American Men of Action Part 18

Jones, meanwhile, had overhauled and refitted his ship, and on the tenth of April, set sail from Brest, intending to make a complete circuit of the British Isles. Entering the Irish Sea, he spread terror along its sh.o.r.es, where his coming was like a bolt from the blue, engaged and captured the British ship-of-war Drake, took a number of prizes, and sailed into Brest again after an absence of twenty-eight days.

It has been the fashion in some quarters to call Jones a pirate, but it is difficult to see any argument for such a characterization of him. He sailed under the flag of the United States, held a commission from the United States, and attacked an enemy with whom the United States was at war. There is no hint of piracy about that; but Jones came to be a sort of bogeyman to the coast towns of the British Isles, who never knew when to expect an attack from him, and no name was too hard for their frightened inhabitants to apply to him.

But it was some time before Jones was able to strike another blow. He realized that he must have a more effective squadron for his second cruise, and more than a year was spent in getting it together. Finally, on August 14, 1779, he got to sea again with a squadron of four vessels--not a very effective one, but the best that could be had. The flagship was an unwieldy old Indiaman which Jones had named the Bon Homme Richard, in honor of his good friend, Benjamin Franklin, whose Poor Richard was almost as famous in France as in America. The other three ships were commanded by Frenchmen, and all the crews were of the most motley description. On September 23, the squadron sighted a great fleet of English merchantmen, under convoy of the Serapis, a powerful frigate mounting forty-four guns, and the Countess of Scarborough, mounting twenty-eight. Jones signalled his squadron to give chase and himself closed with the Serapis.

Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, was very willing for the contest, since his ship was greatly superior to Jones's old boat in fighting qualities; but Jones succeeded in depriving the Serapis of some of this advantage by running his vessel into her and lashing fast. So close did they lie that their yardarms interlocked, and their rigging was soon so fouled that Jones could not have got away, even had he wished to do so.

For three hours the ships lay there, side by side, pouring broadsides into each other; their decks were soon covered with dead and wounded; two of the Richard's guns burst and her main battery was silenced, but Jones kept fighting on, for a time with so few guns that the captain of the Serapis thought he had surrendered.

"Have you struck?" he shouted, through his trumpet.

"No," Jones shouted back, "I have not yet begun to fight!"

The Serapis was on fire and the Richard was sinking, but at this juncture, one of the men of the Richard crept out along a yardarm, and dropped a hand grenade down a hatchway of the Serapis. It wrought fearful havoc, and Pearson struck his flag.

It was time, for the Richard was on fire in two places, all her main-deck guns were dismounted, and she was sinking fast. She was kept afloat with great difficulty until morning, giving Jones time to place his wounded on the Serapis, and to save such of her fittings as could be removed. The Pallas, another of Jones's ships, had captured the Scarborough, and with these prizes, Jones put back to France. He was welcomed with great enthusiasm there, received the thanks of the Congress, and was designated to command the ship-of-the-line then building. But he fought no more battles under the Stars and Stripes.

After a brief service with Russia, he returned to Paris, broken in health, and died there in 1792. His body was only recently brought to this country and interred with national honors at Annapolis.

We have said that there was only one other naval commander of the Revolution whose name shines with any l.u.s.tre to-day--Nicholas Biddle.

His career was a brief and brilliant one. Born in Philadelphia, he had gone to sea at the age of thirteen, was cast away on a desert island, was rescued, and enlisted in the English navy, but returned to America as soon as revolution threatened. He was given command of a little brig called the Andrea Doria, took a number of prizes, and made so good a record that in 1776 he was appointed to command the new frigate, Randolph. Using Charleston, South Carolina, as his base, he captured four prizes within a few days, but on his second cruise, fell in with a British sixty-four, the Yarmouth. After a sharp action of twenty minutes, fire got into the magazine of the Randolph, in some way, and she blew up, only four of her crew of 310 escaping. The blow was a heavy one to the American navy, for Biddle was its best commander, next to Jones, and the Randolph was its best ship. Luckily the French alliance placed the French fleet at the disposal of the colonies--or Cornwallis would never have been captured at Yorktown.

