TALES OF THE YANKEE CORVETTES
A LITTLE LOP-SIDED FRIGATE REBUILT INTO A SUPERIOR
SLOOP-OF-WAR--OVERLAND (ALMOST) TO ESCAPE THE BLOCKADE--HER LUCK
AS A CRUISER--A MARVELLOUS RACE WITH A BRITISH FRIGATE OVER A
COURSE FOUR HUNDRED MILES LONG--SAVED BY A SQUALL--CORNERED IN
THE PENOBSCOT--THE GALLANT FIGHT OF THE YANKEE CREW AGAINST
OVERWHELMING NUMBERS--BUILDING A NEW NAVY--THE SHORT-LIVED
PORTSMOUTH CORVETTE _FROLIC_--ONE BROADSIDE WAS ENOUGH--CAPTURED
BY THE ENEMY--SWIFT AND DEADLY WORK OF THE CREW OF THE YANKEE
_PEACOCK_ WHEN THEY MET THE _EPERVIER_--DISTINCTLY A LUCKY
SHIP--FATE OF THE _SIREN_ AFTER THE COFFIN FLOATED.
Of the seventeen war-ships, big and little, that were named on the
register of the American Navy when war was declared in 1812, the
_Adams_, rated as a twenty-eight-gun frigate, lay at Washington. It had
been determined to alter this ship into what was known as a corvette.
Readers not trained to a life at sea not infrequently find themselves
puzzled by the terms applied to the old style war-ships, and no term is
quite so annoying as that of corvette, for the reason that it is used
interchangeably with sloop-of-war. The dictionaries do not help one
very much. In a “Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine” printed in 1783,
a corvette is said to be “a general name for sloops-of-war and all
vessels under twenty guns,” but it is manifest, from a consideration
of the size and force of the _Adams_ and other American vessels called
corvettes, that American officers applied the name only to the largest
ships that had one deck of guns only, with neither a poop nor a
forecastle.
[Illustration: United States Razee* _Independence_ at Anchor.
_From the “Kedge Anchor.”_
* A Razee is a line-of-battle ship from which the upper deck has been
cut, leaving her with two decks of guns.]
A most remarkable ship was the _Adams_, for, when let to a contractor
to build, he sublet one side of her to another man who had the
instincts of a thief and of a traitor. The sub-contractor, to increase
his profits, scamped his timbers and his work. The _Adams_ was a
creditable ship on one side and a fraud on the other. It is a pity that
the name of the scoundrel has not been perpetuated in the accounts of
naval matters that have hitherto appeared. When altered at Washington
it was necessary, of course, to follow the old lines and she was still
lopsided, although lengthened until she could carry twenty-eight guns
on the one deck. Her armament in her new fashion included a long twelve
for a bow-chaser and thirteen medium-length eighteen-pounders (called
Columbiads, sometimes) on each side. It was a pretty good armament for
that day, in fact much superior to the ordinary sloop-of-war armament
that was made up of two long twelves and twenty of the wretched short
thirty-twos.
[Illustration: Charles Morris.
_From a photograph owned by Mr. C. B. Hall._]
Captain Charles Morris, who, as the first lieutenant of the
_Constitution_, had first gained fame in her race with the British
fleet, was placed in command of the rebuilt _Adams_, and Lieutenant
Wadsworth, who was second on the _Constitution_ in her great race, was
made first on the _Adams_. There was a strong blockading squadron in
the Chesapeake, but on the night of January 18, 1812, “which came on
cloudy, boisterous, and with frequent snow squalls,” he headed away
for sea. There was a strong northwest wind blowing, and there was not
a beacon-light in the bay. Worse still, while the ship was driving
along at twelve knots an hour, the two men who were engaged as pilots
became confused, and at 11 o’clock at night a light was seen dead ahead
which showed that she was flying straight at the land. Instantly her
helm was shoved down and she came about on the other tack, but a few
minutes later she was thumping over a bar, no one knew where, the heavy
swells lifting her clear only to drop her again on the sand. However,
over she went, and when it was found she did not leak, Morris decided
to send her on her way once more, and at 1 o’clock passed two British
ships at Lynnhaven and got out to sea.
