American Men of Action Part 19

Late one September afternoon, British ships of war appeared all around her, and selecting one which seemed isolated from the others, Captain Blakeley decided to try to run alongside and sink her after nightfall.

She was the eighteen-gun brig Avon, a bigger ship than the Wasp, but Blakeley ran alongside, discharged his broadsides, and soon had the Avon in a sinking condition. She struck her flag, but before Blakeley could secure his prize, two other British ships came up and he was forced to flee.

Soon afterwards, he encountered a convoy of ships bearing arms and munitions to Wellington's army, under the care of a great three-decker.

Blakeley sailed boldly in, and, evading the three-decker's movements, actually cut out and captured one of the transports and made his escape.

Then she sailed for home, and that was the last ever heard of the Wasp.

She never again appeared, and her fate has never been determined. But when she sank, if sink she did, there went to the bottom one of the gallantest ships and bravest captains in the American navy.

All of the battles which we have thus far described were fought on salt water, but two great victories were won on inland waters, and of one of these Thomas Macdonough was the hero. He had entered the navy in 1800, at the age of seventeen, served before Tripoli, and accompanied Decatur on the expedition which burned the Philadelphia. At the outbreak of the second war with England, he was sent to Lake Champlain, and set about the building of a fleet to repel the expected British invasion from Canada. The British were also busy at the other end of the lake, and on September 9, 1814, Macdonough sailed his fleet of fourteen boats, ten of which were small gunboats, and the largest of which, the Saratoga, was merely a corvette, into Plattsburg Bay, and anch.o.r.ed there.

The abdication of Napoleon had enabled England to turn her undivided attention to America, and one great force was sent against New Orleans, while another was concentrated in Canada, for the purpose of invading New York by way of Lake Champlain. On this latter enterprise, a force of twelve thousand regulars started from Montreal early in August, while the British naval force on the lake was augmented to nineteen vessels.

On September 11, this fleet got under way, and, certain of victory, sailed into Plattsburg Bay and attacked Macdonough. A terrific battle followed, in which the Saratoga had every gun on one side disabled and had to wear around under fire in order to use those on the other side.

But three hours later, every British flag had been struck, and the land force, seeing their navy defeated, retreated hastily to Canada. So riddled were both squadrons that in neither of them did a mast remain upon which sail could be made.

But the greatest victory of the war, the one which had the most important and far-reaching consequences, had been won a year before, far to the west, on the blue waters of Lake Erie, by Oliver Hazard Perry, at that time only twenty-eight years of age. Perry came of a seafaring stock, for his father was a captain in the navy, and the boy's first voyage was made with him in 1799. At the outbreak of the war of 1812, he was in command of a division of gunboats at Newport, but finding that, owing to the British blockade, there was little chance of his seeing active service in that position, he asked to be sent to the Great Lakes, whose possession we were preparing to dispute with England.

The importance of this mission can hardly be overestimated. By the capture of Detroit, earlier in the war, the English had obtained undisputed control of Lake Erie, and were in position to carry out their plan of extending the Dominion of Canada along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers down to the Gulf, and so shutting in the United States upon the West. To Perry was a.s.signed the task of stopping this project, and of regaining control of the lake.

He arrived at Lake Erie in the spring of 1813, and proceeded at once to build the fleet which was to sail under the Stars and Stripes. He showed the utmost skill and energy in doing this, and by the middle of July, in spite of many difficulties, had nine vessels ready to meet the enemy--two brigs and two gunboats which he had built, and five small boats which were brought up from the Niagara river. On the third of August, he sailed out to meet the British, his ships being manned by a motley crew of "blacks, soldiers, and boys."

The flagship had been named the Lawrence, after the heroic commander of the Chesapeake. Luckily the English were not ready for battle, and Perry had a month in which to drill his men before the enemy sailed out to meet him. At last, on the morning of Sat.u.r.day, September 10, 1813, the British fleet was seen approaching, and Perry formed his ships in line of battle.

The British squadron consisted of six vessels, mounting 63 guns, and manned by 502 men. The American ships mounted 54 guns, with 490 men.

Although of smaller total weight than the American guns, the British guns were longer and would carry farther, and so were much more effective. The British crews, too, were better disciplined, a large number of the men being from the royal navy, and the squadron was commanded by Robert Heriot, a man of much experience, who had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar.

The American sh.o.r.e was lined with an anxious crowd, who appreciated the great issues which hung upon the battle. Perry, calling his men aft, produced a blue banner bearing in white letters the last words of the man after whom the Lawrence was named: "Don't give up the ship!"

"Shall I hoist it, boys?" he asked.

