, after twenty-one of the
American crew had been killed or wounded.
That shameful episode was in keeping with the attitude of the British
navy toward the armed ships of the United States, "a few fir-built
things with bits of striped bunting at their mast-heads," as George
Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, described them.
Long before the declaration of war British squadrons hovered off the
port of New York to ransack merchant vessels or to seize them as prizes.
In the course of the Napoleonic wars England had met and destroyed the
navies of all her enemies in Europe. The battles of Copenhagen, the
Nile, Trafalgar, and a hundred lesser fights had thundered to the world
the existence of an unconquerable sea power.
Insignificant as it was, the American naval service boasted a history
and a high morale. Its ships had been active. The younger officers
served with seniors who had sailed and fought with Biddle and Barney and
Paul Jones in the Revolution. Many of them had won promotions for
gallantry in hand-to-hand combats in boarding parties, for following the
bold Stephen Decatur in 1804 when he cut out and set fire to the
_Philadelphia_, which had fallen into the hands of pirates at Tripoli,
and helping Thomas Truxtun in 1799-1800 when the _Constellation_ whipped
the Frenchmen, _L'Insurgente_ and _La Vengeance_. In wardroom or
steerage almost every man could tell of engagements in which he had
behaved with credit. Trained in the school of hard knocks, the sailor
knew the value of discipline and gunnery, of the smart ship and the
willing crew, while on land the soldier rusted and lost his zeal.
The bluejackets were volunteers, not impressed men condemned to brutal
servitude, and they had fought to save their skins in merchant vessels
which made their voyages, in peril of privateer, pirate, and picaroon,
from the Caribbean to the China Sea. The American merchant marine was at
the zenith of its enterprise and daring, attracting the pick and flower
of young manhood, and it offered incomparable material for the naval
service and the fleets of swift privateers which swarmed out to harry
England's commerce.[2]
[Footnote 2: For an account of the privateers of 1812, see _The Old
Merchant Marine_, by Ralph D. Paine (in _The Chronicles of America_).]
The American frigates which humbled the haughty Mistress of the Seas
beyond all precedent were superior in speed and hitting power to
anything of their class afloat. It detracts not at all from the glory
they won to remember that in every instance they were larger and of
better design and armament than the British frigates which they shot to
pieces with such methodical accuracy.
When war was declared, the American Government was not quite clear as to
what should be done with the navy. In New York harbor was a squadron of
five ships under Commodore John Rodgers, including two of the heavier
frigates or forty-fours, the _President_ and the _United States_.
Rodgers had also the lighter frigate _Congress_, the brig _Argus_, and
the sloop _Hornet_. His orders were to look for British cruisers which
were annoying commerce off Sandy Hook, chase them away, and then return
to port for "further more extensive and particular orders." One hour
after receiving these instructions the eager Rodgers put out to sea,
with Captain Stephen Decatur as a squadron commander. The quarry was the
frigate _Belvidera_, the most offensive of the British blockading force.
This warship was sighted by the _President_ and overtaken within
forty-eight hours. An unlucky accident then occurred. Instead of running
alongside, the _President_ began firing at a distance and was hulling
the enemy's stern when a gun on the forecastle burst, and killed or
wounded sixteen American sailors. Commodore Rodgers was picked up with a
broken leg. Meanwhile the _Belvidera_ cast overboard her boats and
anchors, emptied the fresh water barrels to better her sailing trim,
and, crowding on every stitch of canvas, drew away and was lost to view.
Rodgers then forgot his orders to return to New York and went off in
search of the great convoy of British merchant vessels homeward bound
from Jamaica, which was called the plate fleet. He sailed as far as the
English Channel before quitting the chase and then cruised back to
Boston.
Meanwhile Captain Isaac Hull of the _Constitution_ had taken on a crew
and stores at Annapolis and was bound up the coast to New York. Hull's
luck appeared to be no better than Rodgers's. Off Barnegat he sailed
almost into a strong British squadron, which had been sent from Halifax.
The escape from this grave predicament was an exploit of seamanship
which is among the treasured memories of the service. It was the
beginning of the career of the _Constitution_, whose name is still the
most illustrious on the American naval list and whose commanders, Hull
and Bainbridge, are numbered among the great captains. It is a privilege
to behold today, in the Boston Navy Yard, this gallant frigate preserved
as a heritage, her tall masts and graceful yards soaring above the grim,
gray citadels that we call battleships. True it is that a single modern
shell would destroy this obsolete, archaic frigate which once swept the
seas like a meteor, but the very image of her is still potent to thrill
the hearts and animate the courage of an American seaman.
