Hero Stories from American History Part 18

The ketch still clings to the blazing frigate, from whose portholes the flames are shooting out. The gunpowder left on the deck is covered only with canvas. Life is in peril. They find that the stern rope has not been cast off. Up rush Decatur and his {167} officers, and cut the hawser with their swords. The boat swings clear, and the men row for their lives.

The fierce flames of the burning ship bring the Intrepid into plain view. She is a target for every gun. Bang! bang! thunder a hundred cannon.

"Stop rowing, boys, and give 'em three cheers," shouts Decatur.

Everybody is on his feet in an instant, and joins in the hurrahs.

Solid shot, grape, and sh.e.l.ls whistle and scream in the air above the little ketch, and throw up showers of spray as they strike the water.

Only one shot hits, and that whizzes through the mainsail. The men bend to their oars and pull for dear life. They are soon well out of {168} range, and, in a short time, safe under the guns of the Siren.

What wild hurrahs were heard when Decatur, clad in a sailor's pea-jacket, and begrimed with powder, sprang on board and shouted, "Didn't she make a glorious bonfire, and we didn't lose a man!"

In telling the story afterwards, the men said it was a superb sight.

The flames burst out and ran rapidly up the masts and the rigging, and lighted up the sea and the sky with a lurid glare. The guns soon became heated and began to go off. They fired their hot shot into the shipping, and even into the town. Then, as if giving a last salute, the Philadelphia parted her cables, drifted ash.o.r.e, and blew up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Burning of the Philadelphia]

As a popular saying goes, "Nothing succeeds like success." So it was with Decatur's deed. His cool head and the fine discipline of his men won success. The famous Lord Nelson, the greatest naval commander of his time, said it was "the most bold and daring act of the age."

Decatur was well rewarded. At twenty-five he was made a captain, and given the command of "Old Ironsides," probably the finest frigate at that time in the world.

{169}

CHAPTER XII

"OLD IRONSIDES"

"Ay, tear her tattered ensign down!

Long has it waved on high, And many an eye has danced to see That banner in the sky."

In 1833, when the old war ship Const.i.tution, unfit for service, lay in the navy yard in Charlestown, the Secretary of the Navy decided to sell her or to break her up. On the appearance of this bit of news in a Boston paper, Oliver Wendell Holmes, a law student at Harvard, scribbled some verses and sent them to the editor.

This poem of twenty-four lines was at once published, and was soon copied into the leading newspapers of the country. In our large cities, the poem was circulated as a handbill. Popular indignation rose to a white heat, and swept everything before it.

The order was at once revoked, and Congress decided that the old frigate, so dear to the hearts of the American people, should be rebuilt.

Why did the people care so much about "Old Ironsides"?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Old Ironsides"]

For twenty-five years after the adoption of the Const.i.tution, we had a rough road to travel. We were {170} nearly crushed by our foreign debts, and could do little to defend ourselves on the high seas.

England boarded our ships and carried off our sailors, and France captured our vessels and stole their cargoes. Even the Barbary pirates, when they spied the new flag, began to plunder and burn our merchantmen, and sell their crews into slavery.

In the fall of 1793, eight Algerine pirate craft sailed out into the Atlantic, and within a month had captured eleven of our ships and made slaves of more than a hundred of our sailors.

Think of our consul at Lisbon writing home, "Another Algerine pirate in the Atlantic. G.o.d preserve us!"

In behalf of American citizens held as slaves by these pirates, a pet.i.tion was sent to Congress. A bill was then pa.s.sed, allowing President Washington to build or to buy six frigates.

It was a fortunate day for our nation when the plans of Mr.

Humphreys, a shipbuilder of Philadelphia, were accepted. He was directed by Congress to prepare the models of six war ships, to be built in different towns on the coast.

The design of the Const.i.tution was sent to Boston, and her keel was laid in Hartt's Naval Yard, near what is now Const.i.tution Wharf. The ideas of Mr. Humphreys were carried out to the letter. The new frigate was to have better guns, greater speed, greater cruising capacity,--in fact, was to be a little better {171} in every respect than the British and the French ships of the same rating.

The Const.i.tution was called a forty-four-gun frigate, although she actually carried thirty twenty-four-pounders on her main deck, and twenty-two thirty-two-pounders on her spar deck. She had one gun deck instead of two, and her cannon were heavier than were usually carried on foreign war ships of her own cla.s.s. She was twenty feet longer and about five feet broader than {172} the far-famed thirty-eight-gun British frigates. In comparison with a modern war ship, she was less than one half as long as the armed cruiser New York, and not far from the size of one of our gunboats.

The British naval officers made much sport of these new ships; but after "Old Ironsides" had destroyed two fine British frigates, and had outsailed a large British fleet, they went to work and made over some of their line of battle ships into large frigates.

The Const.i.tution was built of the best material, and with unusual care. A Boston shipwright was sent South to select live oak, red cedar, and hard pine. Paul Revere, who made the famous midnight ride to Concord, received nearly four thousand dollars for the copper which he furnished for the new frigate.

From the laying of the keel to the final equipment, the Const.i.tution was kept in the shipyard fully three years. Her live oak timbers, having had two years to season, were hard as iron.

After many delays, the stanch ship was set afloat at midday, October 21, 1797, "before a numerous and brilliant collection of citizens."

In 1803, a fleet was sent to the north of Africa, to force the pirates of the Barbary coast to respect the persons and the property of American citizens. Commodore Preble was made commander, with the Const.i.tution as his flagship. He had under him the Philadelphia, a fine new frigate, and five smaller war ships.

{173} Preble was a remarkable man, and his "schoolboy captains," as he called them, all under twenty-five years of age, were also remarkable men.

For two years or more, there was plenty of stubborn fighting. Within forty days, five attacks were made on the forts and the war ships of Tripoli. In three of these attacks, the Const.i.tution took part; and once, while supporting the fleet, she silenced more than a hundred guns behind the forts of the pirate capital.

Even from the first, the new frigate was lucky. She was never dismasted, or seriously injured, in battle or by weather. In all her service, not one commanding officer was ever lost, and few of her crew were ever killed.

On one occasion, six of our gunboats made a savage hand to hand attack on twenty-one Tripolitan gunboats, and drove them back into the harbor with great loss.

"There, Commodore Preble," said young Decatur, as he came over the side of the Const.i.tution, and walked joyfully up to his commander on the quarter-deck, "I have brought you out three of the gunboats."

Preble had a kind heart, but a very quick temper. Like a flash, he seized Decatur by the collar and shook him, shouting, "Aye, sir, why did you not bring me out more?" and walked into his cabin.

The stern old fighter was over his temper in a moment. He sent for his young officer, and made ample amends for bad temper and hasty words. Ever afterwards these two great men were the best of friends.

{174} During the war of 1812, "the war for free trade and sailors'

rights," the Const.i.tution won her chief honors. The story of her remarkable escape from a British squadron has been often told.

It was at daybreak about the middle of July, 1812, off the New Jersey coast. Not a breath ruffled the ocean. Captain Isaac Hull, every inch of him a sailor, was in command. A British fleet of five frigates and some smaller vessels, which had been sighted the day before, had crept up during the night, and at daylight almost surrounded "Old Ironsides."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Isaac Hull]

Hull knew his ship and his men. Not for one moment did he think of giving up his vessel. Of course he could not fight his powerful foe with his single ship. He must get away. But how?

One of the British frigates, the Shannon, had furled her sails, and was being towed by all the boats of the fleet.

"This," said Lieutenant Morris, "seemed to decide our fate."

A moment later, however, a puff of wind carried our frigate out of gunshot.

"How deep is the water?" shouts Captain Hull.