It is one of our polite fictions that the United States has always been victorious in war; but, as a matter of fact, we were not victorious in the second war with England, and, when the treaty of peace came to be signed, abandoned practically all the contentions which war had been declared to maintain. On land, the war was, for the most part, a series of costly blunders, beginning with the surrender of Detroit, and closing with the sack of Washington, and had England had her hands free of Napoleon, the result for us might have been very serious. The only considerable and decisive victory won by American arms was that of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans--a battle fought after the treaty of peace had been signed.

But on the ocean there was a different story--a series of brilliant victories which, while they did not seriously cripple the great English navy, caused Canning to declare in Parliament that "the sacred spell of the invincibility of the British navy is broken." The heaviest blow was struck to British commerce, no less than sixteen hundred English merchantmen falling victims to privateers and ships-of-war.

The group of men who commanded the American vessels was a most remarkable one, and their fighting qualities were worthy in every way of John Paul Jones. First blood was drawn by David Porter, ill.u.s.trious scion of a family which gave five generations to brilliant service in the navy. On August 13, 1812, Porter, with the Ess.e.x, engaged in a sharp battle with the British ship Alert, which, after an action of eight minutes, surrendered in a sinking condition. He had seen hard service before that, had been twice impressed by British vessels and twice escaped, had fought French and pirates, and spent some time in a prison in Tripoli.

After his capture of the Alert, he went on a cruise in the Pacific, destroying the English whale fisheries there, capturing booty valued at two and a half million dollars, and taking four hundred prisoners. So great was the damage he inflicted, that a British squadron was fitted out and sent to the Pacific to capture him, found him in a partially disabled condition in the harbor of Valparaiso, and, disregarding the neutrality of the port, sailed in and attacked him. The engagement lasted two hours and a half, the Ess.e.x finally surrendering when reduced to a helpless wreck. On the Ess.e.x at the time was a midshipman aged twelve years, who got his first taste of fighting there, and whose name was destined to become, after that of Paul Jones, the most famous in American naval history--David Glasgow Farragut.

Less than a week after Porter's victory over the Alert, another and much more important one was won by Captain Isaac Hull in the frigate Const.i.tution--"Old Ironsides"--the most famous ship-of-war the navy has ever possessed. Isaac Hull was a nephew of General William Hull, who, on August 16, 1812, surrendered Detroit and his entire army to the British without striking a blow. Three days later, Isaac Hull, having sailed from Boston without orders, in his anxiety to meet the enemy and for fear the command of the Const.i.tution would be given to some one else--a breach of discipline for which he would probably have been court-martialled and shot, had the cruise ended disastrously--fell in with the powerful British frigate Guerriere. Inscribed across the Guerriere's mainsail in huge red letters were the words:

All who meet me have a care, I am England's Guerriere.

She was a powerful vessel, but neither the vessel nor the menace frightened Hull, and he sailed straight for her, holding his fire until he was within fifty yards, when he let fly a broadside and then another, which sent two of her masts by the board, and the third soon followed, leaving her unmanageable. Within a very few minutes, under Hull's raking fire, she was reduced to a "perfect wreck"--so perfect, in fact, that she had to be blown up and sunk, as there was no chance of getting her back to port. The Const.i.tution was practically uninjured, and Hull sailed back to Boston, with his ship crowded with British prisoners. He was welcomed with the wildest enthusiasm, banquets were given in his honor, swords voted him by state legislatures, New York ordered a portrait painted of him, and Congress gave him a gold medal. The War Department discreetly permitted his disobedience of orders to drop out of sight.

