We leaned over the rail of the _Hamburg_, Colonel Roosevelt and I, and
watched the olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea. Houses
white as chalk began to peep from among the orange groves; what looked
at first sight to be a yellow snake turned into a winding road; then we
rounded a headland, and the U-shaped harbor, edged by a sleepy town and
commanded by a crumbling fortress, lay before us. "In there," said the
ex-President, pointing eagerly as our anchor rumbled down, "was waged
one of the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one of the least
known; in there lies the wreck of the _General Armstrong_, the privateer
that stood off twenty times her strength in British men and guns, and
thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is a story that should make
the thrills of patriotism run up and down the back of every
right-thinking American."
* * * * *
Everything about her, from the carved and gilded figure-head, past the
rakish, slanting masts to the slender stern, indicated the privateer.
As she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in the afternoon of
September 26, 1814, black-hulled and white-sparred, carrying an amazing
spread of snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a grunt of
approval even from the surly Azorian pilot. Hardly had the
red-white-and-blue ensign showing her nationality fluttered to her peak
before a harbor skiff bearing the American consul, Dabney, shot out from
shore; for these were troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from
the States were few and far between. Rounding her stern, he read, with a
thrill of pride, "_General Armstrong, New York_."
The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth escape. For of all
the two-hundred-odd privateers that put out from American ports at the
outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British commerce, none had won so
high a place in the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled
schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a spread of canvas at which most
skippers would have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled
privateer afloat, and had always been able to show her heels to the
enemy on the rare occasions when the superior range of her seven guns
had failed to pound him into submission. Her list of captures had made
rich men of her owners, and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on
a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to thirteen guineas in the
hundred.
The story of her desperate encounter off the mouth of the Surinam River
with the British sloop of war _Coquette_, with four times her weight in
guns, had fired the popular imagination as had few other events of the
war. Although her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his
thirtieth birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring fighter ever
trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of ninety men--Down-East fishermen,
old man-o'-war's men, Creole privateersmen who had fought under Lafitte,
reckless adventurers of every sort and kind--would have warmed the heart
of bluff old John Paul Jones himself.
Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch reported a sail in the
offing, and Reid and the consul, hurrying on deck, made out the British
brig _Carnation_, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels in her
wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigate _Rota_, and the _Plantagenet_, of
seventy-four. Now, as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor, where a
dead calm prevailed, while the three British ships were fast approaching
before the brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid, who knew the
line which marks foolhardiness from courage, appreciating that the
chances of his being able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of the
harbor before the British squadron arrived to block the entrance were
almost infinitesimal, decided to stay where he was and trust to the
neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed by the assurances
of Consul Dabney that the British would not dare to attack a vessel
lying in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was mistaken, for
throughout the entire duration of the war the British as cynically
disregarded the observance of international law and the rights of
neutrals as though they did not exist.
The _Carnation_, learning the identity of the American vessel from the
pilot, hauled close into the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she
was within pistol-shot of the _General Armstrong_. Instantly a string of
signal-flags fluttered from her mast, and the message was promptly
acknowledged by her approaching consorts, which thereupon proceeded to
stand off and on across the mouth of the harbor, thus barring any chance
of the privateer making her escape. So great was the commotion which
ensued on the _Carnation's_ deck that Reid, becoming suspicious of the
Englishman's good faith, warped his ship under the very guns of the
Portuguese fort.
About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen, Captain Reid saw four
boats slip silently from the shadow of the _Carnation_ and pull toward
him with muffled oars. If anything more were needed to convince him of
their hostile intentions, the moon at that moment appeared from behind a
cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutlasses and musket-barrels in
all four of the approaching boats. As they came within hailing distance
Reid swung himself into the shrouds.
"Boats there!" he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands. "Come no
nearer! For your own safety I warn you!"
At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision, and their
commanders held a whispered consultation. Then, apparently deciding to
take the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer unprepared,
they gave the order: "Give way all!" The oars caught the water together,
and the four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors and marines,
came racing on.
