Pike & Cutlass: Hero Tales of Our Navy

Stewart was not so easily disheartened as his officers. He knew that the “Constitution” was in the very midst of the ships of the enemy. Had he not known it he would not have been there. He came on deck during the afternoon in a high good humor. He was a believer in presentiments, and said, jovially, —

“The luck of the ‘Constitution’ isn’t going to fail her this time, gentlemen. I assure you that before the sun rises and sets again you will be engaged in battle with the enemy, and it will not be with a single ship.”

The morning of the next day dawned thick and cloudy. Though well to the southward, the air was cold and damp. The wind was blowing sharply from the northeast, and the choppy seas sent their gray crests pettishly or angrily upward, where they split into foam and were carried down to mingle with the blur of the fog to leeward. Occasionally, in the wind-squalls, the rain pattered like hail against the bellying canvas and ran down into the lee-clews, where it was caught as it fell and whipped out into the sea beyond.

Two or three officers paced the quarter-deck, looking now and then aloft or to windward to see if the weather were clearing. Saving these, the fellows at the wheel, and the watch on deck, all hands were below on the gun-deck, polishing their arms or loitering in the warmth near the galley, where the cooks were preparing the mid-day meal.

During the morning watch, Stewart, for some reason which he was unable to give, save an unaccountable impulse, changed the course and sent the ship down sixty miles to the southwest. Shortly after noon the fog fell lower, and so thinned out at the mast-head that the lookout on the topsail-yard could soon see along its upper surface. At about one o’clock the welcome sound of “Sail, ho!” came echoing down through the open hatchways. While ordinarily the sighting of a sail so near the coast has no great significance, Stewart’s prediction of a battle had aroused the men to a fever of impatience; and when they knew that a large sail, apparently a frigate, had been raised and that the fog was lifting, the watch below dropped their kits and tools and tumbled up on deck to have a glimpse of the stranger. Here and there wider rifts appeared in the fog-banks, and the midshipman of the watch, who climbed with a glass into the foretop, soon made her out to be a frigate bearing about two points on the port-bow.

Stewart came up from below and immediately crowded on top-gallant-sails and royals in pursuit. Before long the weather had cleared, so that they could make out the horizon to windward, and from the deck could dimly discern the hazy mass of the chase as she hung on the lee-bow, apparently motionless. In less than an hour the man at the mast-head reported another sail ahead of the first one, and noted that signals were being exchanged between them.

It was now almost a certainty that the vessels were those of the enemy. Forward the men were slapping one another on the back, and rough jokes and laughter resounded from the gun-deck, where the boys and stewards were clearing away the mess-dishes and stowing away all gear, in preparation for a possible action. On the quarter-deck wagers were freely offered on the character of the vessels, which looked to be frigates of 50 and 38. Stewart glanced aloft at the straining spars and smiled confidently.

By this time the nearer frigate bore down within the range of the glasses, and they could see that she was painted with double yellow lines, and apparently cut for fifty guns. As it afterwards appeared, she had a double gun-streak, false ports having been painted in her waist. Lieutenant Ballard, who had been carefully examining her with his glasses, remarked to the captain, who stood at his elbow, that she must at least be a fifty-gun ship. Stewart, after a long look, suggested that she was too small to be a ship of that class. “However,” he continued, “be this as it may, you know I have promised you a fight before the setting of to-morrow’s sun; and if we do not take it, now that it is offered, we may not have another chance. We must flog them when we catch them, whether she has one gun-deck or two.”

Signals were now constantly interchanged between the vessels, and by three o’clock the “Constitution” had come so near that they were plainly made out to be two small frigates, or a frigate and a sloop-of-war, both close hauled on the starboard tack. The “Constitution,” having the windward gauge, now manœuvred more carefully, and, hauling her sheets flat aft, pointed up so as to keep the advantage of position.

As the vessels came nearer and an action became certain, the stewards came on deck with the grog-buckets, in accordance with the time-honored rule on men-of-war by which the liquor is served before a fight. Instructions had been given that, as the battle was to be with two ships, a double portion of the drink should be served. But just as the stewards were about to ladle it out an old quartermaster rolled down from forward, and saying, “We don’t want any ‘Dutch courage’ on this ship,” with a great kick sent the bucket and its contents flying into the scuppers.