On that luckless July morning, at break of day, off the New Jersey
coast, it seemed as though the _Constitution_ would be flying British
colors ere she had a chance to fight. On her leeward side stood two
English frigates, the _Guerrière_ and the _Belvidera_, with the
_Shannon_ only five miles astern, and the rest of the hostile fleet
lifting topsails above the southern horizon.
Not a breath of wind stirred. Captain Hull called away his boats, and
the sailors tugged at the oars, towing the _Constitution_ very slowly
ahead. Captain Broke of the _Shannon_ promptly followed suit and
signaled for all the boats of the squadron. In a long column they
trailed at the end of the hawser; and the _Shannon_ crept closer.
Catspaws of wind ruffled the water, and first one ship and then the
other gained a few hundred yards as upper tiers of canvas caught the
faint impulse. The _Shannon_ was a crack ship, and there was no better
crew in the British navy, as Lawrence of the _Chesapeake_ afterwards
learned to his mortal sorrow. Gradually the _Shannon_ cut down the
intervening distance until she could make use of her bow guns.
At this Captain Hull resolved to try kedging his ship along, sending a
boat half a mile ahead with a light anchor and all the spare rope on
board. The crew walked the capstan round and hauled the ship up to the
anchor, which they then lifted, carried ahead, and dropped again. The
_Constitution_ kept two kedges going all through that summer day, but
the _Shannon_ was playing the same game, and the two ships maintained
their relative positions. They shot at each other at such long range
that no damage was done. Before dusk the _Guerrière_ caught a slant of
breeze and worked nearer enough to bang away at the _Constitution_,
which was, indeed, between the devil and the deep sea.
Night came on. The sailors, British and American, toiled until they
dropped in their tracks, pulling at the kedge anchors and hawsers or
bending to the sweeps of the cutters which towed at intervals and were
exposed to the spatter of shot. It seemed impossible that the
_Constitution_ could slip clear of this pack of able frigates which
trailed her like hounds. Toward midnight the fickle breeze awoke and
wafted the ships along under studding sails and all the light cloths
that were wont to arch skyward. For two hours the men slept on deck
like logs while those on watch grunted at the pump-brakes and the hose
wetted the canvas to make it draw better.
The breeze failed, however, and through the rest of the night it was
kedge and tow again, the _Shannon_ and the _Guerrière_ hanging on
doggedly, confident of taking their quarry. Another day dawned, hot and
windless, and the situation was unchanged. Other British ships had
crawled or drifted nearer, but the _Constitution_ was always just beyond
range of their heavy guns. We may imagine Isaac Hull striding across the
poop and back again, ruddy, solid, composed, wearing a cocked hat and a
gold-laced coat, lifting an eye aloft, or squinting through his brass
telescope, while he damned the enemy in the hearty language of the sea.
He was a nephew of General William Hull, but it would have been unfair
to remind him of it.
Near sunset of the second day of this unique test of seamanship and
endurance, a rain squall swept toward the _Constitution_ and obscured
the ocean. Just before the violent gust struck the ship her seamen
scampered aloft and took in the upper sails. This was all that safety
required, but, seeing a chance to trick the enemy, Hull ordered the
lower sails double-reefed as though caught in a gale of wind. The
British ships hastily imitated him before they should be overtaken in
like manner and veered away from the chase. Veiled in the rain and dusk,
the _Constitution_ set all sail again and foamed at twelve knots on her
course toward a port of refuge. Though two of the British frigates were
in sight next morning, the _Constitution_ left them far astern and
reached Boston safely.
Seafaring New England was quick to recognize the merit of this escape.
Even the Federalists, who opposed and hampered the war by land, were
enthusiastic in praise of Captain Hull and his ship. They had outsailed
and outwitted the best of the British men-of-war on the American coast,
and a general feeling of hopelessness gave way to an ardent desire to
try anew the ordeal of battle. With this spirit firing his officers and
crew, Hull sailed again a few days later on a solitary cruise to the
eastward with the intention of vexing the enemy's merchant trade and
hopeful of finding a frigate willing to engage him in a duel. From
Newfoundland he cruised south until a Salem privateer spoke him on the
18th of August and reported a British warship close by. The
_Constitution_ searched until the afternoon of the next day and then
sighted her old friend, the _Guerrière_.
To retell the story of their fight in all the vanished sea lingo of that
day would bewilder the land-man and prove tedious to those familiar with
the subject. The boatswains piped the call, "all hands clear ship for
action"; the fife and drum beat to quarters; and four hundred men stood
by the tackles of the muzzle-loading guns with their clumsy wooden
carriages, or climbed into the tops to use their muskets or trim sail.