"Let 'em have it, boys!" roared Reid, and at the word a stream of flame
leaped from the dark side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept
the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the crews and sending the
others, crippled and bleeding, back to the shelter of their ship.
By this time the moon had fully risen, and showed the heights
overlooking the harbor to be black with spectators, among whom were the
Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle, either from weakness
or fear, showed no signs of resenting the outrageous breach of
neutrality to which the port had been subjected. Angered and chagrined
at their repulse, the British now threw all caution aside. The
long-boats and gigs of all three ships were lowered, and into them were
crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, and
cutlasses. Reid, seeing that an attack was to be made in force,
proceeded to warp his vessel still closer inshore, mooring her stem and
stern within a few rods of the castle. Moving two of the nine-pounders
across the deck, and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he brought
five guns, in addition to his famous "long tom," to bear on the enemy.
With cannon double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks cleared
for action, the crew of the _General Armstrong_ lay down beside their
guns to await the British attack.
It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of the old Portuguese
cathedral boomed twelve, a dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with
sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons were like so many mirrors
under the rays of the moon, swung around a promontory behind which they
had been forming and, with measured stroke of oars, came sweeping down
upon the lone privateer. The decks of the _General Armstrong_ were black
and silent, but round each gun clustered its crew of half-naked gunners,
and behind the bulwarks knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes
sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close against the butts. Up
and down behind his men paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's
morning.
"Hold your fire until I give the word, boys," he cautioned quietly.
"Wait till they get within range, and then teach 'em better manners."
Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of boats, the oars rising and
falling with the faultless rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's
man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans could make out the
gilt-lettered hat-bands of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and
the brass buttons on the tunics of the marines. A moment more and those
on the _Armstrong's_ deck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather
shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British boarders.
"Now, boys!" roared Captain Reid; "let 'em have it for the honor of the
flag!" and from the side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame and
lead, cannon and musketry crashing in chorus. Never were men taken more
completely by surprise than were those British sailors, for they had
expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of the port, would be
quite unprepared to resist them. But, though the American fire had
caused terrible havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog courage
for which the British sailors were justly famous, they kept indomitably
on. "Give way! Give way all!" screamed the boy-coxswains, and in the
face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering from their
momentary panic, bent grimly to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm
of lead, right up to the side of the privateer, they swept. Six boats
made fast to her quarter and six more to her bow. "Boarders up and
away!" bellowed the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings with
their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank into the faces they
saw above them. The _Armstrong's_ gunners, unable to depress the muzzles
of their guns enough so that they could be brought to bear, lifted the
solid shot and dropped them from the rail into the British boats,
mangling their crews and crashing through their bottoms. From the
shelter of the bulwarks the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired
again, while the negro cook and his assistant played their part in the
defence by pouring kettles of boiling water over the British who were
attempting to scramble up the sides, sending them back into their boats
again scalded and groaning with pain.
There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals of the sea. The
Yankee gunners, some of them gray-haired men who had seen service with
John Paul Jones in the _Bon Homme Richard_, changed from cannon-balls to
grape, and from grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the
British boats drew alongside they were little more than floating
shambles. The dark waters of the harbor were lighted up by spurts of
flame from muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of the Yankee
privateersmen rose above the deep-throated hurrahs of the English
sailors; the air was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants,
the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the incessant trampling of
struggling men upon the decks, the splash of dead and injured falling
overboard, the clash and clang of steel on steel, and all the savage,
overwhelming turmoil of a struggle to the death. Urged on by their
officers' cries of "No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!" the
British division which had attacked the bow hacked its way through the
nettings, and succeeded by sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing
on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants being killed or
disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.
At this critical juncture, when the Americans on the forecastle, their
officers fallen and their guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly
back by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having repulsed the attack
on the _Armstrong's_ quarter, led the after division forward at a run,
the privateersmen, though outnumbered five to one, driving the English
overboard with the resistless fury of their onset. As the British boats,
now laden with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into safety, they
were raked again and again with showers of lead; two of them sank, two
of them were captured by the Americans. Finally, with nearly three
hundred of their men--three-quarters of the cutting-out force--dead or
wounded, the British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly and
painfully out of range. Some of the most brilliant victories the British
navy has ever gained were far less dearly purchased.
