Commodore Macdonough himself, sighting a twenty-four pounder, fired
the first effective gun of the battle. It struck the Confiance near
the hawse-hole, and ranged the whole length of her deck, doing fearful
damage and splintering her wheel. A terrible broadside followed; but
the Confiance as if disdaining to answer, moved proudly on to engage
at close quarters, and not until the wind became light and baffling
did she port her helm about two cables' length from the Saratoga.
Then she opened upon the corvette. Her guns were double-shotted, and
their effect at close range, in a perfectly smooth sea, was frightful.
Meanwhile the Linnet and the Chubb had taken position abeam of the
Eagle, and attacked her with great fury. The gunboats had fallen upon
the little Preble, and soon drove her out of line, when with the
Finch they concentrated their fire upon the Ticonderoga. The gallant
little brig gave them plenty to do, and stubbornly defended the end of
the line. At one moment the gunboats would advance upon her, the men
standing up ready to board her, and would be beaten off in the act of
entering her ports or springing upon her decks. Then they would haul
off and pour round after round of grapeshot into her. Still the little
vessel held out. Captain Cassin was seen coolly walking the taffrail,
a target for every shot, but he escaped without a wound, as if by a
miracle. At one time all the matches gave out in the division of guns
commanded by midshipman Paulding.[19] This young officer, who was an
acting lieutenant, although only sixteen years old, had the wit and
readiness to fire his guns by snapping his pistol at the touch-hole.
Nothing could exceed the determined valor with which the Saratoga
and the Confiance kept up the fight. The Linnet presently turned her
attention to the Saratoga, and poured one raking broadside into her
after another, besides what she had to take from the Confiance. The
brave Captain Downie had been mortally wounded early in the engagement,
but the ship was still admirably fought. On the Saratoga three times
the cry went up that Commodore Macdonough was killed, for three times
was he knocked senseless to the deck; but each time he rose, none the
worse except for a few cuts and bruises.
The guns on the engaged side of the Saratoga became disabled one
by one, by the long twenty-fours in the main-deck battery of the
Confiance, which, though suffering from the musketry fire of the
Americans, was yet doing magnificent work. At last but a single gun of
the starboard batteries of the Saratoga remained serviceable, and in
firing it the bolt broke, the gun flew off the carriage, and actually
tumbled down the hatchway.
The ship was afire in several places, due to the hot shot poured
into her by the Confiance, one-fourth of her men were killed, and she
had not a gun available on her engaged side; while both the Confiance
and the Linnet were giving her one raking broadside after another. In
this awful extremity Commodore Macdonough determined to wind his ship,
which means to turn the ship completely around so that she could use
her uninjured batteries. This difficult but brilliant manoeuvre was
executed with the utmost coolness, and soon she sprung a new broadside
on the Confiance. The Confiance attempted the same manoeuvre, but
she only got partly round, when she hung with her head to the wind, in
a terrible position, where the fresh batteries of the Saratoga raked
her fore and aft. No ship could stand this long and live; and after
two hours of as desperate fighting as was ever seen, the Confiance was
forced to haul down her colors.
By that time the Finch had been driven out of the fight, and the Chubb
had been shot wholly to pieces. The little Linnet, though, alone and
single-handed, undauntedly sustained the fight, hoping that some of
the gunboats might be able to tow her off. But when the Saratoga had
finished with the Confiance, without a moment's loss of time, she
turned her broadside on the Linnet, and soon forced her to strike,
with her hull riddled like a sieve, her masts gone, and the water
a foot deep in her hold. By midday all was over, and of the sixteen
British ensigns that had fluttered proudly in the morning air, not one
remained. It was one of the most destructive naval engagements ever
fought. In Commodore Macdonough's official report, he says there was
not a mast left in either squadron on which sail could be made. Some
of the British sailors had been at Trafalgar, and they all agreed that
the fighting of that 11th of September had been more severe than at
Trafalgar.
The American sailors fought with extraordinary coolness, and many
amusing as well as terrible and inspiring things occurred. One old
sailor on the Saratoga, who had worked and fought all during the battle
and had been slightly wounded several times, was seen mopping his face
delightedly while calling out to one of his messmates, "Ay, Jack, this
is the best fun I've had this war."
