Prior to independence, American mariners, comprising about one-third of the British merchant marine, enjoyed the protection of the Royal Navy. The mariners of the new United States, a country so impoverished it had to sell off what remained of its wartime navy, enjoyed no such support. They soon learned that, in addition to struggling against British discriminatory practices in most parts of the world, they would be victimized regularly by pirates, especially in the Mediterranean Sea.
For a decade, news accounts reported regularly of a ship or ships being commandeered by the Barbary pirates of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. They took the ships into their own service and enslaved their Christian crews, to be released only upon payment of ransom. Over centuries, most European nations had resorted to paying tribute to these bandits to protect their own shipping. The Americans balked at that prospect for many reasons, but for years they had just as many reasons not to settle on any alternative course of action.
On 8 December 1793, reports reached the United States of 11 Yankee ships having fallen victim to the predators. This spurred the Third Congress, which had convened just six days earlier, into serious debate concerning what was to be done. President George Washington sent a message to the legislators on the 16th, urging action. For another two weeks the lawmakers met in secret sessions, debating against a background of fact and fiction appearing in the press. On 2 January 1794, a select committee, weighted heavily with people of maritime persuasions, was authorized to recommend the character of a naval force to be created for the protection of shipping. On the 20th, the committee reported that four 44-gun and two 20-gun ships should be built.
The debates that followed went along predictable North- South, inland-tidewater lines, but on 10 March, the House voted 50 to 39 to authorize the construction of four 44- gun and two 36-gun frigates. The Senate followed suit on the 19th. George Washington signed “An act to provide a naval armament” on 27 March 1794.
There would be further twists and turns along the way, but from this act came the 44-gun frigates United States, Constitution, and President-, the 38-gun frigate Constellation; and the 36-gun frigates Congress and Chesapeake.
Designs on a New Ship
Philadelphia Quaker Joshua Humphreys designed the U.S. Navy’s first built-for-the-purpose men-of-war in the 1790s. He based his design philosophy on the thought that, since the young country could not afford to build many men-of- war, those she did build ought to be big and strong enough to outfight anything of their type, and fast enough to get away from anything stronger. Furthermore, they ought to be built to the highest standards using the finest materials available to ensure long life. Beginning with a hull form influenced by French practices, and using British norms for dimensioning structural members, then adding his own unique contribution, Humphreys created the design that resulted in the construction of the unparalleled champion USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”), among others.
In the late 18th century, many of the world’s navies commonly used short, heavy pieces of wood attached diagonally over sections of the inner hull to help stiffen it and counteract hogging. Humphreys, with warship design experience dating back to the Revolution, was aware of this, of course, but he took the idea to an extent never before seen in his new design for a 44-gun frigate.
The designer called for long, curving pieces of wood called diagonal riders to be installed between the keel and the berth deck beams— three pairs of diagonals in the forward part of the ship and a similar number aft. The diagonals were through-bolted to the hull at two- foot intervals. Other than the midship riders, which butted against each other, all of the others were tenoned into the keelson.
Through this system of diagonals, Humphreys caused the downward thrust of weights at the ends of his frigate to press against one another near the ship’s center of bending at the keel and largely counteract the detrimental effects. Rough modern model tests found that a hull so braced would distort less than half as much as one without the diagonals, even under twice the weight.
At the berth-deck level, Humphreys provided for four pairs of white oak “thick planks” to be installed running the length of the ship. All were worked to fit over and into the beams and ledges they crossed, and all were firmly attached to the ends of the ship with stout knees of white oak. These, in effect, became an “upper keel,” a series of unified members running the ship’s entire length at that level.
Also at the berth-deck level, Humphreys called for the pieces of the two strakes of “spirketting”—the thick pieces occupying the space above the waterways filling the line of jointure of deck beams with the ship’s frames—to be “hooked and joggled” into each other. This made them fit like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle and meant that the spirketting around the perimeter of the berth deck became a “fence,” tying thick planks, deck beams, and frames into a single large framework. Structurally, all were tied, in turn, to the keel/keelson through the diagonals.
As innovative and effective as this system was, Humphreys did not stop there. Between the berth deck beams and those of the gun deck above it, he provided for three rows of stanchions, one along the centerline of the ship, and another parallel to it on either side. These helped to distribute the weight of the guns (about three- and-a-quarter tons each) throughout the ship’s fabric. The use of “thick planks” and hooked and joggled spirketting was repeated. A centerline row of movable stanchions helped support the spar deck.
This integrated structural system, with six pairs of diagonals spanning much of the lower hull, then, is Joshua Humphreys’s unique contribution to the art of warship design. The British and French, at least, already had built 44-gun frigates, but the Quaker was the first to employ full-length (keel-to-lower-deck beams), one-piece, pre-stressed diagonals in his frigate design and to unify strength members at lower- and main-deck levels. He not only successfully blended French proportions for speed with British practices for sturdiness, he also added a feature that greatly increased his ships’ strength, ensuring that their size and power and endurance were no illusion.
Plank Owner
Only rarely are we given a glimpse of the “ordinary” people involved in the drama and often fiery consequences of history. So it is with William Bryant, ship’s boy.