"Aye, aye, sir!" they shouted, and the bunting was run up to the main-royal masthead. Then a hush fell upon the water as the two fleets drew together. A few minutes before noon the engagement began, Perry heading straight for the flagship of the enemy, and drawing the fire of practically the whole British squadron by running ahead of the other ships, which, owing to the light breeze, could not get within range. For two hours, he fought against these hopeless odds, and almost without support, until his ship was reduced to a wreck and only one of her guns could be worked, while of her crew of 103, only twenty were left on their feet. Every nook and corner of the brig was occupied by some wounded and dying wretch seeking vainly to find shelter from the British fire. Even the c.o.c.kpit, where the wounded were carried for treatment, was not safe, for some of the men were killed while under the surgeon's hands. No fewer than six cannon b.a.l.l.s pa.s.sed through the c.o.c.kpit, while two went through the magazine, which, by some miracle, did not explode.

The ship was so disabled, at last, that it drifted out of action, and Perry, taking his pennant and the blue flag bearing the words "Don't give up the ship!" under his arm, got into a boat with four seamen, and started for the Niagara, his other brig.

The British saw the little boat dancing over the waves, and after a moment of dazed astonishment at a manoeuvre unheard of in naval warfare and daring almost to madness, concentrated their fire on it. One cannon ball penetrated the boat, but Perry, stripping off his coat, stuffed it into the hole and so kept the boat afloat until the Niagara was reached.

Clambering on board, Perry ran up his flags, reformed his line, closed with the enemy, raked them, engaged them at close quarters, where their long guns gave them no advantage, and conducted an onslaught so terrific that, twenty minutes later, the entire British squadron had hauled down their flags.

Perry at once rowed back to the Lawrence, and upon her splintered and bloodstained deck, received the surrender of the British officers. Then, using his cap for a desk, he wrote with a pencil on the back of an old letter the famous message announcing the victory: "We have met the enemy and they are ours--two ships, two brigs, two schooners and one sloop."

More than that was ours, for the victory, and the prompt advance of General Harrison which followed it, compelled the British to evacuate Detroit and Michigan, and to abandon forever the attempt to annex the West to Canada. Half a century later, when the great Erie ca.n.a.l was opened, the guns of Perry's fleet, placed at ten-mile intervals along its banks, announced the departure of the first fleet of boats from Buffalo, carrying the news to New York City, a distance of 360 miles, in an hour and twenty minutes.

Perry lived only six years longer, dying while still a young man, in the saddest possible manner. In June, 1819, he was given command of a squadron designed to protect American trade in South American waters, and while ascending the Orinoco, contracted the yellow fever, and died a few days later. He was buried at Trinidad, but some years afterwards, a ship-of-war brought him home, and he sleeps at Newport, Rhode Island, near the spot where he was born.

So ends the story of that group of naval commanders, who dealt so surprising and terrific a blow at the tradition of English supremacy on the ocean.

The brother of the victor of Lake Erie, Matthew Calbraith Perry, must also be mentioned here, for his was a unique achievement--the peaceful conquest of a great Eastern empire. Born in 1794, and educated in the best traditions of the navy, he was selected to command the expedition which, in 1853, was ordered to visit j.a.pan, that strange nation of the Orient which, up to that time, had kept her ports closed to foreign commerce. Perry's conduct of this delicate mission was notable in the extreme, and its result was the signing of a treaty between j.a.pan and the United States which has long been regarded as one of the greatest diplomatic triumphs of the age.

In the spring of 1861, a captain of the United States navy was living at Norfolk, Va., his home, the home of his wife's family, and the home of his closest friends. Excitement ran high, for it was as yet an open question whether or not the great state of Virginia would join her sisters farther south and renounce her allegiance to the Union. It was a time of searching of hearts, and this man of sixty years was brought face to face with the bitterest moment of his life. He must choose between his country and his state; between his flag and the love and respect of his relatives and friends.

In the end, the flag won. It was the flag he had taken his boyish oath to honor; on more than one occasion, he had seen the haughtiest colors on the ocean bow with respect before it; he had seen men, writhing in the agony of death, expend their last breath to defend it. It had wrapped itself about his heart, and meant more to him than home or friends or kindred. So the flag won.

On the seventeenth day of April, 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union.

The day following, our gray-haired captain, expressing the opinion that secession was not the will of the majority of the people, but that the state had been dragooned out of the Union by a coterie of politicians, was told that he could no longer live in Norfolk.

"Very well," he answered, "I can live somewhere else."

He went home and told his wife that the time had come when she must choose whether she would remain with her own kinsfolk or follow him. Her choice was made on the instant, and within two hours, David Glasgow Farragut, his wife and their only son, were on a steamer headed for the North. A few days later, he offered his services to the Union.