Another, getting a shot through his glazed hat, took it off, and,
turning to an officer, said in a tone of bitter complaint, "Look
a-here, sir; them Johnny Bulls has spiled my hat. Now, what am I going
to do for a hat?"
As soon as the Linnet struck, the British officers, led by Captain
Pring, who succeeded Captain Downie in command, came aboard the
Saratoga to deliver their swords. All the American officers were
assembled on her quarterdeck, and as the British officers approached
Commodore Macdonough with their swords extended, he said, with deep
feeling,--
"Gentlemen, your gallant conduct makes you the more worthy to wear your
swords. Return them to their scabbards."
At once every attention was given the wounded, the officers working
side by side with the men. Captain Pring, in his report, says:--
"I have much satisfaction in making you acquainted with the humane
treatment the wounded have received from Commodore Macdonough. They
were immediately removed to his own hospital at Crab Island, and
furnished with every requisite. His generous and polite attention to
myself, the officers, and men, will ever be gratefully remembered." All
this was quite characteristic of Macdonough, who united the tenderness
of a woman with a lion-like courage.
The night of the battle the commodore visited every ship in the
squadron, and personally expressed to the officers and men his
appreciation of their gallant services that day.
The news of the victory was received all over the country with
manifestations of joy. Congress passed the usual resolution of thanks
to Macdonough, his officers and men, gave him and his two commanding
officers gold medals, silver medals to the lieutenants, and a handsome
sword to each of the midshipmen, with a liberal award of prize money
to the men. Macdonough was made a post-captain, his commission dating
from the day of the battle.
The State of Vermont gave him an estate overlooking the scene of his
victory, and many States and towns made him presents. Macdonough bore
all these honors with characteristic modesty and simplicity, and,
instead of being elated by them, tears came into his eyes in speaking
of what his country had bestowed upon him.
Soon after this peace was declared, and Macdonough returned again to
service on the ocean. His health had always been delicate, and as years
passed on, it grew more so. But he continued to go to sea, and did his
full duty as always. In 1825 he was in command of the glorious old
Constitution, as his flagship on the Mediterranean station. She had
been splendidly refitted, sailed admirably, both on and off the wind,
and, as the sailors said, "looked like a new fiddle." He made his last
cruise in this noble ship. His health rapidly declined, and on his way
home from the Mediterranean he died and was buried at sea on the 10th
of November, 1825.
Few men have enjoyed more national esteem and affection than
Macdonough. His career shows that a man may have the softest manners
and mildest disposition along with an invincible courage and a high
spirit. Macdonough may be taken as the type of a great seaman and a
pure and perfect man.
JAMES LAWRENCE.
The name of Lawrence, like that of Somers, is associated with youth,
with gallantry, and with misfortune. It was his fate, after many
brilliant and heroic successes, to lay down his life and lose his ship;
but his colors were hauled down, not by himself, but by the enemy, and
his last utterance, "Don't give up the ship," which has become the
watchword of the American navy, was literally obeyed. It is remarkable
that this unfortunate vessel, the Chesapeake, never was formally
surrendered, but was taken possession of and her flag struck by her
captors.
[Illustration: James Lawrence]
James Lawrence was born in Burlington, New Jersey, in 1781. His family
were persons of consideration and property, and Lawrence was destined
to be a lawyer. He was a remarkably handsome, gentle, and docile boy,
and it was a surprise to his family when, at twelve years of age, he
developed a passionate desire to enter the newly created navy. He
never wavered from this wish, but, being a singularly obedient boy,
he agreed to try the study of the law for a time, and applied himself
seriously to it for a year or two. In 1798, however, when he was in
his eighteenth year, and when his natural bent was fully indicated,
his inclination toward the navy became overpowering. His family wisely
released him from the law, which was so distasteful to him, and got him
a midshipman's warrant in the navy.
His first service was in the Ganges, a small twenty-four-gun frigate.