About four o’clock the westernmost ship signalled her consort and bore down to leeward to join her. The “Constitution” now set her stu’n-sails and went bearing down after them at a strain that seemed to menace her spars. She was rapidly drawing up with them when, just as she got well within range of the long guns, there was a sharp crack far aloft and the royal-mast snapped off at the cap. It was a doubtful moment, for the Englishmen crowded on all sail to escape, and rapidly drew together, flinging out their English ensigns as though in triumph.

But they did not reckon on the superb seamanship of the “Constitution.” In a trice the men were aloft with their axes, the wreck was cleared away, new gear was rove, and in half an hour a new mast was aloft and another royal was spread to the breeze.

But the ships had been enabled to close with each other, and Stewart had lost the opportunity of attacking them separately. They made one ineffectual effort to get the weather-gauge, but, finding that the “Constitution” outpointed them, they settled back in line of battle and cleared ship for action. Stewart immediately showed his colors and beat to quarters.

The fog had blown away and the sun had set behind a lowering bank of clouds. The wind still blew briskly, but the “Constitution” only pitched slightly, and offered a fairly steady platform for the guns, which were now trained upon the nearest vessel, but a few hundred yards broad off the port-bow. The darkness fell rapidly, and the moon came out from behind the fast-flying cloud-bank and silvered the winter twilight, gleaming fitfully on the restless water, a soft reproach upon the bloody work that was to follow.

At a few moments past six the long guns of the “Constitution’s” port-battery opened fire, and the battle was on. Both ships responded quickly to the fire, and for fifteen minutes the firing was so rapid that there was not a second’s pause between the reverberations. The English crews cheered loudly. But the gunners of the “Constitution” went on grimly with their work, sponging and loading as though at target-practice, content to hear the splintering of the timbers of the nearest vessel as the double-shotted thirty-twos went crashing into her. Before long the smoke became so thick that the gunners could not see their adversaries; and Stewart, ordering the batteries to cease firing, drew ahead and ranged abeam of the foremost ship, with his port-battery reloaded and double-shotted. He waited until he was well alongside before giving the order to fire, when he delivered such a terrible hail of round-shot, grape, and canister that the enemy staggered and halted like an animal mortally wounded. For the moment her battery was entirely silenced, and during the lull they could hear the cries of the wounded as they were carried below to the cockpit. The English cheered no longer. Another such a broadside might have finished her; but before Stewart could repeat it he saw that the other ship was luffing up so as to take a raking position under the stern of the “Constitution.”

Nowhere did the wonderful presence of mind of Stewart and the splendid seamanship of his crew show to better advantage than in the manœuvre which followed. He quickly braced his main- and mizzen-topsails flat to the mast, let fly all forward, and actually backed down upon the other enemy, who, instead of being able to rake the “Constitution,” found her emerging from the smoke abreast his bows in a position to effectually rake him. The “Constitution’s” guns by this time had all been reloaded, and a terrific fire swept fore and aft along the decks of the Englishman, tearing and splintering her decks and dismounting many of the guns of both batteries. So terrible was the blow that she faltered and fell off. Before she could recover from the first, another terrible broadside was poured into her.

The other vessel now tried to luff up and rake the “Constitution” from the bows. But the American filled away immediately and let them have her other broadside. Side by side the “Constitution” and the larger ship sailed, firing individually and by battery as fast as they could sponge and load. Here and there a shot would strike within the stout bulwarks of the American; and one of these tore into the waist, killing two men and smashing through a boat in which two tigers were chained. A sailor named John Lancey, of Cape Ann, was carried below horribly mutilated. When the surgeon told him he only had a few moments to live, he said, “Yes, sir, I know it; but I only want to know that the ship has struck.” Soon after, when he heard the cheers at her surrender, he rose from his cot, and, waving the stump of his blood-stained arm in the air, gasped out three feeble cheers and fell back lifeless.