Running across to the coast of Africa the _Adams_ cruised from Cape
Mount to Cape Palmas, then visited the vicinity of the Canaries and the
Cape de Verde Islands. “A few small prizes, laden with palm oil and
ivory” were taken. On March 25th the _Woodbridge_, a large Indiaman,
was overhauled. It was thick weather at the time, and while Captain
Morris was taking possession the weather suddenly cleared, when it
was seen that a fleet of vessels were jogging along to windward under
convoy of two big men-of-war. It took Morris a full day to get clear of
the men-of-war.
Returning across the Atlantic the _Adams_ ran into Savannah on May
1st--the day on which the British _Epervier_, prize to the Yankee
_Peacock_, got in--and remained there till the 8th, when she sailed
for the Gulf Stream in search of the Jamaica fleet. He found it with
a ship-of-the-line, two frigates, and three brigs in charge. At the
sight of the _Adams_ the fleet closed in like a flock of ducks, and
although the Yankee dogged them for two days he got nothing--not even
a chase from the war-ships. So he sailed to the banks of Newfoundland,
where he found only ice and fogs, and so went on to the coast of
Ireland, in sight of which he arrived on July 3d. A few prizes were
made here, but on July 15th “she stumbled across the eighteen-pounder
thirty-six-gun frigate _Tigris_” The _Tigris_ was no mean sailer,
and in the chase that followed the _Adams_ threw overboard all the
guns taken from the ships she had captured, her heaviest anchors, and
finally some of her own guns. Then the wind died out entirely, and that
was good-luck for the _Adams_, for her captain repeated the tactics
employed on the _Constitution_ off the Jersey beach by towing his ship
so far away from the _Tigris_ that a lucky slant of wind carried her
clear out of sight.
A still more remarkable chase followed this one. It began on July 19th,
when two frigates found the _Adams_. The one was fat and slow, the
other as lean and eager as a hound. A half a gale of wind was blowing.
Every thread of canvas was spread, and for forty hours the frigate and
the sloop stretched away across the stormy sea with every sail as round
and firm as the breast of a giant runner; with the weather rigging
singing taut; with every man on deck alert, and with each captain
pacing to and fro without rest, looking at every turn from the sea to
the clouds and from them to his sails and then away to the enemy; with
the cutwater sawing through the solid blue as she rose to the swell,
and burying itself in smother and foam that tumbled and roared away for
half her length ahead as she boiled in the trough of the sea, and the
sissing foam swept aft to mingle with the swirling wake. And that for
forty hours with the frigate just out of gunshot! They covered four
hundred miles with never a loss or a gain on either side, and then
under the shades of night the gale hardened into a squall that hid the
_Adams_ out of sight, when she up helm and swung away so far on another
course that when light came the hound had wholly lost the scent.
On returning westward the crew of the _Adams_ were attacked by the
scurvy. Several died and a considerable number were made unfit for
duty, so Captain Morris headed for Portland, Maine. Off the Maine
coast, while driving along at ten knots an hour through a fog at 4
o’clock on the morning of August 17th, the _Adams_ found land--rock,
to speak accurately. She ran up on a ledge until her bow was six feet
out of water, and when the sun came to clear the fog the crew found
themselves only one hundred yards from a cliff near Mount Desert. The
next tide floated the ship and she continued her course. A little later
the British brig _Rifleman_ was seen and chased, but the strain of the
press of canvas made the _Adams_ leak at the rate of nine feet of water
into her hold per hour, so Captain Morris gave it up and ran into the
Penobscot.