At the time of his entrance into the navy he was of a noble and
commanding figure, of captivating manners, and although somewhat
impatient in temper, at heart entirely amiable and generous. From
the beginning he was remarkable for his kindness and consideration
toward his inferiors. When it was necessary to punish the sailors,
and Lawrence had to superintend the punishment, his eyes would fill
with tears; and when he became a lieutenant, his popularity with the
midshipmen was unbounded. It is told of him that once the midshipmen in
Commodore Rodgers's squadron determined to give the commodore a dinner,
to which none of the lieutenants were to be invited. All were agreed
to leave out the lieutenants, when one of the midshipmen cried, "What!
not ask Mr. Lawrence!" The impossibility of leaving Lawrence out seemed
patent to all of them; and to make the compliment more marked, he was
the only lieutenant asked to meet the commodore.
Lawrence's first service in the Ganges was during the troubles with
France. The Ganges patrolled the seas, and caught several French
privateers which made a good resistance, but never got alongside a
vessel of equal force.
In 1802 Lawrence went out to the Mediterranean in the Enterprise, as
first lieutenant. This gallant little schooner fully sustained her
reputation in the operations of Commodore Morris's squadron, which
preceded Commodore Preble's by a year. Although the war had just begun,
and had not yet assumed the fierce and determined character of the
following year, yet the Bashaw had a foretaste in 1803 of what was to
befall him in the way of bombardments and boat attacks in 1804. In
one of the boat attacks Lawrence volunteered, and his conduct on the
occasion won high praise.
The force was under the command of Lieutenant David Porter, first
lieutenant of the New York, flagship, who had already distinguished
himself against the French, and was destined to make one of the most
daring cruises in the history of navies.
The New York, with the Adams, frigate, and the little Enterprise, began
the blockade of Tripoli in May, 1803. A number of merchant vessels,
protected by gunboats, ran under the batteries of the old part of the
town, where they were comparatively safe from ships of the draught of
the American squadron. Every preparation was made to defend them, but
Porter, Lawrence, and other brave and daring young spirits determined
to make a dash for them and destroy them if possible. Having got the
commodore's permission, an attacking party was organized under Porter,
with Lawrence as second in command, with three other officers and a
number of picked men. On the morning of the attack the boats advanced
boldly, in the face of a sharp musketry fire, and succeeded in making
a landing. The Tripolitans adopted their usual style of hand-to-hand
fighting, but in spite of it the vessels were fired and the Americans
retired with slight loss. The Tripolitans, by the most tremendous
efforts, put out the fire and saved their vessels; but they discovered
that the Americans were disposed to come to close quarters with them,
which policy finally brought down the power of the Barbary States.
Lawrence, as well as Porter, was particularly distinguished in this
dashing little affair. The next adventure in which Lawrence was engaged
was a few weeks after; the Enterprise being under the command of Hull,
then a lieutenant commandant. It had been determined to hunt up the
Tripolitan ships of war wherever found. The Enterprise was engaged in
this service, and on a June morning, very early, the lookouts from the
Adams, frigate, observed a signal flying from the Enterprise of "Enemy
in sight." A Tripolitan frigate, supported by nine gunboats, trying
to get to sea from Tripoli, had been penned up in a narrow bay by the
Enterprise, which, too weak to attack, signalled for her more powerful
consort to come to her assistance. The Adams responded promptly, the
Enterprise meanwhile maintaining her station with as much daring as if
she were a forty-four-gun frigate instead of a twelve-gun schooner. As
soon as the wind permitted the Adams to get within range, she opened
with terrible effect upon the corsair, which replied vigorously, and
did not strike until she had received the fire of the Adams, in smooth
water and at short range, for three quarters of an hour. Soon after her
colors were hauled down, fire reached her magazine, and she blew up.
It was Lawrence's extreme good fortune, after serving under such a
captain as Isaac Hull, to serve next under Decatur. The Argus, one
of the four handsome little vessels built for the war with Tripoli,
had been sent out under Decatur, who was to exchange her for the
Enterprise, Hull's superior rank entitling him to the larger vessel.