Hull's victory was not the result of accident, but of long and careful training. He had begun his sea career in the merchant service at the age of fourteen, was a captain at the age of twenty, and entered the navy in 1798. He soon gained a high reputation for seamanship, and his genius for handling a ship under all conditions was one of the most important factors in his success. He saved his ship on one occasion, when she was becalmed and practically surrounded by a powerful British fleet, by "kedging"--in other words, sending a row-boat out with an anchor, which was dropped as far ahead as the boat could take it, and the ship pulled up to it by means of the windla.s.s. As soon as the British saw him doing this, they tried it too, but Hull managed to get away from them by almost superhuman exertions. He served in the navy for many years after his memorable victory over the Guerriere, but never achieved another so notable.

The second capture of a British frigate in the war of 1812 was made by Stephen Decatur, who had distinguished himself years before by an exploit which Lord Nelson called "the most daring act of the age."

Decatur, who possessed in unusual degree the dash and brilliance so valuable in a naval commander, came naturally by his love of the sea, for his grandfather had been an officer in the French navy, and his father was a captain in the navy of the United States.

Entering the service at the age of eighteen, his first cruise was in the frigate, United States, which he was afterwards to command. He rose steadily in the service and got his first command six years later, being given the sixteen-gun brig Argus, and sent with Commodore Preble to a.s.sist in subduing the Barbary corsairs.

It is difficult to-day to realize that there was a time when the United States paid tribute to anybody, more especially to a power so insignificant as the Barbary States. Yet such was the fact. Lying along the north coast of Africa were the half-civilized states of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, and most of their income was from piracy.

All merchantmen were their prey; they divided the loot and sold the crews into slavery. Many nations, to secure immunity from these outrages, paid a stated sum yearly to these powers, and the United States was one of them.

Why the nations did not join together and wipe the pirates out of existence is difficult to understand, but so it was. On one occasion, Congress actually revoked an order for some new ships for the navy, and used the appropriation to buy off the Barbary powers. The fund was known as the "Mediterranean Fund," and was intrusted to the secretary of state to expend as might be necessary. But after a while, the Barbary powers became so outrageous in their demands, that it occurred to the State Department that there might be another way of dealing with them, and a squadron under Commodore Preble was sent to the Mediterranean for the purpose.

Shortly before he reached there, the U.S. frigate Philadelphia, commanded by Captain Bainbridge, had gone upon a reef just outside the harbor of Tripoli and had been surrounded and captured, with all her crew, by the Tripolitan gunboats. The Tripolitans got her off the rocks, towed her into the harbor, and anch.o.r.ed her close under the guns of their forts. They also strengthened her batteries, and prepared her for a cruise, which could not but have been disastrous to our shipping. It was evident that she must be destroyed before she got out of the harbor, and Stephen Decatur volunteered to lead a party into the harbor on this desperate mission. Commodore Preble hesitated to accept Decatur's offer, for he knew how greatly against success the odds were, but finally, in January, 1804, he told him to go ahead.

A small vessel known as a ketch had recently been captured from the Tripolitans, and Decatur selected this in which to make the venture. He took seventy men from his own vessel, and, on the night of February 15, sailed boldly into the harbor of Tripoli. Let us pause for a minute to consider the odds against him. First there was the Philadelphia with her forty guns double-shotted and ready to fire; half a gunshot away was the Bashaw's castle, the mole and crown batteries, while within range were ten other batteries, mounting, all told, a hundred and fifteen guns.

Between the Philadelphia and the sh.o.r.e lay a number of Tripolitan cruisers, galleys and gunboats. Into this hornet's nest, Decatur steered his little vessel of sixty tons, carrying four small guns, and having a crew of only seventy men.

The Tripolitans saw the vessel entering the harbor, but supposed it to be one of their own until it was alongside the Philadelphia. Then there was a cry of "Americanos!" and a rush to quarters, but it was too late, for Decatur and his men swarmed up the side and over the rail of the Philadelphia, and charged the dismayed and panic-stricken Tripolitans.

There was a short and desperate struggle, and five minutes later, the ship was cleared of the enemy.