Before going forward with him upon his great career, let us cast a glance over his boyhood--such a boyhood as falls to the lot of not one in a million. Born in 1801, of a father who had served in the Revolution and who was afterwards to become a friend and companion of Andrew Jackson, his childhood was pa.s.sed amid the dangers and alarms of the Tennessee frontier. In 1808 occurred the incident which paved the way for his entrance into the navy. While fishing on Lake Pontchartrain, his father fell in with a boat in which was lying an old man prostrated by the heat of the sun. Farragut took him at once to his own home, where he was tenderly cared for, but he died a few days later. The sufferer was David Porter, father of Captain Porter of the Ess.e.x, at that time in charge of the naval station at New Orleans.

Captain Porter was informed of the accident to his father, and hastened to the home of the Farraguts. He felt deeply their kindness, and as some slight return, offered to adopt one of the Farragut children, take him North with him, and do what he could for his advancement. Young David promptly said that he would go, the arrangements were concluded, and the boy of seven accompanied his new protector to Washington. He spent two years at school there, and then, on December 17, 1810, at the age of nine, received an appointment as midshipman in the United States navy.

Two years later, he accompanied Porter in the Ess.e.x on that memorable trip around Cape Horn.

Porter took so many prizes in the South Pacific that his supply of older officers ran out, and twelve-year old David Farragut was appointed prize-master of one of them, with orders to take her to Valparaiso. When Farragut gave his first order, her skipper, a hot-tempered old sea-dog, flew into a rage, and declaring that he had "no idea of trusting himself with a blamed nutsh.e.l.l," rushed below for his pistols. The twelve-year-old commander shouted after him that, if he came on deck again, he would be thrown overboard, and thenceforth was master of the ship. He was back on the Ess.e.x again when she was attacked in Valparaiso harbor by a British squadron, and got his baptism of fire in one of the hardest-fought naval battles in history.

From that time until the outbreak of the Civil War, his life was spent in the most active service, and he rose to the rank of captain. As has been seen, he cast in his lot with the North, and asked for active duty at once, but it was not until eight months later that the summons came.

When it did come, it was of a nature to fill him with the most unbounded enthusiasm. The national government had determined to attempt to send a fleet past the formidable forts at the mouth of the Mississippi, for the purpose of capturing New Orleans. Farragut was sent for, shown the list of vessels which were preparing for the expedition, and asked if he thought it could succeed. He answered that he would undertake to do it with two-thirds the number, and when he was told that he was to command the expedition, his delight knew no bounds. He felt that his chance had come. On the second of February, 1862, he sailed out of Hampton Roads with a squadron of seventeen vessels, and turned his prow to the south.

The task which had been set him was one to give the stoutest heart pause. Twenty miles above the mouth of the Mississippi were two formidable forts and a number of water batteries, with combined armaments greatly superior to those of Farragut's fleet. A great barrier of logs stretched across the river, while farther up lay a Confederate fleet of fifteen vessels, one of which was an ironclad ram. A strong force of Confederate sharpshooters was stationed along either bank, and a number of fire-rafts were ready to be lighted and sent down against the Union fleet. It was against these obstacles that Farragut, after a week of preliminary attack, started up the river in his wooden vessels at three o'clock in the morning of April 24, 1862.

As soon as the Confederates descried the advancing fleet, they lighted great fires along the banks and opened a terrific cannonade. Blazing fire-rafts threw a lurid glare against the sky. The fleet, pausing a few minutes to discharge their broadsides into the forts, steamed on up the river; Farragut's flagship grounded under the guns of Fort St. Philip, and a fireship, blazing a hundred feet in the air, floated against her and set her on fire, but the flames were extinguished, the flagship backed off, and headed again up the stream. Before the coming of dawn, the entire fleet, with the exception of three small boats, had pa.s.sed the forts and were grappling with the Confederate squadron above. Of this, short work was made. Some of the enemy's vessels were driven ash.o.r.e, some were run down, others were riddled with shot--and the proudest city of the South lay at Farragut's mercy.

On the first day of May, the United States troops under General Butler, marched into the city, and Farragut, glad to be relieved of an unpleasant task, proceeded up the river, ran by the batteries at Vicksburg, a.s.sisted at the reduction of Port Hudson, and finally sailed for New York in his flagship, the Hartford, arriving there in August, 1863. He had already been commissioned rear-admiral, and he was given a most enthusiastic reception, for his pa.s.sage of the Mississippi was recognized as an extraordinary feat. An examination of his ship showed that she had been struck 240 times by shot and sh.e.l.l in her nineteen months of service.