As it happened, the _Rifleman_ was able to carry the news of the
arrival of the _Adams_ to a British fleet, “consisting of two
line-of-battle ships, three frigates, three sloops, and ten troop
transports” which were lying in wait to descend on Machias. Captain
Morris moored his ship at Hampden, twenty-seven miles up the river,
where he intended to heave her down and repair the leaking bottom. When
the British fleet came after him he made such preparations as were
possible to fight. Of his original crew of two hundred and twenty,
seventy had died or had been disabled by the scurvy. The others,
including one hundred and thirty seamen and officers and twenty
marines, many of them sick, were mustered on shore for the fight. Nine
of the lighter guns of the _Adams_ were set up as a battery on the
bluff overlooking the wharf, and these were put in charge of Lieutenant
Wadsworth. Morris himself took charge of the wharf. The crew were
joined by thirty (some say forty) experienced soldiers, and by a force
of militia variously estimated at from three hundred to six hundred
men. Whatever their number, they proved utterly worthless, for they had
never been under fire. Anyway, they were but half armed, and the guns
they had were the inferior fowling-pieces of that day.
On September 3d came the enemy. There was a land force of six hundred
experienced troops, eighty marines, and eighty seamen. There was a
force afloat in boats and barges well-armed that raised the whole
command to 1,500 men. The crew of the _Adams_, stationed on the wharf,
checked the flotilla, in spite of overwhelming numbers, but the
American militia fled without firing a gun when the British land forces
approached them. Captain Morris was left with only his crew and the
thirty regulars to face a force eight times as great. Yet he burned the
ship and made a successful retreat without losing a man save those too
ill with scurvy to march away. The conduct of the Yankee militia was
disgraceful, as it usually was throughout that war; but what shall be
said of the failure of the 1,500 experienced men in the British force
who were unable to hinder the retreat of the Yankee crew?
[Illustration: United States Ship-of-war _Columbus_ at Anchor.
_From the “Kedge Anchor.”_]
As has been noted, when the War of 1812 began, the authorities at
Washington were determined to keep their ships in port. That a Yankee
ship could meet a British ship of equal force or even of somewhat
inferior force and keep her flag afloat seemed impossible. The idea
of building anything except for harbor defence was too ridiculous
for any consideration. But after the first six months of the war had
demonstrated that the capacity and courage of the American personnel
was unsurpassed, the ring of broadaxe and hammer, the rasp of saws,
and the easy crunch of augers began to make melody for patriotic ears
in the yards of the Yankee builders. The frames of ships-of-the-line,
and of frigates and of corvettes, as the big sloops were called, rose
steadily above the keel-blocks. The names that were given to these new
ships showed that the naval authorities of the nation were disposed to
flaunt red flags in the face of Johnnie Bull; they were determined to
keep alive the memory of American victories by perpetuating the names
of the defeated British ships. One frigate was named _Guerrière_ and
another _Java_, while the new sloops were named _Peacock_, _Frolic_,
etc. Not many of the new ships were destined to see service against
the British, for the reason that the war ended before they were fully
ready. Still, three of the sloops got away to sea, and this chapter
shall tell of the fate of one of them and give a part of the brilliant
record made by another.
The first that got to sea was the _Frolic_. She was built at
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, famous for its fine ships in the days of
wood. Under Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge she sailed from the
home port in February and some time later fell in with a Carthagenian
privateer that was cruising for Yankee merchantmen off the southern
coast. The privateer refused to surrender, when called on to do so,
and Bainbridge fired one broadside at her, and that one blast sank
her so quickly that nearly one hundred of her crew were drowned. As
the _Frolic_ carried only ten short thirty-twos in a broadside, it is
certain that every shot struck the privateer below the water-line as
she rolled to the swell. The fact is especially worth mentioning for
the reason that it shows the great advantage of training the crew of a
war-ship to shoot accurately.