Yet it is remarkable that the little Enterprise, although distinctly
inferior to the other four small vessels, survived every one of them,
and had an unbroken career of success both in running and fighting.
As soon as Decatur took the Enterprise, and had got a good look at
Tripoli on the reconnoitring expedition made by Commodore Preble
in the early winter of 1803, the idea of the destruction of the
Philadelphia and the release of Bainbridge and his companions possessed
his mind. It may be imagined that Lawrence ardently sympathized with
him, and in his young first lieutenant Decatur recognized a daring and
steadfast spirit akin to his own. It was Decatur's habit, in speaking
of Lawrence, to say, "He has no more dodge in him than the mainmast,"
which was true.
In the same month of December the Enterprise captured the ketch
Meshouda, which, renamed the Intrepid, was to take part in one
of the most glorious successes, and afterward in one of the most
heart-breaking tragedies, of the American navy.
In the preparation of the ketch, and in working out the details of his
plan, Decatur was ably seconded by his first lieutenant. The expedition
for the destruction of the Philadelphia was exactly suited to a man of
Lawrence's vigorous and imaginative temperament.
If a precise record remained of that immortal expedition,--the six
days of storm and tempest, in which the ketch, ill ventilated and
crowded with men who were wet to the skin most of the time and half
starved because their provisions were spoiled by salt water, was blown
about the African coast,--how surpassingly interesting it would be!
It is known, however, that both officers and men not only kept up
their determination, but their gayety. On that February evening when
the ketch stole in and made fast to the Philadelphia to destroy her,
Lawrence, next to Decatur, bore the most active part. It was he who
commanded the boat that put out from the ketch and coolly fastened
a hawser to the forechains of the doomed frigate; and it was he who
intercepted the frigate's boat and took the fast from it and passed
another line from the Philadelphia's stern into the ketch. When
Decatur shouted, "Board!" Lawrence was among the first to land on
the quarterdeck, and as soon as that was cleared, he dashed below,
accompanied by two midshipmen, as intrepid as himself,--Mr. Laws and
the indomitable Macdonough,--with ten men, and fired the berth-deck
and all the forward storerooms. Nothing is more extraordinary than
the quickness and precision with which every order was carried out on
that night of glory. Lawrence and his party were in the ship less than
twenty-five minutes, yet they were the last to drop into the ketch.[20]
On their return after this celebrated adventure, Lawrence received his
due share of praise.
There was much hard work to be done by every officer in the squadron
before it was ready to attack Tripoli in August, 1804, and Lawrence, as
first lieutenant, did his part. Once before Tripoli, there was severe
fighting as well as hard work. The fact that Decatur was taken out of
his ship so often to lead a division of the boats, left the command of
the Enterprise much to Lawrence, and he handled the little schooner in
the most seamanlike manner.
In the winter of 1804-5 the government determined to build a number
of small gunboats, to renew the attacks on Tripoli in the summer.
Some of the lieutenants who had returned to the United States in the
changes necessary in the squadron, were selected to take them out to
the Mediterranean. Lawrence, who had come back to the United States
after spending two years in the Mediterranean, was given the command
of one of these little vessels, Number Six,--for they were thought to
be too insignificant to name and consequently were merely numbered.
They carried a large spread of canvas, but their gunwales were so near
the water that they looked rather like rafts than boats. On the way
over, Lawrence was sighted by the British frigate Lapwing, which sent a
boat to rescue them, supposing them to be on a raft after a shipwreck.
Lawrence thanked the officer in charge of the boat, but proceeded on
his way.
Commodore Rodgers was then in command of the American force which again
appeared before Tripoli in May, 1805; and without firing a gun a treaty
of peace and the release of the Philadelphia's officers and men were
secured. The squadron then sailed for Tunis, where it intimidated the
Tunisians into good behavior and negotiated a treaty of peace under the
threat of a bombardment.
Soon after most of the vessels returned home. Lawrence recrossed the
ocean again in his gunboat, and commanded her for some time after.
On the 22d of June, 1807, occurred the painful and mortifying
rencounter of the Chesapeake, frigate, with the British frigate
Leopard, one of the most far-reaching events in the American navy.