It was manifestly impossible to get the Philadelphia out of the harbor, so Decatur gave the order to burn her. Combustibles had been prepared in advance, and in a moment, flames began to break out in all parts of the ship. Then the order was given to return to the ketch, the cable was cut, the sweeps got out, and the ketch drew rapidly away from the burning vessel. The sounds of the melee had awakened the troops on sh.o.r.e, and, as the harbor was lighted by the flames from the Philadelphia, the sh.o.r.e batteries opened upon the little vessel, but without doing her any serious damage, and Decatur got safely out of the harbor and back to the fleet without losing a man.

Shortly afterwards his life was saved by one of those acts of heroism which stir the blood. In a general attack upon the Tripolitan gunboats, Decatur laid his ship alongside one of the enemy, grappled with her and boarded. Decatur was the first over the side and a desperate hand-to-hand combat followed. The pirate captain, a gigantic fellow, soon met Decatur face to face, and stood on tiptoe to deal him a tremendous blow with his scimitar. Decatur rushed in under the swinging sword, grappled with him, and they fell to the deck together, when another Tripolitan raised his scimitar to deal the American a fatal blow. A young sailor named Reuben James, himself with both arms disabled from sword cuts, seeing his beloved captain's peril, interposed his own head beneath the descending sword and received a wound which marked him for life. An instant later, Decatur's crew rallied to him, killed the pirate captain and drove the remainder of his crew over the side into the sea.

At the outbreak of the war of 1812, Decatur was given command of the United States, and on the morning of October 25, overhauled the British frigate Macedonian near the Canary Islands. Seventeen minutes later, the Macedonian, with a third of her crew dead, hauled down her colors.

Decatur had lost only twelve men killed and wounded, and placing a crew aboard his prize, got her safely to New York. This victory was soon followed by disaster, for, securing command of the President, a frigate mounting forty-four guns, he attempted to get past the British blockade of New York harbor, but ran into a squadron of the enemy, and, after a running fight lasting thirty hours, was overhauled by a superior force and compelled to surrender. Decatur was taken captive to Bermuda, but was soon parolled, and, after commanding a squadron in the Mediterranean, built himself a house at Washington, expecting to spend the remainder of his days there in honorable retirement.

But it was not to be. In 1816, Decatur, while a member of the board of navy commissioners, had occasion to censure Commodore James Barron.

Barron considered himself insulted, and a long correspondence followed, which finally resulted in Barron challenging Decatur to fight a duel.

Under the code of honor then in vogue, Decatur could do nothing but accept, and the meeting took place at Bladensburg, Maryland, March 22, 1820. At the word "fire," Barron fell wounded in the hip, where Decatur had said he would shoot him, while Decatur himself received a wound in the abdomen from which he died that night. He was, all in all, one of the most brilliant and efficient men the navy ever boasted; and he will be remembered, too, for his immortal toast: "My country: may she be always right; but, right or wrong, my country!"

Closely a.s.sociated with Decatur in some of his exploits was William Bainbridge, as handsome, impetuous and daring a sailor as ever trod a deck. Bainbridge, who was five years younger than Decatur, began his seafaring career at the age of sixteen, and three years later was in command of a merchantman. He entered the navy at its reorganization in 1798, and two years later was appointed to command the George Washington, a ship of twenty-eight guns.

Bainbridge's first duty was to carry a tribute of half a million dollars to the Dey of Algiers, according to the arrangement made by the Secretary of State which we have already mentioned. The errand was a hateful one to Bainbridge, as it would have been to any American sailorman; but he was in the navy to obey orders, and in September, 1800, he reached Algiers and anch.o.r.ed in the harbor and delivered the tribute. But when he had done this, the Dey sent word that he had a cargo of slaves and wild beasts for the Sultan of Turkey at Constantinople, and that Bainbridge must take them, or his ship would be taken from him and he and his crew sold into slavery.