Will Bryant was born in Sandwich (or Ipswich), Massachusetts, on 5 January 1781. At age 13, he came to Boston apprenticed to Edward B. Walker, a hatter.
Captain Samuel Nicholson, the Constitution's prospective commander, worked to outfit the new frigate. Early in May 1798, he received orders from Secretary of War William McHenry “to lose no Time in completing, equipping, and manning her for Sea,” for war service in an undeclared “quasi” war with revolutionary France. He was to engage 150 able seamen and 103 midshipmen and ordinary seamen, “all certified healthy by the Surgeon, for twelve Months unless sooner discharged,” the enlistments to commence on the day the ship first got under way.
Nicholson’s advertisement for recruits appeared in The Columbian Centinel on 12 May. Bryant later wrote, “I was in the boat with the first recruits that ever went on board of that ship. I signed articles A.M. & went on board P.M. 15th day of may [sic] 1798—no officers on board at that time but petty officers.” The teenager was rated “boy” and assigned duties as a steward’s helper in the wardroom, where someone with a closed mouth and open ears could learn much about the ship’s leadership.
The Constitution's initial set of officers was, indeed, a group about which much was said—most of it bad. During June, Stephen Higginson, the Naval Agent in Boston, made the following observations about some of these men:
Capt. N: is in my estimation a rough blustering Tar merely, he is a good seaman probably and is no doubt acquainted with many or most parts of his duty . . . but he wants points much more important as a Commander in my view, prudence, judgment and reflection are no traits in his character, nor will he ever improve. . . .
Mr. Cordis the second lieutenant . . . possesses none of the requisites, he is deficient in every point, essential to a good Officer, he is said to be intemperate. . . .
Mr. Beale who is appointed 3rd Lt. is a smart young man, and will be a good officer. . . .
. . . the Surgeon, Read, is the opposite of what he ought to be . . . There is not a man in this Town who would trust the life of a dog in his hands. . . .
Will Bryant had a somewhat different view of Nicholson—and a reason for it, as well:
The Commodore was one of the most humane Commanders in our navy, was always willing to hear the complaints of his men and would often reprimand his officers for any ill treatment.
Any ship with so many mavericks and malcontents in its leadership cannot operate effectively for long, and the Constitution was no exception. She went to sea for the first time in July 1798. Despite her many personnel problems, the Constitution managed to operate reasonably well for a new ship with a green crew.
On 8 September, the frigate met and took her first prize off Cape Hatteras, a privateer named Niger (“Enijah,” Bryant wrote) mounting 26 guns. Unfortunately for Nicholson, the Niger was an English ship, although her captain was a Frenchman, an aristocrat displaced by the revolution. This Nicholson refused to believe, insisting that the claim was merely a subterfuge. He took the Niger into Norfolk, Virginia, where extended legal and diplomatic maneuvering ultimately led to the ship’s return to the English and a payment of $11,000 in damages.
Following further routine operations and a December upheaval among her officers, the Constitution was ordered south to join Commodore John Barry’s squadron operating from Prince Rupert’s Bay, Dominica, in the West Indies. En route thence, the ship made its second capture on 15 January 1799. Bryant recounted:
We discovered the Ship in the morning. . . . She lay by the wind under easy sail untill [sic] about three o’clock. At that time we had a good breeze, and increasing. When she took the hint, and up helm and crowded sail before the wind; and we crowed [sic] all sail in chase. But in the evening it became very squally. ... As the squall abated, we discovered a ship standing by the wind (we running before the wind) and got within musket shot before we discovered her, it being very dark. We supposed her to be the same ship we had been in chase of; we then brought our ship to the wind, fired a gun, lit our battle lanterns, and prepared for action; and after we were prepared, we gave her two or three more guns, as signals. She had shortened sail, and was to the windward, and, we supposed, was preparing for action; but she not showing any lights, nor firing a gun after so long a time, we were suspicious that we had made a mistake in the ship; and we then run along side, and found our suspicion to be a reality. She being an English merchantman, a prize to the Lee-lnsurgeon; and by that mistake the Lee insurgeon [sic] enabled to make her escape. . . .
Bryant’s memory was very good. Actually, two ships were sighted on the 15th: the French frigate L’Insurgente (Bryant’s “Lee insurgeon”) and her prize, the English Spencer, which had been on passage from Shields, England, to Barbados when she was taken. In the darkness, the Constitution had lost the frigate and stumbled upon her prize. Nicholson almost erred again, in that his orders did not authorize him to retake former British ships. After hours of uncertainty, he returned the Spencer to a very surprised French prize crew. Navy Secretary Stoddert, when he learned of the Commodore’s latest dido, recorded his thoughts:
. . . from such parts of his conduct as I have had the opportunity of knowing, 1 have no confidence in him—I am afraid to trust him with a separate command—and [sic] to keep such a Frigate as his under the command of Barry ... is to make of her of no more use or importance than a Ship of 20 Guns.
I have . . . determined therefore, to prevent his going out in her again if possible.