The career of the _Frolic_, however, was brief. On April 20, 1814, when
off the extreme south point of Florida, she fell in with the British
thirty-six-gun frigate _Orpheus_, Captain Pigot, and the twelve-gun
schooner _Shelburne_, Lieutenant Hope. The enemy were to leeward, but
both of them were swifter than the _Frolic_. For more than twelve
hours she struggled to windward, cutting away her anchors and throwing
over her guns, but all in vain, for the _Orpheus_ closed on her. The
_Frolic_ had carried twenty short thirty-twos and two long twelves,
while the _Orpheus_ carried sixteen short thirty-twos and twenty-eight
long eighteens. Nevertheless, James, in commenting on the surrender of
the _Frolic_, says:
“We should not have hesitated to call a French, or even a British,
captain, who had acted as Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge, of the
United States Navy, did in this instance, a ----.”
Another of the new corvettes with irritating names was the _Peacock_.
She was built in New York City, and sailed under Master-Commandant
Lewis Warrington, on March 12, 1814, bound south. Her cruise was
without incident until April 28th, when, at 7 o’clock in the morning,
a number of vessels were seen to windward. The _Peacock_ was at this
time not far from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was learned later that
the fleet sighted included two merchantmen under convoy of the British
brig sloop _Epervier_, Captain R. W. Wales, of eighteen guns. They were
bound from Havana for the Bermudas, and the _Epervier_ carried $120,000
in coin.
Because of the result of the battle that followed it is worth
mentioning the fact that the _Peacock_ class of Yankee sloops were
designed with especial reference to the _Epervier_ class of brigs, just
as the _Terrible_ class of cruisers were designed in Great Britain
with a certain Yankee protected cruiser in mind, in these last years of
the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: Lewis Warrington.
_From an engraving by Gimbrede of the painting by Jarvis._]
The _Peacock_ having made chase, the wind suddenly shifted to the
southward, when the merchantmen made all sail to run away and the
_Epervier_ hauled close to the wind on the port tack, and stood toward
the _Peacock_ quite willing for the fight.
[Illustration: Diagram of the PEACOCK-EPERVIER BATTLE.]
The _Peacock_ now had the best of the wind, and when, soon after 10
o’clock, the two ships were approaching each other end on, and had
arrived within gunshot, she was headed off wind a bit in order to
bring her starboard battery to bear on the _Epervier_ and rake her.
But Captain Wales, of the _Epervier_, was not to be caught by any such
move as that. Putting up his helm, he eased off to meet the Yankee,
and then shoving down his helm, he rounded to on the _Peacock’s_ bow
and delivered his starboard broadside, two shots from which struck the
foreyard of the _Peacock_, entirely disabling that very important spar.
The British captain had clearly outmanœuvred the Yankee up to this
time, which was not far from 10.20 A.M.
Captain Warrington fired his starboard broadside as he passed the
_Epervier_, and then ordered his men to load with bar-shot, bundles of
scrap-iron (called langrage), etc., in order to cripple the British
brig aloft, and reduce her to a sailing capacity as bad as his own.
While the Yankees were doing this the _Epervier_ might have sailed away
and left the crippled _Peacock_, but Captain Wales was not that kind
of a man. On the contrary, he tacked about as rapidly as possible, in
spite of the fact that he had to risk a raking fire from the Americans,
and then bore down with his port battery to the _Peacock’s_ starboard.
At this the bar-shot and scrap-iron from the Yankee began to tell on
the British head-gear. Jib after jib was cut away, while the sails of
the foremast were torn to shreds. The pressure on the after-sails threw
her stern down away from the wind and her bow up into it. Then her
sails caught aback and the _Peacock_ ran across her stern and fired a
few guns to rake her, though because of the headway of the _Peacock_
only a few were fired. A moment later the maintopmast of the British
ship fell with a crash, and her main-boom was cut in two and fell on
the wheel, so that she was for the time helpless.
[Illustration: The _Peacock_ and the _Epervier_.
_From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”_]
At that Warrington hauled the _Peacock_ close under the port quarter
of the _Epervier_ and opened a deadly fire of solid shot directed
chiefly at the enemy’s water-line--the favorite target of the Yankee
gunners. One easily pictures the scene at this time as the Yankee
crews, stripped to the waist, in the warm summer air, worked like white
devils in the sulphurous smoke over their guns. They waved their arms
and cheered as they saw the shot knock the splinters low down on the
black-painted hull of the half-obscured enemy that was now adrift,
unable to turn either to port or starboard. But some of them aimed high
enough to dismount every gun on the port side of the _Epervier_, which
faced the Yankee.