Immediately after the surrender of New Orleans, Farragut had desired to proceed against the port of Mobile, Alabama, which was so strongly fortified that all attempts to close it had been in vain, and which was the only important port left open to the Confederates. But the government decided that Mobile could wait a while, and sent him, instead, to open the Mississippi. That task accomplished, the time had come for him to attempt the greatest of his career--greater, even, than his capture of New Orleans, and much more hazardous. In the spring of 1864, he was in the Gulf, preparing for the great enterprise.

Mobile harbor was defended by works so strong and well-placed that it was considered well-nigh impregnable. The Confederates had realized the importance of keeping this, their last port, open, so that they could communicate with the outer world, and had spared no pains to render it so strong that they believed no attack could subdue it. Two great forts, armed with heavy and effective artillery, guarded the entrance; the winding channel was filled with torpedoes, and in the inner harbor was a fleet of gunboats, and, most powerful of all, the big, ironclad ram, Tennessee. In charge of the Tennessee was the same man who had guided the Merrimac on her fatal visit to Hampton Roads, Franklin Buchanan, but the Tennessee was a much more powerful vessel than the Merrimac had ever been, and it was thought that nothing afloat could stand against her.

It was this position, then, which, at daybreak of August 5, 1864, Farragut sailed in to a.s.sault. His fleet consisted of four ironclad monitors, and fourteen wooden vessels, and his preparations were made most carefully, for he fully realized the gravity of the task before him. He himself was in his old flagship, the Hartford, and mounting into the rigging to be above the smoke, he was lashed fast there, so that he would not fall to the deck, in case a bullet struck him. The thought of that brave old leader taking that exposed position so that he might handle his fleet more ably will always be a thrilling one--and the event proved how wise he was in choosing it.

The word was given, and, at half past six in the morning, the monitors took their stations, while the wooden ships formed in column, the plan being for the monitors, with their iron sides, to steam in between the wooden ships and the forts, and so protect them as much as possible. The light vessels were lashed each to the left of one of the heavier ones, so that each pair of ships was given a double chance to escape, should one be rendered helpless by a shot in the boiler, or in some other vital portion of her machinery. The Brooklyn was at the head of the column, while the Hartford came second, and the others followed. In this order, the fleet advanced to the attack.

There was an unwonted stillness on the ships as they swung in towards the harbor mouth, for every man felt within him a vague unrest caused by one awful and mysterious peril, the torpedoes. For the forts, the gunboats, even the great ironclad, the men cared nothing--they had met such perils before--but lurking beneath the water was a horror not to be guarded against. They knew that these deadly mines were scattered along the channel through which they must make their way, and that any moment might be the end of some proud vessel.

The ships were all in fighting trim, with spars housed and canvas furled, and decks spread with sawdust so that they would not grow slippery with the blood which was soon to flow. As the fleet came within range of the forts, a terrific cannonade began, in which the Confederate ships, stationed just inside the harbor, soon joined. One of them was the great ram, Tennessee, and the commander of the leading monitor, the Tec.u.mseh, noted her and determined to give her battle. So he swung his ship toward her and ordered full steam ahead; but an instant later, there came a sudden dull roar, an uplifting of the water, the boat quivered from stem to stern, and then plunged, bow first, beneath the waves.

Farragut, from his lofty station, saw the Tec.u.mseh disappear, and then saw the Brooklyn, the ship ahead of him in the battle line, stop and begin to back. It was an awful moment--the crisis of the fight and of Farragut's career as well. The ships were halted in a narrow channel, right beneath the forts; a few moments' delay meant that they would be blown out of the water.

"What's the matter there?" he roared.

"Torpedoes!" came the cry from the Brooklyn's deck, for her captain had perceived a line of little buoys stretching right across her path.

"d.a.m.n the torpedoes!" shouted the admiral. "Go ahead, Captain Drayton,"

he continued, addressing his own captain. "Four bells!" and the Hartford, swinging aside, cleared the Brooklyn and took the lead.

On went the flagship across the line of torpedoes, which could be heard knocking against her bottom as she pa.s.sed, but not one of them exploded, and a moment later, one of the most daring feats in naval history had been accomplished. Farragut had seen, instantly, that the risk must be taken, and so he took it.

The remainder of the fleet followed the flagship, the forts were pa.s.sed, and the battle virtually won. The Confederate fleet, and especially the great ram, was still to be reckoned with, but before proceeding to that portion of the task, Farragut steamed up the harbor and served breakfast to his men. Just as this was finished, the Tennessee attacked, and put up a desperate fight, but finally became unmanageable and was forced to surrender.