There was nothing to do but consent, since the ship was wholly in the Dey's power, so to Constantinople Bainbridge sailed her. When a boat was sent ash.o.r.e there to announce her arrival, the Turks were greatly astonished, for they had never heard of a nation called the United States, and did not know that there was a great continent on the other side of the world. It makes us feel less self-important, sometimes, when we stop to consider that about one half the human race, even at the present day, have no idea of our existence.

Well, Bainbridge delivered his cargo, and then sailed back to Algiers with orders from the Sultan to the Dey. He delivered these to the Dey, and in accordance with them, the Dey immediately declared war on France, and notified all the French in Algiers that if they had not left his dominions within forty-eight hours, they would be sold into slavery.

There was no French ship in the harbor, and it looked, for a time, as though, the French would not be able to get away, but as soon as he learned of their predicament, Bainbridge gathered them together and took them over to Spain--an act for which he received the personal thanks of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Bainbridge was, of course, glad to get away from Algiers, but he had by no means seen the last of the Barbary pirates. Returning to the United States, he was given command of the Philadelphia, and sent back to the Mediterranean with Commodore Preble's squadron to give the pirates a lesson. The Philadelphia went on ahead to Tripoli and began a vigorous blockade of that port, but, in chasing a Tripolitan vessel which was trying to enter the harbor, ran hard and fast on an uncharted reef, and keeled over so far that her guns were useless. The Tripolitans were not long in discovering her predicament, swarmed out of the harbor in their gunboats, and soon had the American vessel at their mercy.

With what bitterness of spirit Bainbridge hauled down his flag may be imagined. He and his men were taken ash.o.r.e and imprisoned and their vessel was got off the reef and towed into the harbor. From the window of their prison, the Americans could see her riding at anchor, flying the flag of Tripoli, and the sight did not render their imprisonment more pleasant. But one night, they heard shots in the harbor, and, looking out, beheld the Philadelphia in flames, and the little ketch bearing Decatur and his men fading rapidly away through the darkness toward the harbor mouth. Six months later, they watched the American a.s.sault upon the harbor, but their hearts fell when the American squadron finally gave up the attempt and withdrew. It was not until the following year that peace was made, and Bainbridge and his men released, after a captivity of nineteen months. Never since that time has the United States paid tribute to any nation.

When the second war with England began, President Madison and his advisers thought it foolhardy to attempt to oppose Great Britain on the ocean, for she had the strongest fleet of any nation in the world, and so decided to confine the war entirely to land. It was Bainbridge who brought about a change of this unwise policy by impa.s.sioned pleading, to the everlasting glory of the American navy. Hull resigned the Const.i.tution to him, after his victory over the Guerriere--it was really for fear that Bainbridge would get command of the ship that Hull had sailed from Boston without orders--and Bainbridge sailed for the South Atlantic, and captured the British frigate Java, after a terrific fight, in which he was himself seriously wounded. This was his last fight, though the years which followed saw him in many important commands. For sheer romance and adventure, his career has seldom been excelled.

Another hero of the war of 1812, whose name is a.s.sociated with a deed of imperishable gallantry, was James Lawrence. He had entered the navy as midshipman in 1798, at the age of eighteen, and served in the war against Tripoli, first under Hull and then under Decatur, and accompanied the latter on the expedition which destroyed the Philadelphia. But the deed by which he is best remembered is his fight with the British frigate Shannon. In the spring of 1813, he was a.s.signed to the command of the frigate Chesapeake, a vessel hated by the whole navy because of the bad luck which seemed to pursue her. Lawrence accepted the command reluctantly, and proceeded to Boston, where she was lying, to prepare her for a voyage.

A crew was secured with great difficulty, most of them being foreigners, and his officers were all young and inexperienced. What the crew and officers alike needed was a practice cruise to put them in shape to meet the enemy, and Lawrence knew this better than anybody, but when the British frigate Shannon appeared outside the harbor with a challenge for a battle, Lawrence, feeling that to refuse would be dishonorable, hoisted anchor and sailed out to meet her.