Meantime, the _Epervier_ had been gathering stern way and was drifting
on board the _Peacock_. Allen says Captain Wales thought to wear the
_Epervier_ in order to run on board the _Peacock_, but this is absurd,
because she was aback.
On seeing that the _Epervier_ was likely to fall aboard the _Peacock_,
Captain Wales called his men aft, intending to make a last brave
effort by boarding. But, as James says, “the British crew declined a
measure so fraught with danger.” Allen says: “A large proportion of the
crew evinced a great distaste for the measure.” So Captain Wales hauled
down his flag at 11 o’clock. The action had lasted forty-five minutes.
Captain Wales showed conspicuous bravery and ability, and his chief
officer, Lieutenant John Hackett, ably seconded him. In fact, Hackett
had his left arm shattered and was dangerously wounded in the hip by a
splinter, “but it was with difficulty that this gallant officer could
be persuaded” to leave the deck.
That the crew should have flinched is not a matter of wonder. The
British sailors had been accustomed to go at the Frenchmen “hammer and
tongs,” and “whoop and hurrah.” It was a lark to meet a Latin-blood
crew. But in 1812 they had a new kind of an enemy to face. It should be
remembered that, after they had “seen the countenance” of this enemy
for a few months, even the British Admiralty flinched, for James says,
on page 402 of Volume VI., that “the Admiralty had issued an order
that no eighteen-pounder frigate was voluntarily to engage one of the
twenty-four-pounder frigates of America.”
This is a slight digression from the story of the _Peacock-Epervier_
fight, but it seems worth the making because it offers an explanation
of the rancor and the deliberate falsehoods of the British writers
when referring to British naval contests with Yankees. A knowledge of
the whole truth about the prowess of American naval seamen had had a
disturbing influence on the minds of the British sailors on more than
one occasion, and the records of the sea-fights with the Yankees were
deliberately falsified in order to preserve the self-confidence of
British Jack.
As to the effect of the fire of the two ships, Allen admits that “the
_Peacock_, in a short time, unrigged the _Epervier_, and cut her sails
into ribands. Most of the lower rigging of the _Epervier_ was shot
away, and her foremast was left so tottering that the calm state of
the weather alone saved it from falling. Her hull was shot in every
direction, and she had five feet of water in her hold.” In addition to
this she had lost, as already told, her maintopmast and her main-boom,
and her bowsprit was badly wounded. There were forty-five shot holes
in her hull, of which twenty were within a foot of the water-line and
dipped under at every roll to let the water spurt in. To realize the
significance of the fact that she had five feet of water in her, it
must be known that she measured only fourteen feet in depth of hold
(the same depth as the _Peacock_).
[Illustration: The _Peacock_ and the _Epervier_.
_From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Birch._]
Allen says that she went into the fight with “a crew of one hundred
and two men and sixteen boys.” They are especially careful to specify
the number of boys when they are defeated. James is at the pains to
announce that “two of her men were each seventy years of age!”
Captain Warrington reported that she had a crew of one hundred and
twenty-eight--his list of prisoners numbered one hundred and twenty,
including the wounded. It is agreed on both sides that she lost eight
men killed and fifteen wounded, and that she had enough men at least to
work all of her guns efficiently.
On the other hand, the _Peacock_ did not receive even one shot in her
hull, and the only damage aloft worth mention was the disabling of the
foreyard. In fifteen minutes from the time her crew began to repair
the damages every cut rope had been rove anew, and half an hour later
the foreyard was up in place, repaired fit to stand a gale, and the
foresail was spread to the breeze. The broken foreyard was actually
sent down on deck, fished, hoisted aloft again, and the sail spread
in forty-five minutes. The injury to the crew was scarcely worth
mentioning, for not one was killed, and only two were wounded, and they
but slightly. Allen says she carried “a picked crew of one hundred
and eighty-five seamen.” She had, in fact, including captain and
powder-monkeys, one hundred and sixty-six.