Unaware of the Secretary’s intentions, Nicholson reported to Commodore John Barry and took up his “watchman” duties off Deseada and the Marie-Galante Islands. Late in the evening watch on 1 March, a flurry of excitement ensued when an unidentified man-of-war was sighted. In the hurlyburly of going to action stations, an accidental pistol shot killed Acting Boatswain Hancock. The contact turned out to be HMS Santa Margaretta (a 36-gun frigate), and after securing from quarters, Hancock was buried near midnight.
At 0900 the next morning, the captain of the Santa Margaretta called on Captain Nicholson, and they quickly decided on a race to windward to see which had the handier ship. The race began at 1000; Lieutenant Isaac Hull had the deck in the Constitution. For five hours, the frigates tacked and tacked again, their crews straining to set and reset sail quickly and to best effect. At 1500, the Santa Margaretta fired a lone gun to leeward, a signal to the American frigate hull down on the horizon that she acknowledged defeat. Something had gone right for a change.
Bryant spent his remaining time on board the Constitution in humdrum patrolling in the West Indies before returning to Boston in May 1798. On the last day of that month he set his feet ashore, his enlistment completed.
Will Bryant was not a hero, nor did he participate in any memorable event, as human achievements are measured. Yet he was special, one of the original crewmen in the ship that was to gain lasting fame as “Old Ironsides.” He was, as sailormen say, a “plank owner.” Furthermore, he seems to have outlived all of his shipmates; to have seen the coming of steamships, of the railroad, and of the Civil War.
Someday, perhaps a picture of him will be discovered so that we may look him in the eye and silently appreciate that once, as he wrote, he, “being young and of good memory and frequently on centry [sic] in the Lieuts wardroom . . . heard much &. stored it up in safe keeping.”
Guns of the Constitution
The Constitution’s batteries began with the letting of a contract on 8 August 1794 with Furnace Hope in Rhode Island. Optimistically, it called for 30 24-pounder long guns to be delivered by 1 May 1795 for a price of $106.66 per ton, or about $225 a gun.
A 24-pounder long gun was a muzzle-loading long-barreled cannon capable of firing a solid iron shot weighing 24 pounds. Mounted on a four-wheel carriage, it had a maximum effective range of about 1,200 yards and could be fired about once every three minutes by a trained crew of 12 men and a powder monkey. The Furnace Hope model was 8 feet long and had a bore diameter of about 5 5/6 inches. Each unit was cast solid and bored out. On its carriage, a 24-pounder weighed about 6,000 pounds.
In late May 1798, less than two months before she first put to sea, the Constitution had only the 30 24s on her gun deck. In desperation, the federal government persuaded the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to loan the Navy 16 of the 18-pounder long guns known to be languishing in Fort Independence in Boston Harbor. And then, in the following three weeks, the ship also received 14 12-pounder long guns from an unreported source, but possibly they came from an existing inventory at Furnace Hope. No specific information has come down to us on these particular weapons, but in general terms, each 18 weighed on the order of 4,700 pounds and was 8 feet long; each 12 was about the same length but weighed about 4,100 pounds. Both were muzzle-loaders. Their crews were proportionately smaller that those for the 24s, but the firing rate was the same.
To sum up, the USS Constitution, rated as a 44-gun frigate, carried 30 24-pounders, 16 18-pounders, and 14 12- pounders—60 long guns in all—when she entered service. She carried this huge armament through the Quasi- War with France, and until she was laid up in reserve in June 1802.
Returning to active duty the following summer, she sailed to the Mediterranean to face the Barbary pirates without the 18-pounders, which had been returned to their owners. After six months on station, Commodore Edward Preble, her commander, decided he wanted more heavy fire with which to batter the Bashaw of Tripoli. He borrowed six more 24s from the King of Two Sicilies at Naples, who was only too glad to have someone else work on the “pirate problem.” After bashing the Bashaw through the summer of 1804, Preble was replaced as squadron commander and shortly thereafter the borrowed cannon were returned.
Captain John Rodgers took over command early in November, just as the Constitution received eight 32- pounder carronades from the United States. A carronade was a short-barreled, large-bore, relatively lightweight muzzle-loading weapon of murderous short-range (400 yards maximum effective) smashing power. Only four feet long and weighing just about a ton, it used a smaller gun crew and, because of its lightness, could be mounted in larger numbers higher in the ship than long guns. Unlike the long gun, it was mounted on a slide bed that was pivoted under the muzzle so it could be aimed. A weapon new to U.S. manufacture, these eight almost certainly were cast by Henry Foxall at his Columbia Iron Works in Georgetown, Maryland. The Constitution’s initial allotment was mounted in the waist (amidships), four on each side, forward of the long 12s. Her armament, then, from November 1804 until December 1807, when she again went inactive, was 30 long 24s, 14 long 12s, and 8 32-pounder carronades.
The Constitution was still overseas in September 1807 when an order was placed with the Cecil Iron Works in Maryland for a new battery of 24s for her. The Furnace Hope pieces had proved too short for efficient use, and her imminent homecoming would be the first opportunity for an upgrade. At about 6,400 pounds and 9 feet, 6 inches long, the new pieces were longer and heavier than their predecessors.
Upon her return from the Mediterranean, then-skipper Captain Hugh Campbell strongly recommended that the ship’s 12-pounders be landed and replaced with carronades. In the winter of 1808, the Secretary of the Navy acted on Captain Campbell’s recommendation, directing Henry Fox- all to manufacture two dozen for the ship. They were delivered later in the year as the ship lay in ordinary.