Having silenced the larger vessel, Stewart immediately hurried to the smaller one, which had been firing through the smoke at the gun-flashes. The “Constitution” fell off, and, gathering headway, succeeded in getting again across her stern, where she poured in two raking broadsides, which practically cut her rigging to pieces. Returning to the larger vessel, Stewart rounded to on her port-quarter and delivered broadside after broadside with such a telling effect that at 6.50 she struck her colors.

The other vessel having in a measure refitted, came down gallantly but foolishly to the rescue of her consort. The “Constitution” met her with another broadside, which she tried to return, and then spread all sail to get away. But the American ship could outsail as well as outpoint her, and under the continuous fire of the bow-chasers of the “Constitution” she became practically helpless, and at about ten o’clock, when the dreaded broadside was about to be put into play again, she surrendered.

It was a wonderful battle. In a fight between one sailing-ship and two the odds were four-fold on the side of the majority. For it was deemed next to impossible to rake without being doubly raked in return. This obvious disadvantage was turned by Stewart to his own account by what critics throughout the world consider to be the finest manœuvring ever known in an American ship in action. He fought both his broadsides alternately, and luffed, wore, or backed his great vessel as though she had been a pleasure-boat. Neither of his adversaries succeeded in delivering one telling raking broadside. She seemed to be playing with them, and skilfully presented her reloaded guns to each vessel as it attempted to get her at a disadvantage.

The larger vessel was discovered to be the “Cyane,” 32, Captain Gordon Falcon, and the smaller one the sloop-of-war “Levant,” 21, Captain George Douglass. The “Constitution” had fifty-one guns, while the Englishmen had fifty-three; but of the “Constitution’s” crew four were killed and ten wounded. On the “Cyane” and “Levant” thirty-five were killed and forty-two were wounded.

After the battle, while the two English captains were seated in Stewart’s cabin dining with their victor, a discussion arose between them in regard to the part each had borne in the battle, while Stewart listened composedly. Their words became warmer and warmer, and each accused the other in plain terms of having been responsible for the loss of the vessels. At a point when it seemed as though the bitterness of their remarks bade fair to result in blows, Stewart arose and said, dryly, —

“Gentlemen, there is no use getting warm about it; it would have been all the same, whatever you might have done. If you doubt that, I will put you all on board again, and we can try it over.”

The invitation was declined in silence.

For this gallant action Congress awarded Stewart a sword and a gold medal, and “Old Ironsides” soon after the war was over was temporarily put out of commission. Her day of fighting was over. But years after, refitted and remodelled, she served her country in peace as gracefully as she had served it gloriously in war.

THE “CONSTITUTION” AND THE “GUERRIERE”

By the exercise of remarkable seamanship Captain Hull had succeeded in escaping from the British squadron, under Broke, off the Jersey coast. But he came so near capture that the secretary of the navy succeeded in frightening himself and the whole Cabinet at Washington into such a state of timidity that, had they had their way, no war-vessel flying the American flag would have been allowed to leave any Atlantic seaport and put to sea.

Captain Hull had carried the “Constitution” into Boston, where, if the orders had reached him in time, the secretary would have peremptorily bidden him to remain. But Hull was not in a humor to be inactive. What he wanted was a fight, yard-arm to yard-arm, with a frigate of the enemy, preferably the “Guerriere,” Captain Richard Dacres, who had sailed boldly up and down the coast with an open challenge to any frigate flying the American flag. Though very warm personal friends ashore, both Hull and Dacres had high opinions of the merits of their own vessels. Dacres voiced the prevailing sentiment of the officers of his navy when he spoke of the “Constitution” as a bunch of pine boards which the British would knock to pieces in twenty minutes. Hull said little; but several months before war was declared had met Dacres, and wagered him a cocked hat on the result should the “Constitution” and the “Guerriere” ever meet. With the timidity at home, neither he nor any American officers had much encouragement. There was no confidence in the navy at this period, and the insults they heard from abroad were not half so hard to bear as the thinly-veiled indifference they met at home.

