DEATH OF COMMODORE RODGERS, AND NOTICE OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER.
My idea of the perfect naval commander had been formed from history,
and from the study of such characters as the Von Tromps and De
Ruyters of Holland, the Blakes of England, and the De Tourvilles
of France--men modest and virtuous, frank and sincere, brave and
patriotic, gentle in peace, terrible in war; formed for high
command by nature; and raising themselves to their proper sphere
by their own exertions from low beginnings. When I first saw
Commodore RODGERS, which was after I had reached senatorial age and
station, he recalled to me the idea of those model admirals; and
subsequent acquaintance confirmed the impression then made. He was
to me the complete impersonation of my idea of the perfect naval
commander--person, mind, and manners; with the qualities for command
grafted on the groundwork of a good citizen and good father of a
family; and all lodged in a frame to bespeak the seaman and the
officer.
His very figure and face were those of the naval hero--such as we
conceive from naval songs and ballads; and, from the course of life
which the sea officer leads--exposed to the double peril of waves
and war, and contending with the storms of the elements as well as
with the storm of battle. We associate the idea of bodily power with
such a life; and when we find them united--the heroic qualities in
a frame of powerful muscular development--we experience a gratified
feeling of completeness, which fulfils a natural expectation, and
leaves nothing to be desired. And when the same great qualities are
found, as they often are, in the man of slight and slender frame, it
requires some effort of reason to conquer a feeling of surprise at a
combination which is a contrast, and which presents so much power in
a frame so little promising it; and hence all poets and orators, all
painters and sculptors, all the dealers in imaginary perfections,
give a corresponding figure of strength and force to the heroes they
create.
Commodore Rodgers needed no help from the creative imagination
to endow him with the form which naval heroism might require. His
person was of the middle height, stout, square, solid, compact;
well-proportioned; and combining in the perfect degree the idea of
strength and endurance with the reality of manly comeliness--the
statue of Mars, in the rough state, before the conscious chisel had
lent the last polish. His face, stern in the outline, was relieved
by a gentle and benign expression--grave with the overshadowing of
an ample and capacious forehead and eyebrows. Courage need not be
named among the qualities of Americans; the question would be to
find one without it. His skill, enterprise, promptitude and talent
for command, were shown in the war of 1812 with Great Britain; in
the _quasi_ war of 1799 with the French Republic--_quasi_ only as it
concerned political relations, real as it concerned desperate and
brilliant combats at sea; and in the Mediterranean wars with the
Barbary States, when those States were formidable in that sea and
held Europe under tribute; and which tribute from the United States
was relinquished by Tripoli and Tunis at the end of the war with
these States--Commodore Rodgers commanding at the time as successor
to Barron and Preble. It was at the end of this war, 1804, so
valiantly conducted and so triumphantly concluded, that the reigning
Pope, Pius the Seventh, publicly declared that America had done more
for Christendom against the Barbary States, than all the powers of
Europe combined.
He was first lieutenant on the Constellation when that frigate,
under Truxton, vanquished and captured the French frigate Insurgent;
and great as his merit was in the action, where he showed himself to
be the proper second to an able commander, it was greater in what
took place after it; and in which steadiness, firmness, humanity,
vigilance, endurance, and seamanship, were carried to their highest
pitch; and in all which his honors were shared by the then stripling
midshipman, afterwards the brilliant Commodore Porter.
The Insurgent having struck, and part of her crew been transferred
to the Constellation, Lieut. Rodgers and Midshipman Porter were
on board the prize, superintending the transfer, when a tempest
arose--the ships parted--and dark night came on. There were still
one hundred and seventy-three French prisoners on board. The
two young officers had but eleven men--thirteen in all--to guard
thirteen times their number; and work a crippled frigate at the
same time, and get her into port. And nobly did they do it. For
three days and nights did these thirteen (though fresh from a bloody
conflict which strained every faculty and brought demands for rest),
without sleep or repose, armed to the teeth, watching with eye and
ear, stand to the arduous duty--sailing their ship, restraining
their prisoners, solacing the wounded--ready to kill, and hurting
no one. They did not sail at random, or for the nearest port; but,
faithful to the orders of their commander, given under different
circumstances, steered for St. Kitts, in the West Indies--arrived
there safely--and were received with triumph and admiration.