At three in the morning Reid received a note from Consul Dabney asking
him to come ashore. He then learned that the governor had sent a letter
to the British commander asking him to desist from further hostilities,
as several buildings in the town had been injured by the British fire
and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To this request Captain Lloyd
had rudely replied that he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to
knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning on board, Reid ordered
the dead and wounded taken ashore, and told the crew to save their
personal belongings.
At daybreak the _Carnation_, being of lighter draught than the other
vessels, stood close in for a third attack, opening on the privateer
with every gun she could bring to bear. But even in those days the fame
of American gunners was as wide as the seas, and so well did the crew of
the _General Armstrong_ uphold their reputation that the _Carnation_ was
compelled to beat a demoralized retreat, with her rigging cut away, her
foremast about to fall, and with several gaping holes between wind and
water. But Reid, appreciating that there was absolutely no chance of
escape, and recognizing that further resistance would entail an
unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by which nothing could be
gained, ordered the crew to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered
such valiant service overboard and to leave the ship. The veteran
gunners, who were as much attached to their great black guns as a
cavalryman is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing
furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks. Then Reid with his own hand
trained the long-tom down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the lanyard
sent a charge of grape crashing through her bottom, from which she at
once began to sink. Ten minutes later, before a British crew could reach
her side, the _General Armstrong_ went to the bottom with her flag still
defiantly flying.
Few battles have been fought in which the odds were so unequal, and in
few battles have the relative losses been so astounding. The three
British war-ships carried two thousand men and one hundred and thirty
guns, and of the four hundred men who composed the boarding party they
lost, according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred killed and
wounded. Of the American crew of ninety men, two were killed and seven
wounded. This little crew of privateersmen had, in other words, put out
of action more than three times their own number of British, and had
added one more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.
The Americans had scarcely gained the shore before Captain Lloyd--who,
by the way, had been so severely wounded in the leg that amputation was
necessary--sent a peremptory message to the governor demanding their
surrender. But the men who could not be taken at sea were not the men to
be captured on land, and the Americans, retreating to the mountainous
centre of the island, took possession of a thick-walled convent, over
which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from which they defied
British and Portuguese alike to come and take them. No one tried.
[Illustration: But even in those days the fame of American gunners was
as wide as the seas.]
All of the following day was spent by the British in burying their one
hundred and twenty dead--you can see the white gravestones to-day if you
will take the trouble to climb the hill behind the little town--but it
took them a week to repair the damage caused by the battle. And so deep
was their chagrin and mortification that when two British ships put into
Fayal a few days later, and were ordered to take home the wounded, they
were forbidden to carry any news of the disaster back to England.
To Captain Reid and his little band of fighters is due in no small
measure the credit of saving New Orleans from capture and Louisiana from
invasion. Lloyd's squadron was a part of the expedition then gathering
at Pensacola for the invasion of the South, but it was so badly crippled
in its encounter with the privateer that it did not reach the Gulf of
Mexico until ten days later than the expedition had planned to sail.
The expedition waited for Lloyd and his reinforcements, so that when it
finally approached New Orleans, Jackson and his frontiersmen, who had
hastened down by forced marches from the North, had made preparations to
give the English a warm reception. Had the expedition arrived ten days
earlier it would have found the Americans unprepared, and New Orleans
would have fallen.
Captain Reid and his men, landing on their native soil at Savannah,
found their journey northward turned into a triumphal progress. The
whole country went wild with enthusiasm. There was not a town or village
on the way but did them honor. The city of Richmond gave Captain Reid a
great banquet, and the State of New York presented him with a sword of
honor. But of all the tributes which were paid to the little band of
heroes, none had the flavor of the concluding line of a letter written
by one of the British officers engaged in the action to a relative in
England. "If this is the way the Americans fight," he wrote, "we may
well say, 'God deliver us from our enemies.'"