The Constitution returned to active duty in March 1809 carrying the 30 new Cecil Iron Works long 24s on her gun deck and the 24 Foxall carronades above on the spar deck. Sometime between then and the outbreak of the War of 1812, a single 18-pounder long gun was added as a chase gun. With these 55 guns, the Constitution defeated HMS Guerrière on 19 August 1812 and earned her nickname, “Old Ironsides.”
Following his succession to command of the ship on 15 September 1812, Commodore William Bainbridge eliminated the 18-pounder, simplifying his ammunition loading and handling problem by dropping one caliber. The remaining 54 long guns and carronades were sufficient to end the service of HMS Java on 29 December 1812.
The Constitution had one more major battle during the war. By that time, 20 February 1815, Captain Charles Stewart had reduced the number of carronades to 20 and added two 24-pounder “shifting gunades” recently captured from the British by a U.S. privateer. Designed by Sir William Congreve in 1814, each was 8 feet, 6 inches long, but because of thinner barrel construction weighed only about 5,000 pounds on carriage. The design was an attempt to combine the range of a long gun with the lighter weight of a carronade. The pair sat on carriages like the long guns, and it was expected that, since they were lighter, they could readily be shifted from side to side as combat required. Together with the same 30 24-pounders, Stewart used these weapons to smash HMS Cyane, a frigate, and HMS Levant, a corvette, on this date.
By the time the Constitution returned to active service in 1821, some of her 24s had been transferred to the new ship-of-the-line Independence. To make up her usual gun deck battery of 30, they were replaced by 1816-model 24s from the same foundry. The two designs differed little. On the spar deck, it was decided to ship only 16 32-pounder carronades and the two shifting gunades.
Following seven years on duty in the Mediterranean, and another seven in reserve, the Constitution went back into service in 1835 with 20 of her original 24 carronades on the spar deck. The shifting gunades were moved below to the gun deck, where that battery had been reduced to 25 of the long 24s. Because they were expected to shift easily, the gunades would permit either side to have essentially its normal full battery in any one-to-one ship duel, where only one side was engaged at a time.
Technology changed the ship’s armament in 1842. That summer, she received four, 68-pounder (8-inch) shell-firing Paixhans guns on her gun deck. These muzzle-loaders of French design gave the ship the capability of firing exploding projectiles for the first time. They were 8 feet, 10 inches long and weighed about 7,700 pounds on carriage. With them on the gun deck were 26 of the 1807/1816 24-pounders. Above, on the spar deck, were 20 of her 1808 32-pounder carronades and the two shifting gunades. But for the landing of the gunades, this was the battery she later carried on her around-the-world cruise from 1844 to 1846.
While the ship was on her extended voyage, the Navy Department conducted a study of ship armament and decided upon a new system that involved arming its ships mainly with guns of varying length and weight, but all of the same caliber: that of a 32-pounder (about 6 inches). Under this plan, the Constitution spent her final seven years of active frontline duty (from 1848 to 1855) carrying a spar deck battery of 20 32-pounder long guns, 7 feet, 4 inches long and weighing some 4,100 pounds each, and a gun- deck battery of the four Paixhans guns and 26 32-pounder long guns 8 feet long and weighing about 5,200 pounds apiece.
The Launch
The Constitution was built on a slip laid for the purpose at Edmund Hartt’s shipyard in the North End of Boston, approximately at the eastern end of the present-day Coast Guard base there. Her keel was laid in the summer of 1795, and in late August 1797, she was about ready to enter her element.
The year 1797, with the launching of three frigates, marked the beginning of the U.S. Navy. First to wet her keel was the United States, the design sister to the Constitution, on 10 May. The Constellation, built to a smaller design, was launched in Baltimore on 7 September. In Boston, the burgeoning bulk of the frigate had dominated the waterfront for months. The citizens were most eager for “their” ship likewise to be afloat. It may have been this local pressure that caused naval constructor George Claghorn to set 20 September as the big day and have invitations sent to President John Adams and other luminaries.
The announcement of the launch date set off a flurry of activity. Enterprising nearby property owners and boatmen sought to capitalize on the occasion by erecting viewing platforms for paying customers on the one hand and hiring out their boats to well-heeled rubberneckers on the other. In town, dinner, dances, and dramatics would celebrate the occasion.
The 20th dawned cold but bright, an altogether pleasant day. Thousands massed from Boston and the nearby countryside to take every possible perch to observe the launch. At 1120, the calculated moment of high tide, Claghorn gave the order to knock out the blocks, and a hush fell over the crowd as it gathered itself to cheer the frigate’s first moments afloat. Soon, all the blocks were gone—but the ship failed to move. A mortified Claghorn ordered the use of the driver screw to get her going, and she did. At 27 feet, she would move no farther. A portion of the ways had settled a half-inch and left her stuck. The blocks and shores were replaced, and the disappointed thousands went home. The frigate’s first moment in the sun had been a fizzle.