But Hull knew he had a good ship and a good crew. He had trained them himself, and he knew what they could do aloft and at the guns. Moreover, he knew what he could do himself. The navy was small, but the men who had smelt powder in the Revolution and before Tripoli were a stalwart set and had done deeds of gallantry that had set the greatest admirals of Europe by the ears. Many ingenious contrivances had been adopted, to be now tried for the first time. Sights had been put upon the guns, and the gun-captains knew better how to shoot than ever before. So, without waiting for the orders from the secretary which he knew would hold him in port indefinitely, Hull sailed on the first fair wind and uncompromisingly put out to sea. If the orders came, he wouldn’t be back to obey unless he had captured a British frigate, or, at the very least, some merchant prizes. If he did not succeed, it meant that he might be hung or shot for sailing without orders. But even this sword of Damocles did not deter him. He would do his best, at any rate, and made a quiet seaman’s petition to the God of winds and seas to send him the “Guerriere.”

Thinking to find a better opportunity towards Halifax, where many British men-of-war and merchantmen put in, Hull sailed to the northward, and cruised as far as the mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The frigate “Spartan,” 38, was in those waters; but after watching for her for some days, he stood out to sea. On the 15th of August he sighted five vessels. The “Constitution” set all sail and rapidly came up with them. Four of them scattered, leaving the fifth, a brig, on fire. Hull made for the largest of the others, and found her to be an English merchantman in charge of an American prize-crew. The “Constitution” saved her from capture at the hands of the other vessels. Before night another vessel was overhauled, and she was found to be the American “Adeline,” in the hands of a prize-crew from the British “Avenger.” One vessel was destroyed and the other was sent to Boston in charge of Midshipman Madison and five men, carrying the first suggestion of the brilliant news which was to follow.

A few days later the “Constitution” chased and overhauled the American privateer “Decatur,” which, believing her to be an English cruiser, had thrown overboard almost all of her guns. The captain of the privateer had good news, though. He had sighted an English frigate the day before, sailing southward under easy sail. Hull immediately set everything the “Constitution” could carry and gave the quartermasters a course which should enable him to come up with her by the following day.

The next morning dawned clear, but the breezes fell light, and not until the morning watch was there wind enough to send the American frigate bowling along on her course under top-gallant-sails and royals. Hull took the deck for awhile himself and sent lookouts to the fore- and main-royal-yards to keep a sharp lookout. With moderate luck they should catch up with her. And then Hull felt that he would make the “Constitution” the most talked about ship afloat or else he would change the timidity at the Navy Department into a panic for which there would be some reason.

If the ship were the “Guerriere,” he promised himself a new hat.

Not a sail hove in sight until towards two in the afternoon, when a lookout aloft shouted, in a voice that was taken up by four hundred throats on the spar- and gun-decks, —

“Sail ho!”

In a moment the watch below came rushing up. So great was the excitement that many of them went half-way to the tops, without orders or permission, to view the stranger. In an hour the stronger glasses proved her plainly to be a frigate, and the “Constitution” eased off her sheets, and with the bit in her teeth boomed steadily down for her. For an hour the two ships moved in this position, the stranger making no effort to escape and leaving her colors, which were soon made out to be British, flying in defiance. In fact, as soon as she discovered the “Constitution” to be an American frigate she took in sail, laid her maintop-sail to the mast, and silently awaited the approach. Hull sailed on until within about three miles of the enemy, when he sent his light yards down, reefed his topsails, and cleared ship for action.

An American-built frigate was for the first time to test her stanchness against a worthy representative of the mistress of the seas and “Terror of the World.” Most of the crew had never been in close action before. The chase of the “Constitution” had tired their hearts less than their bodies, for the firing of the British squadron had been at a very long range, and there was never a time when their ship was in danger from the cannonading of the enemy. There was not a qualm or a fear to be seen on the faces either of grizzled seaman or powder-boy, and they went to quarters with enthusiasm.