Decks were sanded to prevent slipping when blood flowed. Boys ran about
stacking the sacks of powder or distributing buckets of pistols ready
for the boarding parties. And against the masts the cutlasses and pikes
stood ready.
Captain John Dacres of the ill-fated _Guerrière_ was an English
gentleman as well as a gallant officer. But he did not know his
antagonist. Like his comrades of the service he had failed to grasp the
fact that the _Constitution_ and the other American frigates of her
class were the most formidable craft afloat, barring ships of the line,
and that they were to revolutionize the design of war-vessels for half a
century thereafter. They were frigates, or cruisers, in that they
carried guns on two decks, but the main battery of long
twenty-four-pound guns was an innovation, and the timbers and planking
were stouter than had ever been built into ships of the kind. So stout,
indeed, were the sides that shot rebounded from them more than once and
thus gave the _Constitution_ the affectionate nickname of "Old
Ironsides."
Sublimely indifferent to these odds, Captain Dacres had already sent a
challenge, with his compliments, to Commodore Rodgers of the United
States frigate _President_, saying that he would be very happy to meet
him or any other American frigate of equal force, off Sandy Hook, "for
the purpose of having a few minutes' tête-à-tête." It was therefore with
the utmost willingness that the _Constitution_ and the _Guerrière_
hoisted their battle ensigns and approached each other warily for an
hour while they played at long bowls, as was the custom, each hoping to
disable the other's spars or rigging and so gain the advantage of
movement. Finding this sort of action inconclusive, however, Hull set
more sail and ran down to argue it with broadsides, coolly biding his
time, although Morris, his lieutenant, came running up again and again
to beg him to begin firing. Men were being killed beside their guns as
they stood ready to jerk the lock strings. The two ships were abreast
of each other and no more than a few yards apart before the
_Constitution_ returned the cannonade that thundered from every gun port
of her adversary.
Within ten minutes the _Guerrière's_ mizzenmast was knocked over the
side and her hull was shattered by the accurate fire of the Yankee
gunners, who were trained to shoot on the downward roll of their ship
and so smash below the water line. Almost unhurt, the _Constitution_
moved ahead and fearfully raked the enemy's deck before the ships fouled
each other. They drifted apart before the boarders could undertake their
bloody business, and then the remaining masts of the British frigate
toppled overside and she was a helpless wreck. Seventy-nine of her crew
were dead or wounded and the ship was sinking beneath their feet.
Captain Isaac Hull could truthfully report: "In less than thirty minutes
from the time we got alongside of the enemy she was left without a spar
standing, and the hull cut to pieces in such a manner as to make it
difficult to keep her above water."
Captain Dacres struck his flag, and the American sailors who went aboard
found the guns dismounted, the dead and dying scattered amid a wild
tangle of spars and rigging, and great holes blown through the sides
and decks. The _Constitution_ had suffered such trifling injury that she
was fit and ready for action a few hours later. Of her crew only seven
men were killed and the same number hurt. She was the larger ship, and
the odds in her favor were as ten to seven, reckoned in men and guns,
for which reasons Captain Hull ought to have won. The significance of
his victory was that at every point he had excelled a British frigate
and had literally blown her out of the water. His crew had been together
only five weeks and could fairly be called green while the _Guerrière_,
although short-handed, had a complement of veteran tars. The British
navy had never hesitated to engage hostile men-of-war of superior force
and had usually beaten them. Of two hundred fights between single ships,
against French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Danish, and Dutch, the
English had lost only five. The belief of Captain Dacres that he could
beat the _Constitution_ was therefore neither rash nor ill-founded.
The English captain had ten Americans in his crew, but he would not
compel them to fight against their countrymen and sent them below,
although he sorely needed every man who could haul at a gun-tackle or
lay out on a yard. Wounded though he was and heartbroken by the
disaster, his chivalry was faultless, and he took pains to report: "I
feel it my duty to state that the conduct of Captain Hull and his
officers toward our men has been that of a brave and generous enemy, the
greatest care being taken to prevent our men losing the smallest trifle
and the greatest attention being paid to the wounded."
When the Englishman was climbing up the side of the _Constitution_ as a
prisoner, Isaac Hull ran to help him, exclaiming, "Give me your hand,
Dacres. I know you are hurt." No wonder that these two captains became
fast friends. It is because sea warfare abounds in such manly incidents
as these that the modern naval code of Germany, as exemplified in the
acts of her submarine commanders, was so peculiarly barbarous and
repellent.