Such an exploit equalled any fame that could be gained in battle;
for it brought into requisition all the qualities for command which
high command requires; and foreshadowed the future eminence of these
two young officers. What firmness, steadiness, vigilance, endurance,
and courage--far above that which the battle-field requires! and one
of these young officers, a slight and slender lad, as frail to the
look as the other was powerful; and yet each acting his part with
the same heroic steadiness and perseverance, coolness and humanity!
They had no irons to secure a single man. The one hundred and
seventy-three French were loose in the lower hold, a sentinel only
at each gangway; and vigilance, and readiness to use their arms,
the only resource of the little crew. If history has a parallel to
this deed I have not seen it; and to value it in all its extent,
it must be remembered that these prisoners were Frenchmen--their
inherent courage exalted by the frenzy of the revolution--themselves
fresh from a murderous conflict--the decks of the ship still red
and slippery with the blood of their comrades; and they with a
right, both legal and moral, to recover their liberty if they could.
These three days and nights, still more than the victory which
preceded them, earned for Rodgers the captaincy, and for Porter the
lieutenancy, with which they were soon respectively honored.
American cruisers had gained credit in the war of the Revolution,
and in the _quasi_ war with the French Republic; and American
squadrons had bearded the Barbary Powers in their dens, after
chasing their piratical vessels from the seas: but a war with Great
Britain, with her one thousand and sixty vessels of war on her naval
list, and above seven hundred of these for service, her fleets
swelled with the ships of all nations, exalted with the idea of
invincibility, and one hundred and twenty guns on the decks of her
first-class men-of-war--any naval contest with such a power, with
seventeen vessels for the sea, ranging from twelve to forty-four
guns (which was the totality which the American naval register could
then show), seemed an insanity. And insanity it would have been with
even twenty times as many vessels, and double their number of guns,
if naval battles with rival fleets had been intended. Fortunately
we had naval officers at that time who understood the virtue of
cruising, and believed they could do what Paul Jones and others had
done during the war of the Revolution.
Political men believed nothing could be done at sea but to lose
the few vessels which we had; that even cruising was out of the
question. Of our seventeen vessels, the whole were in port but one;
and it was determined to keep them there, and the one at sea with
them, if it had the luck to get in. I am under no obligation to
make the admission, but I am free to acknowledge, that I was one of
those who supposed that there was no salvation for our seventeen
men-of-war but to run them as far up the creek as possible, place
them under the guns of batteries, and collect camps of militia about
them, to keep off the British. This was the policy at the day of the
declaration of the war; and I have the less concern to admit myself
to have been participator in the delusion, because I claim the merit
of having profited from experience--happy if I could transmit the
lesson to posterity. Two officers came to Washington--Bainbridge
and Stewart. They spoke with Mr. Madison, and urged the feasibility
of cruising. One-half of the whole number of the British men-of-war
were under the class of frigates, consequently no more than matches
for some of our seventeen; the whole of her merchant marine (many
thousands) were subject to capture. Here was a rich field for
cruising; and the two officers, for themselves and brothers, boldly
proposed to enter it.
Mr. Madison had seen the efficiency of cruising and privateering,
even against Great Britain, and in our then infantile condition,
during the war of the Revolution; and besides was a man of sense,
and amenable to judgment and reason. He listened to the two
experienced and valiant officers; and, without consulting Congress,
which perhaps would have been a fatal consultation (for multitude of
counsellors is not the council for _bold_ decision), reversed the
policy which had been resolved upon; and, in his supreme character
of constitutional commander of the army and navy, ordered every ship
that could cruise to get to sea as soon as possible. This I had from
Mr. Monroe, and it is due to Mr. Madison to tell it, who, without
pretending to a military character, had the merit of sanctioning
this most vital war measure.