In view of the fact that the British gunners were unable to hit the
broadside of the ship when half a pistol shot away, a comparison of
the armament of the two ships is as absurd as it was when the Yankee
_Hornet_ shot the British _Peacock_ under water in fourteen minutes.
However, it ought to be given to complete the record. The _Peacock_ in
this battle had a broadside of ten guns that threw three hundred and
fifteen pounds actual weight of metal at a round. The _Epervier_ had
one gun less in her broadside and threw two hundred and seventy-four
pounds of metal from it. The “relative force” of the two ships was as
“twelve to ten;” the damage done to each was not quite as one hundred
to nothing, because the _Peacock_ did get a bad cut in the foreyard and
the _Epervier_ was not quite destroyed. Perhaps the reader will find
amusement and even instruction in considering what the relative damage
of the two ships really was.
After the British flag was hauled down the Yankee sailors made haste
to repair the captured ship and by nightfall had her sails spread in a
run for Savannah in company with the _Peacock_. En route to that port a
British frigate chased the two, but the _Peacock_ drew her off and then
outsailed her. The _Epervier_ was carried into Savannah on May 1st,
and on the 4th, the _Peacock_ arrived. As the reader will remember the
_Adams_ happened to be in port at this time. The _Epervier_ proved a
very rich prize to the victorious crew, for in addition to the $120,000
in coin (James would reduce it to $118,000) the Government bought
the prize for $55,000. The _Epervier_ was built in 1812.
It is worth telling that in breadth and depth the _Peacock_ and
_Epervier_ were exactly alike--32 × 14 feet. The _Peacock_, however,
was 118 feet long, while the _Epervier_ was 107. There are whole fleets
of Yankee schooners in this day bigger than either--plenty that can
carry more cargo than both put together--which are nevertheless called
small coasters; of such a character has been the development of modern
ship building.
[Illustration: Medal awarded to Lewis Warrington after the capture of
the _Epervier_ by the _Peacock_.]
The _Epervier_ was brought into port by Lieutenant John B. Nicholson.
Congress voted a gold medal to Warrington and the usual silver
medals and swords to the other officers. Nicholson was transferred
to the _Siren_, of which something will be told presently. The
_Peacock_ sailed on another cruise on June 4th. Crossing the Banks of
Newfoundland she cruised on the coasts of Ireland for a time and then
sailed to the Bay of Biscay and finally back via the Barbadoes to New
York, where she arrived on October 29, 1814. In all she took fourteen
merchantmen, most of them on the Irish coast. They were manned by one
hundred and forty-eight men and they were valued at $1,493,000. She was
distinctly a lucky ship.
An interesting little story showing somewhat of sailors’ superstitions
is told of Lieutenant John B. Nicholson, who brought the _Epervier_
into port. He was transferred to the little sixteen-gun brig _Siren_,
of which Lieutenant George Parker was commander, and she was sent to
cruise on the coast of Africa. Off the Canaries Parker died, and after
putting his body into a coffin it was put overboard with the usual
funeral services. The coffin sank out of sight, but as soon as the brig
filled away on her course the coffin came to the surface, where it
floated like a cork.
Knowing that this event, though due entirely to the carpenter’s
failure to properly weight the coffin, was regarded as an ill omen
by the seamen, Lieutenant Nicholson, who was now captain by right of
succession, called the men to the capstan and let them decide whether
to continue the cruise, or return to port. They decided, with cheers,
to cruise on.
For a time everything seemed to go well. An English frigate was dodged
by hanging out false lights on a raft of casks. Two English merchantmen
were taken and destroyed, but in the Senegal River another one escaped
after the brig had given her a broadside, and about two months after
leaving home the _Siren_ fell in with the British liner _Medway_.
Anchors, cables, guns, and shot were thrown overboard, but she was
taken after all. It was a disastrous cruise.