As the name of Lawrence will ever be connected with the unfortunate
Chesapeake, the story of that unhappy event can be told here.
The Chesapeake was a comparatively new ship, carrying thirty-eight
guns, and was put in commission to relieve the Constitution in the
Mediterranean. She seems to have been an unpopular ship from the first,
as she was thought to be weak for her size, and was a very ordinary
sailer. She was to wear the broad pennant of Commodore James Barron,
who had Captain Gordon as his flag captain. Both of these men were
esteemed excellent officers.
The Chesapeake was fitted partly at the Washington Navy Yard and partly
at the Norfolk Navy Yard. There had been a charge that she had among
her crew three deserters from the British frigate Melampus. The charge
had been investigated, however, and found to be a mistake. It was known
that the Leopard, of fifty guns, was hanging about outside the capes of
Virginia, but it was not suspected that she would attempt to stop the
Chesapeake. The British government, arrogant in its dominion over the
sea, had claimed and exercised the right of searching merchant vessels;
and the United States, a young nation, with a central government which
was still an experiment as well as an object of jealousy to the State
governments, had submitted from not knowing exactly how to resist. But
with a ship of war it was different, and neither the authorities nor
the people of the United States dreamed that any attempt would be made
to violate the deck of a national vessel.
There seems to have been great negligence in preparing the Chesapeake
for sea, and when she sailed she was in a state of confusion, her decks
littered up, and none of the apparatus used in those days for firing
great guns was available. Neither was her crew drilled, having been at
quarters only three times. Her officers were men of spirit, but there
seems to have been a fatal laxness in getting her ready for sea.
The Chesapeake, with a good wind, dropped down to Hampton Roads, and
was soon stretching out to sea. About noon the Leopard was discerned,
and from the first seemed to be following the Chesapeake. At three
o'clock the two, still making for the open ocean, were near enough to
speak, and the Leopard hailed, saying she had despatches for Commodore
Barron. This was not remarkable, as such courtesies were occasionally
exchanged between ships of friendly nations. The Chesapeake hove
to, as did the Leopard, close to each other, when the Chesapeake's
officers noticed that the British frigate had her guns run out, and was
evidently perfectly ready for action. Very soon a boat put off from
her, and a lieutenant came aboard the Chesapeake. He went below into
the great cabin, and handed Commodore Barron a letter from Vice-Admiral
Berkley, dated at Halifax, directing him on meeting the Chesapeake to
search her for the three alleged deserters, and offering to allow the
Leopard to be searched if desired.
Commodore Barron was a brave man and a good officer in general, but he
appears to have been seized with one of those moments of indecision
which in a few minutes can wreck a whole life. It is difficult, though,
to imagine how one could act judiciously in an emergency so terrible,
when the choice lies between submitting to a frightful insult and
provoking a conflict which must result in the loss of many gallant and
innocent men. The commodore's real fault was in going to sea in an
unprepared condition.
Commodore Barron took about half an hour to deliberate before sending
a reply; and as soon as the British boat put off, orders were given
to clear the ship for action and get the people to quarters, and
Commodore Barron himself went on deck. While this was being done, the
Leopard hailed, and fired a gun toward the Chesapeake, followed by
a whole broadside, and for about twelve minutes she poured her fire
into the helpless Chesapeake. Commodore Barron, a marine officer, and
sixteen men were wounded, and three men were killed. Commodore Barron
repeatedly ordered a shot to be fired before the ensign was lowered,
but there were no means at hand for igniting the powder. At last a
young lieutenant named Allen ran to the galley, and, taking a live coal
in his fingers, rushed back to the gun-deck and succeeded in firing one
of the guns in his division. At that moment the American ensign touched
the taffrail.
The Leopard then sent a boat and took possession of the three alleged
deserters, and made off, while the disgraced Chesapeake returned to
Norfolk.
It is not easy to describe the outburst of indignation which followed
this mortifying event. Commodore Barron was court-martialled, but
as it was proved that his mistake was one of judgment, and that he
conducted himself well after the danger became imminent, he was merely
sentenced to five years' suspension from the navy.