Commodore Rodgers was then in New York, in command of the President
(44), intended for a part of the harbor defence of that city. Within
one hour after he had received his cruising orders, he was under
way. This was the 21st of June. That night he got information of the
Jamaica fleet (merchantmen), homeward bound; and crowded all sail
in the direction they had gone, following the Gulf Stream towards
the east of Newfoundland. While on this track, on the 23d, a British
frigate was perceived far to the northeast, and getting further off.
It was a nobler object than a fleet of merchantmen, and chase was
immediately given her, and she gained upon; but not fast enough to
get alongside before night.
It was four o'clock in the evening, and the enemy in range of the
bow-chasers. Commodore Rodgers determined to cripple her, and
diminish her speed; and so come up with her. He pointed the first
gun himself, and pointed it well. The shot struck the frigate in
her rudder coat, drove through her stern frame, and passed into
the gun-room. It was the first gun fired during the war; and was
no waste of ammunition. Second Lieutenant Gamble, commander of the
battery, pointed and discharged the second--hitting and damaging
one of the enemy's stern chasers. Commodore Rodgers fired the
third--hitting the stern again, and killing and wounding six men.
Mr. Gamble fired again. The gun bursted! killing and wounding
sixteen of her own men, blowing up the Commodore--who fell with a
broken leg upon the deck. The pause in working the guns on that
side, occasioned by this accident, enabled the enemy to bring some
stern guns to bear, and to lighten his vessel to increase her speed.
He cut away his anchors, stove and threw overboard his boats, and
started fourteen tons of water. Thus lightened, he escaped. It was
the Belvidera, 36 guns, Captain Byron. The President would have
taken her with all ease if she had got alongside; and of that the
English captain showed himself duly, and excusably sensible.
The frigate having escaped, the Commodore, regardless of his broken
leg, hauled up to its course in pursuit of the Jamaica fleet, and
soon got information that it consisted of eighty-five sail, and was
under convoy of four men-of-war; one of them a two-decker, another
a frigate; and that he was on its track. Passing Newfoundland
and finding the sea well sprinkled with the signs of West India
fruit--orange peels, cocoanut shells, pine-apple rinds, &c.--the
Commodore knew himself to be in the wake of the fleet, and made
every exertion to come up with it before it could reach the chops of
the channel: but in vain. When almost in sight of the English coast,
and no glimpse obtained of the fleet, he was compelled to tack, run
south: and, after an extended cruise, return to the United States.
The Commodore had missed the two great objects of his ambition--the
fleet and the frigate; but the cruise was not barren either
in material or moral results. Seven British merchantmen were
captured--one American recaptured--the English coast had been
approached. With impunity an American frigate--one of those
insultingly styled "fir-built, with a bit of striped bunting at her
mast-head,"--had almost looked into that narrow channel which is
considered the sanctum of a British ship. An alarm had been spread,
and a squadron of seven men-of-war (four of them frigates and one a
sixty-four gun ship) were assembled to capture him; one of them the
Belvidera, which had escaped at the bursting of the President's gun,
and spread the news of her being at sea.
It was a great honor to Commodore Rodgers to send such a squadron
to look after him; and became still greater to Captain Hull, in
the Constitution, who escaped from it after having been almost
surrounded by it. It was evening when this captain began to fall
in with that squadron, and at daylight found himself almost
encompassed by it--three ahead and four astern. Then began that
chase which continued seventy-two hours, in which seven pursued
one, and seemed often on the point of closing on their prize; in
which every means of progress, from reefed topsails to kedging and
towing, was put into requisition by either party--the one to escape,
the other to overtake; in which the stern-chasers of one were
often replying to the bow-chasers of the other; and the greatest
precision of manoeuvring required to avoid falling under the
guns of some while avoiding those of others; and which ended with
putting an escape on a level with a great victory. Captain Hull
brought his vessel safe into port, and without the sacrifice of her
equipment--not an anchor having been cut away, boat stove, or gun
thrown overboard to gain speed by lightening the vessel. It was
a brilliant result, with all the moral effects of victory, and a
splendid vindication of the policy of cruising--showing that we had
seamanship to escape the force which we could not fight.