But underlying it all there was a note of gravity. They were going to bring an American ship into action with a frigate whose navy had scored hundreds of victories over the vessels of all the great nations of the earth. They half wondered at their audacity and that of their captain in defying a frigate so redoubtable as the “Guerriere,” for there seemed no further doubt that it was she. But they looked up at Hull, who was calmly pacing up and down the quarter-deck, taking a look now and then at the enemy through his glass, and their confidence came back to them. The excitement was intense, and one by one the men began throwing aside their shirts and drawing in the buckles of their cutlass-hangers, most of the gun-crews stripping themselves to the waist and casting aside their shoes to avoid slipping on the decks when the blood began to flow. More than one of them had his own private score to settle with the British navy. Many of them had been at one time or another taken off American merchant-ships and impressed into the service of the enemy, and some of them still bore upon their backs the scars of the bloody lashes of the relentless “Cat.” The father of Captain Hull had died in the pest-ship “Jersey,” in the Revolution, and the other officers had all some grievances of their own which made them look eagerly forward to the battle which they intended should mean victory or death.

On the “Guerriere” there was a feeling of unshaken confidence. That any calamity to their ship could be expected from an American-built vessel, manned by a crew collected haphazard among the merchant-ships of the Atlantic harbors, never for a moment occurred to them. When the drum beat to quarters, the men tumbled to their stations willingly enough, with no more trepidation than if they were going to target-practice. Captain Dacres summoned an American prisoner, the captain of the captured merchant-brig “Betsy,” and asked him what he thought of the vessel which was approaching. The skipper ventured that she was undoubtedly an American frigate. Captain Dacres replied with a smile, —

“She comes down a shade too boldly for an American.” And then added, “Well, the better he behaves the more honor we will have in taking him.”

As the “Constitution” bore down nearer, her ensign and jack flying proudly, there could no longer be any doubt as to her nationality and intentions, and he shouted to his crew, who stood at the guns, —

“There, my men, is a Yankee frigate. In forty-five minutes she is certainly ours. Take her in fifteen, and I promise you four months’ pay.”

Shortly after this Captain Hull was within two or three miles, and the “Guerriere” opened fire on the “Constitution,” to try the distance and get the range.

The shots fell short, but Hull took in his light sails and came down more warily under topsails. The “Constitution” fired a broadside, but these shots, too, dropped in the water between them. As he came nearer, the “Guerriere” squared away, wearing first to port and then to starboard, firing alternate broadsides and manœuvring to avoid being raked. He wanted to cripple the American’s rigging from a distance, if possible. But the shot all missed their mark, and the “Constitution” only replied with her bow-guns. Hull soon saw that this manœuvring might last the day out without coming to close quarters, so he hoisted his top-gallant-sails and made straight for the enemy.

Now the shot of the Englishman began coming aboard. Some of the standing rigging was cut away and the vessel was hulled several times. But the men, having carefully reloaded, stood silently at their guns, looking out through the ports at the “Guerriere,” which, enveloped in smoke, kept up a continuous fire. They looked anxiously at the short, stout, sturdy figure of Captain Hull, but he continued pacing the quarter-deck, making no sign that he was aware of the damage the shots were causing. In a moment the report of “Nobody hurt yet, sir,” ceased suddenly. A shot struck the “Constitution’s” starboard bulwarks up forward and sent a jagged hail of splinters among the crew of two of the guns of the first division. Two men were killed outright and one or two more were wounded by this shot, and as their shipmates saw the men carried below to the cockpit they moved uneasily, and several of the gun-captains wished to fire. Lieutenant Morris now, with a view to quieting them, strode aft to the quarter-deck, where Hull was still calmly pacing up and down, and said, —

“The enemy has killed two of our men. Shall we return it?”

“Not yet, sir,” replied the impenetrable Hull.

Morris returned to his station. But there is nothing more disorganizing to men than to be fired at and not have the opportunity of firing in return, and they besought Morris again to give the permission. Twice more the lieutenant went aft to the quarter-deck, and twice he got the same reply. Hull, like Paul Jones, believed in great broadsides at close quarters. This silence under galling fire was the greatest test of discipline an American crew had ever had. For in the heat of battle a man forgets to be afraid. That the men stood to it, speaks well for Hull’s training.

At last the “Constitution,” which had been drawing closer and closer, drew up to a position about forty yards off the “Guerriere’s” port-quarter, and Hull, waiting until his guns could all bear, stooped low, bursting his breeches from knee to waistband in the excitement of the moment, and gave vent to all the pent-up feelings of two hours in the hoarse order, —

“Now, boys, give it to them!”