The next day, Claghorn repaired the ways, and on 22 September, with almost no one the wiser, the launch sequence again started. This time, the ship moved 31 feet and was about to enter the water when she stopped abruptly. The settling of another portion of the ground ways, this time by 1 5/8 inches, had frustrated the plan. Nearly a month passed before the next period of maximum high tides.
The weather on 21 October 1797 was cold and overcast. An east wind swept across the Hartt yard. Early that morning, George Claghorn caused one of the frigate’s 24-pounders, which were not yet on board, to be fired as an announcement to anyone interested that he was ready to try again at high tide. By noon “a very numerous and brilliant collection of citizens assembled at the spectacle.”
A few moments later, Claghorn gave the order to knock out the wedges and shores, and this time the large frigate moved promptly and swiftly into the harbor. As she went, Captain Sever broke a bottle of Madeira on the heel of the bowsprit, declaring her to be named Constitution.
Bashing the Bashaw
Early in August 1804, the Constitution appeared off the Barbary state of Tripoli. She was flagship of Commodore Edward Preble’s squadron that included the brigs Argus and Siren, the schooners Nautilus and Vixen, the sloop Enter- prize, and two gun bomb ketches and six gunboats borrowed from the King of Two Sicilies. Preble’s mission was to bring the Bashaw of Tripoli to the peace table and put an end to his depredation of U.S. merchant shipping, an object not accomplished by two preceding squadrons.
Rounding to about three miles off the capital just after 1200 on 3 August, Preble called his captains to conference and, noting that two divisions of Tripolitan gunboats had taken up defensive positions at the east and west entrances to the harbor, divided his gunboats similarly. They would attack their counterparts with the larger units in support while the bomb ketches rained 13-inch mortar shells on the town. At 1430, the attack began.
One division of three gunboats, under the command of Lieutenant Commandant Stephen Decatur of the Enterprise, went for the nine Tripolitans at the eastern entrance. The other three-boat division, under Lieutenant Commandant Richard Somers of the Nautilus, was supposed to support him, but the contrariness of Somers’s craft prevented him from doing so, and another boat hung back. As a result, four “American” gunboats, manned largely by mercenary Sicilians, went for more than twice their number. Driving in and boarding their enemies, the Americans captured three of the enemy (two by Decatur) and the remaining six withdrew behind a protecting reef.
Lieutenant Somers, completely unsupported, proceeded in the only direction his unwieldy craft seemed willing to go and singlehandedly attacked the five western Tripolitans. His slashing gunfire drove the foe back through the entrance, but brought the Americans under the fire of the battery on a mole to one side of that portal. Fortuitously, one of the bomb ketches saw Somers’s predicament and dropped a 13-inch shell right in it, ending the danger.
At 1630, Preble signaled withdrawal, and his smaller sailing units moved in to help get the gunboats clear. The attack, which had cost him 14 killed or wounded, cost the Tripolitans three war craft and more than 100 casualties. And the Bashaw had the message that the Americans were not loath to hand-to-hand combat.
On 7 August, Preble made a second attack on Tripoli, this time primarily a bombardment of the town itself. While about 100 shells were arcing in on the Bashaw, the gunboats (then nine in number, for Preble had outfitted his three captures) attempted unsuccessfully to lure their counterparts into another duel. While so engaged, Gunboat 9, the smallest of the recent captures, was hit in its powder supply by a round from a shore battery and blown to bits. Ten men were killed and another six wounded out of a crew of 28.
After a pause, when the Bashaw had an opportunity to parlay, Preble made his third attack on the night of 22 August. Once again, it was a bombardment by the bomb ketches. Difficulties with getting the crank craft into position and those inherent in night operations made this a largely ineffective operation, with fewer than 50 shells being fired into the town.
At 0115 on 28 August, the Americans again came calling. This time, the gunboats were sent in to positions just outside the reef marking the outer limits of the small port, where they anchored with springs and began a steady bombardment of the town with their 24-pounder long guns. The enemy responded in kind, but none of his warcraft left their anchorages until dawn. Preble, watching from seaward, saw the 13 foes get under way and responded with the Constitution herself. Ordering the gunboats clear as she approached, Preble moved in the big frigate until she was nearly aground right off some enemy shore batteries. From that position, she poured in more than 300 rounds, sinking one enemy, damaging another, and silencing those on shore. What with the other two craft sunk by the gunboats, it had been a good day.
The Commodore’s fifth attack came on 2 September. On seeing the Tripolitan gunboats moving out from their anchorages at dawn, Preble saw that they were heading toward a position upwind of his units. Understanding the move, he sent his own gunboats to duel them while the Constitution and the bomb ketches worked over the town. The gunboat action proved inconclusive, but 41 mortar shells and more than 200 24-pounder shot rained into the town from the other three.
What was to be Preble’s final effort came the next day. Wishing to impress the Bashaw, he outfitted the ketch Intrepid, which had been the Bashaw’s Mastico, as an “infernal,” a massive floating bomb. Sent in that night under the command of then-Master Commandant Somers and a volunteer crew largely from the Constitution, she was to be exploded under the town’s walls. But something went wrong and she was blown apart near the western entrance to the port. None on board survived.