The Shannon was one of the finest frigates in the English navy, manned by an experienced crew, and commanded by Philip Broke, one of the best officers serving under the Union Jack. The ships ranged up together and broadsides were delivered with terrible effect. Lawrence was wounded in the leg, but kept the deck. Then the ships fouled, and Lawrence called for boarders, but his crew, frightened at the desperate nature of the conflict, did not respond, and a moment later he fell, shot through the body. As he was borne below, he kept shouting, "Don't give up the ship!

Fight her till she strikes or sinks! Don't give up the ship!" his voice growing weaker and weaker as his life ebbed away.

The battle was soon over, after that, for the British boarded, the Chesapeake's foreign crew threw down their arms, and the triumphant enemy hauled down the Chesapeake's flag. A few days later, the two ships sailed into the harbor of Halifax, Lawrence's body, wrapped in his ship's flag, lying in state on the quarter-deck. He was buried with military honors, first at Halifax, and then at New York, where Hull, Stewart and Bainbridge were among those who carried the pall. His cry, "Don't give up the ship!" was to be the motto of another battle, far to the west, where Great Britain experienced the greatest defeat of the war.

Before describing it, however, let us speak briefly of four other valiant men, whose deeds redounded to the honor of their country--Edward Preble, Charles Stewart, Johnston Blakeley, and Thomas Macdonough. It was said of Preble that he had the worst temper and the best heart in the world. At sixteen years of age he ran away to sea, and two years later, he actually saw a sea-serpent, a hundred and fifty feet in length and as big around as a barrel, and got close enough to fire at it. He saw service in the Revolution, and in 1803, was appointed to command the expedition against the Barbary corsairs, of which we have already spoken, and which resulted in bringing those pirates to their knees.

The trials of that expedition ruined his health, and he survived it but a few years.

To Charles Stewart belongs the remarkable exploit of engaging and capturing two British ships at the same time. Enlisting in 1798, he was with Preble at Tripoli, and was given command of the Const.i.tution, after Bainbridge's successful cruise in her, and started out in search of adventure on December 17, 1814. Two months later, off the Madeira Islands he sighted two British ships-of-war and at once gave chase. He overhauled them at nightfall, and, running between them, gave them broadside after broadside, until both struck their colors. They were the Cyane and the Levant. Stewart got back to New York the middle of May to find out that peace had been declared over a month before his encounter with the British ships.

He was received with enthusiasm, and "Old Ironsides" got the reputation of being invincible. Her career had, indeed, been remarkable. She had done splendid work before Tripoli, escaped twice from British squadrons and seven times run the blockade through strong British fleets; she had captured three frigates and a sloop-of-war, besides many merchantmen, and had taken more than eleven hundred prisoners. From all of these engagements she had emerged practically unscathed, and in none of them had she lost more than nine men. Stewart was the last survivor of the great captains of 1812, living until 1869, having been carried on the navy list for seventy-one years.

Johnston Blakeley was a South Carolinian, and won renown by a remarkable cruise in the Wasp. The Wasp was a stout and speedy sloop, carrying twenty-two guns and a crew of one hundred and seventy men, and in 1814 she sailed from the United States, and headed for the English Channel, to carry the war into the enemy's country, after the fashion of Paul Jones. The Channel, of course, was traversed constantly by English fleets and squadrons and single ships-of-war, and here the Wasp sailed up and down, capturing and destroying merchantmen, and, by the skill and vigilance of her crew and commander, escaping an encounter with any frigate or ship-of-the-line.

But one June morning, while chasing two merchantmen, she sighted the British brig Reindeer, and at once prepared for action. The Reindeer accepted the challenge, and after some broadsides had been exchanged, the ships fouled and the British boarded. A desperate struggle followed, in which the English commander was killed. Then the boarders were driven back, and the Americans boarded in their turn, and in a minute had the Reindeer in their possession. Her colors were hauled down, she was set afire, and the Wasp continued her cruise.