On board the _Guerrière_ was Captain William B. Orne, of the Salem
merchant brig _Betsy_, which had been taken as a prize. His story of the
combat is not widely known and seems worth quoting in part:
At two P.M. we discovered a large sail to windward bearing about
north from us. We soon made her out to be a frigate. She was
steering off from the wind, with her head to the southwest,
evidently with the intention of cutting us off as soon as possible.
Signals were soon made by the _Guerrière_, but as they were not
answered the conclusion was, of course, that she was either a
French or American frigate. Captain Dacres appeared anxious to
ascertain her character and after looking at her for that purpose,
handed me his spyglass, requesting me to give him my opinion of the
stranger. I soon saw from the peculiarity of her sails and from her
general appearance that she was, without doubt, an American
frigate, and communicated the same to Captain Dacres. He
immediately replied that he thought she came down too boldly for an
American, but soon after added, "The better he behaves, the more
honor we shall gain by taking him."
When the strange frigate came down to within two or three miles'
distance, he hauled upon the wind, took in all his light sails,
reefed his topsails, and deliberately prepared for action. It was
now about five o'clock in the afternoon when he filled away and ran
down for the _Guerrière_. At this moment Captain Dacres politely
said to me: "Captain Orne, as I suppose you do not wish to fight
against your own countrymen, you are at liberty to go below the
water-line." It was not long after this before I retired from the
quarter-deck to the cock-pit; of course I saw no more of the action
until the firing ceased, but I heard and felt much of its effects;
for soon after I left the deck the firing commenced on board the
_Guerrière_, and was kept up almost incessantly until about six
o'clock when I heard a tremendous explosion from the opposing
frigate. The effect of her shot seemed to make the _Guerrière_ reel
and tremble as though she had received the shock of an earthquake.
Immediately after this, I heard a tremendous crash on deck and was
told that the mizzen-mast was shot away. In a few moments
afterward, the cock-pit was filled with wounded men. After the
firing had ceased I went on deck and there beheld a scene which it
would be difficult to describe: all the _Guerrière's_ masts were
shot away and, as she had no sails to steady her, she lay rolling
like a log in the trough of the sea. Many of the men were employed
in throwing the dead overboard. The decks had the appearance of a
butcher's slaughter-house; the gun tackles were not made fast and
several of the guns got loose and were surging from one side to the
other.
Some of the petty officers and seamen, after the action, got liquor
and were intoxicated; and what with the groans of the wounded, the
noise and confusion of the enraged survivors of the ill-fated ship
rendered the whole scene a perfect hell.
Setting the hulk of the _Guerrière_ on fire, Captain Hull sailed for
Boston with the captured crew. The tidings he bore were enough to amaze
an American people which expected nothing of its navy, which allowed its
merchant ships to rot at the wharves, and which regarded the operations
of its armies with the gloomiest forebodings. New England went wild with
joy over a victory so peculiarly its own. Captain Hull and his officers
were paraded up State Street to a banquet at Faneuil Hall while cheering
thousands lined the sidewalks. A few days earlier had come the news of
the surrender of Detroit, but the gloom was now dispelled. Americans
could fight, after all. Popular toasts of the day were:
OUR INFANT NAVY--_We must nurture the young Hercules in his cradle, if
we mean to profit by the labors of his manhood._
THE VICTORY WE CELEBRATE--_An invaluable proof that we are able to
defend our rights on the ocean._
Handbills spread the news through the country, and artillery salutes
proclaimed it from Carolina to the Wabash. Congress voted fifty thousand
dollars as prize money to the heroes of the _Constitution_ and medals to
her officers. The people of New York gave them swords, and Captain Hull
and Lieutenant Morris received pieces of plate from the patriots of
Philadelphia. Federalists laid aside for the moment their opposition to
the war and proclaimed that their party had founded and supported the
navy. The moral effect of the victory was out of all proportion to its
strategic importance. It was like sunshine breaking through a fog. Such
rejoicing had been unknown, even in the decisive moments of the War of
the Revolution. It served to show how deep-seated had been the American
conviction that Britain's mastery of the sea was like a spell which
could not be broken.
[Illustration: _COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR_
Painting by Thomas Sully, 1811. In the Comptroller's Office, owned by
the City of New York.]
[Illustration: _"CONSTITUTION" AND "GUERRIÈRE"_
An old print, illustrating the moment in the action at which the
mainmast of the _Guerrière_, 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 _Constitution_; note
the broken spanker gaff and the shot holes in her topsails.]