Shortly after this, Commodore Samuel Barron appeared, leading the reinforcements called for by Preble earlier in the year. Senior to Preble, he took over command of the squadron and the former returned home. Although it was not apparent upon his departure, Preble’s operations ultimately had their desired effect, for when the sailing season returned the following year, and the augmented U.S. squadron assembled off Tripoli, the Bashaw came to terms. Having seen American determination, the Bey of Tunis and the Dey of Algiers, the Bashaw’s fellow pirate chieftains, decided they, too, would come to terms with these people from across the sea, who would rather fight than pay.
Hot Pursuit
The United States declared war on Great Britain on 18 June 1812. The Constitution was loading supplies at Alexandria, Virginia, having just completed a two-month overhaul at the Washington Navy Yard. In the week that followed, she completed loading stores and moved down the Potomac River near Thomas Creek, where the river’s greater depth permitted her to take aboard her long guns and iron shot. That done, she moved on to Annapolis, where she took on still more supplies, her spar deck battery of carronades, and completed recruiting a crew. On 5 July, a Sunday, Captain Isaac Hull headed down the Chesapeake Bay and trained his crew (they exercised at battle stations nine times in seven days). On the 12th, he cleared the Virginia Capes and turned to the north, under orders to join the squadron commanded by Commodore John Rodgers in or near New York.
A British squadron commanded by Captain Sir Philip Bowes Vere Broke, comprising the frigate Shannon (flagship, 38 guns), ship-of-the-line Africa (64 guns), and frigates Aeolus (32) and Belvidera (36), sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia, under orders to intercept Rodgers’s squadron. Four days later, in the vicinity of Nantucket, the British squadron was augmented by the arrival of the frigate Guerrière (38), which had been diverted from a planned repair period in Halifax. The squadron took up its watch for Rodgers off New York on 14 July.
On the 16th, “at 2 PM being in 22 fathoms of water off Egg Harbor [New Jersey] four sail of Ships were discovered from the MastHead to the northward and in shore of us: apparently Ships of War.” Hull headed for them, thinking it might be Rodgers’s squadron. At 1500, unable to identify the ships, the American turned eastward to keep his distance. An hour later, yet another ship was seen heading toward them from the northeast. The winds continued light, so sunset came with the latest ship still too far off to identify. Hull decided to continue to get nearer, but prudently cleared his ship for action and beat to quarters at 1930.
By 2200, six or eight miles still separated the closing ships. Hull made the U.S. code signal for the day, and after an hour of no response, decided that all five in his vicinity were British men-of-war. He turned away to the southeast to clear the coast and gain maneuvering room. It was about 2300, and the hunt was on.
The lone pursuer gradually closed on the Constitution throughout the first watch of the 17th until she was within gunshot range to larboard. At approximately 0400, she fired a signal rocket and two guns—evidently telling her mates she was with an American—and then opened her distance to the north.
“At day light,” wrote Hull, “or a little before it was quite light, saw two sail under our Lee, which proved to be Frigates of the Enemies [Aeolus and Belvidera]. One frigate astern within about five or six miles [Guerriere], and a Line of Battle Ship, A Frigate, a Brig, and a Schooner, about ten or twelve miles directly astern all in chase of us it being nearly calm where we were. Soon after Sunrise the wind entirely left us, and the Ship would not steer it fell round off with her head towards the two Ships under our lee.”
Hull was not about to drift aimlessly near so many enemies. Two cutters were set to towing the big frigate. The British soon followed suit. Hull shifted four guns so they could fire aft from his cabin and the deck above. By 0630, the snail’s-pace chase led Hull’s First Lieutenant, Charles Morris, to suggest that the shallow waters in which they were operating (about 20 fathoms) might make it possible to kedge the ship more rapidly than towing her. The Captain saw the merit of the suggestion and ordered it to be done.
The kedging began about 0700. The British responded by concentrating all their ships on the two nearest pursuers. The Americans surely were losing ground. At 0900, the Belvidera opened fire, but all her rounds fell short. Hull answered with his four stem guns, but most of his shot went over. Shortly thereafter, the Guerrière also saw her shot fall short.
At about 0930, a light breeze came up and Hull got in two of his boats. At 1000, Hull began pumping drinking water over the side to lighten the ship. The British responded by concentrating all of their boats on towing the Shannon, but Hull held on to his narrow margin of safety. At 1100, a sufficiently strong breeze arose to permit the big frigate to overtake the rest of her boats and hook them aboard without stopping.
The wind, unfortunately, died about an hour later, and two boats went back to towing. Gunfire was exchanged again at about 1400, without result. At 1530, an enemy ship got dangerously close; then Hull managed to widen the gap again. At 1900, Hull had all eight of his boats towing. At 2300 a smart breeze sprang up, and the Constitution was in her element.
At dawn on the 18th, the Americans were cheered to discover that they had opened a two- to three-mile gap between themselves and their pursuers. Hull decided to clear coastal waters if at all possible and turned eastward. At 0900, Hull set the skysails for the first time. By noontime, the situation actually was beginning to be comfortable. The British still were in dogged pursuit, but the Constitution clearly was outsailing them as she headed east- southeast.