Commodore Rodgers made another extended cruise during this war, a
circuit of eight thousand miles, traversing the high seas, coasting
the shores of both continents, searching wherever the cruisers
or merchantmen of the enemy were expected to be found; capturing
what was within his means, avoiding the rest. A British government
packet, with nearly $300,000 in specie, was taken; many merchantmen
were taken; and, though an opportunity did not offer to engage a
frigate of equal or nearly equal force, and to gain one of those
electrifying victories for which our cruisers were so remarkable,
yet the moral effect was great--demonstrating the ample capacity
of an American frigate to go where she pleased in spite of the
"thousand ships of war" of the assumed mistress of the seas;
carrying damage and alarm to the foe, and avoiding misfortune to
itself.
At the attempt of the British upon Baltimore Commodore Rodgers was
in command of the maritime defences of that city, and, having no
means of contending with the British fleet in the bay, he assembled
all the seamen of the ships-of-war and of the flotilla, and entered
judiciously into the combinations for the land defence.
Humane feeling was a characteristic of this brave officer, and
was verified in all the relations of his life, and in his constant
conduct. Standing on the bank of the Susquehanna river, at Havre
de Grace, one cold winter day, the river flooded and filled with
floating ice, he saw (with others), at a long distance, a living
object--discerned to be a human being--carried down the stream. He
ventured in, against all remonstrance, and brought the object safe
to shore. It was a colored woman--to him a human being, doomed to
a frightful death unless relieved; and heroically relieved at the
peril of his own life. He was humane in battle. That was shown in
the affair of the Little Belt--chased, hailed, fought (the year
before the war), and compelled to answer the hail, and tell who she
was, with expense of blood, and largely; but still the smallest
possible quantity that would accomplish the purpose. The encounter
took place in the night, and because the British captain would
not answer the American hail. Judging from the inferiority of her
fire that he was engaged with an unequal antagonist, the American
Commodore suspended his own fire, while still receiving broadsides
from his arrogant little adversary; and only resumed it when
indispensable to his own safety, and the enforcement of the question
which he had put. An answer was obtained after thirty-one had been
killed or wounded on board the British vessel; and this at six
leagues from the American coast: and, the doctrine of no right to
stop a vessel on the high seas to ascertain her character not having
been then invented, no political consequence followed this bloody
enforcement of maritime police--exasperated against each other as
the two nations were at the time.
At the death of Decatur, killed in that lamentable duel, I have
heard Mr. Randolph tell, and he alone could tell it, of the agony of
Rodgers as he stood over his dying friend, in bodily contention with
his own grief--convulsed within, calm without; and keeping down the
struggling anguish of the soul by dint of muscular power.
That feeling heart was doomed to suffer a great agony in the
untimely death of a heroic son, emulating the generous devotion
of the father, and perishing in the waves, in vain efforts to
save comrades more exhausted than himself; and to whom he nobly
relinquished the means of his own safety. It was spared another
grief of a kindred nature (not having lived to see it), in the
death of another heroic son, lost in the sloop-of-war Albany, in one
of those calamitous founderings at sea in which the mystery of an
unseen fate deepens the shades of death, and darkens the depths of
sorrow--leaving the hearts of far distant friends a prey to a long
agony of hope and fear--only to be solved in an agony still deeper.
Commodore Rodgers died at the head of the American navy, without
having seen the rank of Admiral established in our naval service,
for which I voted when senator, and hoped to have seen conferred on
him, and on others who have done so much to exalt the name of their
country; and which rank I deem essential to the good of the service,
even in the cruising system I deem alone suitable to us.