The gap continued to widen, and by 1600, six miles separated the big U.S. frigate from her closest antagonist. Nonetheless, Hull kept up his efforts to gain every last iota of power from the wind. Setting and resetting sails, he watched wind and water for clues that would tell him what to expect, minute by minute. This alertness paid a big dividend at about 1830 that evening, when he saw a squall line ahead. Judiciously, he took in his studdingsails and royals. Then, having his men act as if they were in a panic, all topgallant sails and the jib were taken in and the mizzen topsail and spanker reefed. To the British, it appeared that the American was about to be hit by a squall of unexpectedly great intensity, and they began taking similar action. But Hull’s men had been faking their panic, and as soon as the rather ordinary squall passed over them, its rain momentarily obscuring them from the British, all topgallants and the main topsail were reset and drawing in a trice.
The British cleared the squall to find they had fallen so far back that the Constitution no longer was visible. By 2100, Hull had every stitch but the skysails set, and the big frigate was picking up the pace. At 2230, two British guns were heard off on the port quarter, apparently some sort of signal. At 2300, the end of the second day of chase, only one enemy could be made out, dead astern.
Hull was breathing easier, but not letting up. The log records at least hourly adjustments to the sails, still seeking any advantage. At dawn on the 19th, four British ships still were in sight, but at least 12 miles distant. The Constitution sped on, and at 0815 the British were seen to give up, change course to the north, and, Hull thought, probably return to their cruising station off New York.
Isaac Hull and his crew, whose total sea time together amounted to just seven days, had given the British a 57-hour demonstration of Yankee seamanship and endurance. It would not be the last time this combination would embarrass their British cousins.
“The Americans Were Our Masters”
When Isaac Hull brought the Constitution into Nantasket Roads, Boston, on Sunday, 26 July 1812, he had no intention of remaining long in port. He had come in for water, food, men, and news, and having satisfied those needs, he intended to sail again to avoid being trapped by the British squadron he had so narrowly eluded.
By Saturday, the Constitution was reprovisioned and ready to sail. No orders had yet come from Washington, but Hull received word from New York that Commodore John Rodgers, to whom he was to report, was not present. Being one of those officers who believed the U.S. Navy’s few warships could accomplish more at sea than in blockading a port, Hull made the decision to sail without orders. Thus it was that at 0530 on Sunday, 2 August 1812, he got under way on a southwest-by-south wind, intending to attack British shipping in the Halifax-Gulf of Saint Lawrence area, with the possibility of proceeding toward Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the West Indies thereafter.
After taking several merchant prizes, on the night of the 16th Hull met the U.S. privateer Decatur, which reported that at least a half-dozen British warships were in the area. He decided it was time to move on.
Hull steered in a generally southwesterly direction from Cape Race throughout the 18th and 19th, occasionally encountering fog and rain, but experiencing fresh breezes from the north and west and cloudiness at noon of that fateful Wednesday. At 1400, a sail was spied to the southward and the Constitution went in chase. At 1500, a full-rigged ship was visible on a starboard tack. A half-hour later, Hull knew he had come upon a frigate.
At 1545, the chase lay her main topsail to the mast, a clear invitation to duel. But Isaac Hull was not one to rush into things. He ordered the topgallant sails, stay sails, and flying jib taken in, the courses hauled up, a second reef taken in the topsails, and the royal yards sent down. Upon beating to quarters, his crew gave three cheers. According to Seaman Moses Smith, the legend “NOT THE LITTLE BELT” could be seen painted on one of the enemy’s topsails, a reference to the British war brig that had been shattered by the Constitution’s near-sister, the President, in a night encounter the year before the war broke out.
Nearly a half-hour later, at 1610, when about one mile separated the opposing frigates, the enemy hoisted three British blue ensigns and “discharged her Starboard Broadside at us without effect. She immediately wore round, and discharged her Larboard Broadside two shot of which rubbed us and the remainder flying over and through our rigging, we then hoisted our Ensigns and Jack, at the Fore and Main Top Gallant Mastheads.” Each time the enemy fired, Hull altered course to disturb her gunners’ aim, first to larboard and then to starboard. He fired only when and as individual guns could be brought to bear.
After some 45 minutes of inconclusive maneuvering, the Briton, impatient at Hull’s reticence to close from his upwind position, bore up with the wind “rather on his Lab’d Quarter,” a maneuver calculated to be seen as an invitation to close for a toe-to-toe slugfest, one Isaac Hull accepted. Setting his maintopgallant sail, he moved in, his gun crews standing alert, double-shotting their guns with solid and grape shot for a full broadside.
Hull was where he wanted to be at about 1700. He hauled down his jib and laid the main top shivering to slow down as he ranged up alongside. Reportedly at his command, “Now, boys, hull her!” the first double-shotted broadside crashed out at the Briton half a pistol shot distance to larboard. Blast followed blast. Approximately 15 minutes later, the Briton’s mizzenmast crashed over the starboard side; her main yard was shot from its slings. “Huzza boys! We’ve made a brig of her! Next time we’ll make her a sloop!” The U.S. crew gave three cheers and went on firing.
The return fire from the British frigate generally had been high, such that some of the Constitution’s braces were slashed and her fore royal truck was shot away, together with two halyards—one bearing one of the flags Hull had hoisted. Amid the cannonade, Seaman Daniel Hogan climbed the rigging and made it fast to the topmast. British shot hitting the hull made little impression. Someone saw a ball hit, make a dent, then fall into the sea, and he cried out, “Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!” And so the famed nickname “Old Ironsides” was born.
The dragging mizzen wreckage, jammed as it was up under his starboard counter, slowed the Briton, pulled his head to starboard, and allowed the Constitution to begin drawing ahead. The British captain tried in vain to regain control of his ship. At the same time, Hull attempted to luff up across his bow and rake, “but our braces being shot away and Jib haulyards [sic], we could not effect it”—at least not as planned. The British frigate, swinging rapidly to starboard, crashed into the Constitution’s port quarter, smashing the boat in the davits and snagging his bowsprit in the larboard mizzen shrouds. Hitting and recoiling as the American slid forward, before breaking clear astern, the Briton’s bowsprit wrought havoc with Hull’s gig in the stern davits.
Given the fact that Hull had never before been in a ship- to-ship battle in any capacity, let alone in command, and suddenly faced with a crippled enemy and finding his own maneuvering capability impaired, it is fair to assume that there was some confusion and momentary indecision at this point. How long it took Hull to regain control of the situation and exactly what he did was not recorded, either by Hull or his subordinates. His enemies, busy with their own problems, stated merely that he took up a position off their larboard bow, whence he fired several broadsides into them to which they could respond but weakly.
Satisfied that the British frigate still was not under control, Hull moved to take a raking position ahead of her. For some reason—miscalculation, bungled sail handling, or unexpected movement of the enemy ship—instead of passing clear ahead, the antagonists collided. The Constitution took her enemy’s jibboom in her starboard mizzen shrouds. The crash destroyed the American’s spanker gaff and boom, and snapped off the starboard half of the crossjack yard, as she unleashed two broadsides into the enemy’s bow. The Briton’s flying jibboom and jibboom were carried away; his two ragged shots in reply killed two and wounded one at Gun Number 15 starboard in Hull’s cabin and started a brief blaze.
This unexpected and unplanned opportunity to board the enemy left both opponents scrambling for the advantage. First Lieutenant William S. Bush, commanding the U.S. Marines, leaped to the taffrail to lead the charge and was killed instantly by a musket ball in the face. He was the first U.S. Marine officer to die in combat anywhere. Charles Morris, Hull’s second in command, sought to replace him but was downed, shot through the abdomen. The even heavier U.S. musketry killed the British second lieutenant, and wounded the captain, first lieutenant, and sailing master. Before a further attempt could be made, the Constitution’s forward motion exerted sufficient force to pull the ships apart. The resulting whipping action in the Briton’s bowsprit was transmitted through the stays to a weakened foremast, which crashed down to starboard, its plunging weight causing the tottering mainmast to follow it.
Hull, seeing his enemy thus completely immobilized, stood eastward with fore and main courses and a reef in his topsails, keeping his target silhouetted against the lowering sun. The crew set busily to reeving new braces and halyards, and readying the ship to resume the action. When these immediate repairs were done, he returned to find the shattered Briton had but the bedraggled remnants of the spritsail yard remaining. Unseen by Hull were the 18- pounder long guns on the enemy’s gun deck that had been tom loose from their tackles and were running amok as the ship rolled her ports under in the heavy swells. The British captain wisely fired a gun to leeward in token of submission as the Yankee frigate came within a mile. Hull made the appropriate response—one gun—and this most decisive ship action was over. It was shortly before 1900.
Third Lieutenant George C. Read was sent to take possession of the vanquished. At 1930, all boats were hoisted out to bring prisoners aboard, to take aid to the wounded, and to pass a towing hawser. Midshipman Henry Gilliam was among those with Read, and he later wrote to his uncle that he had found the decks with “pieces of skulls, brains, legs, arms & blood ... in every directions [sic] and groanes [sic] of the wounded were almost enough to make me curse the war.” Adding a bizarre note to this gory scene was the presence of molasses splattered on everything, the surviving reminder of a cask of the stuff ordered up beforehand by the British captain in preparation for taunting the defeated Yankees with switchel, a rum concoction favored at the time. At 2000, a boat returned to the Constitution with the first of the prisoners. Principal among them was Captain James Richard Dacres, Royal Navy, late commander of His British Majesty’s Frigate Guerrière.
Dacres’ ship was French-built and had been rated at 50 guns. She had been taken by the British off Norway in 1806, and after a two-year refit commissioned by them as “5 th rate, large 38.” On 19 August 1812, she was armed with 30 18-pounders on the gun deck, 14 32-pounder carronades and 1 12-pounder howitzer on her quarterdeck, and 2 12- pounders and 2 3 2-pounder carronades on the forecastle— 49 guns in all. At the time of the engagement she was due for refit in Halifax. Her hull was fouled and there was rot in her masts; her rigging was badly worn.
The Constitution’s battery at this time consisted of 30 24-pounders on the gun deck, 16 32-pounder carronades on the quarterdeck, 1 18-pounder and 8 32-pounder carronades on the forecastle—a total of 55 guns. She had completed a thorough refit only two months earlier.
The Constitution-Guerrière fight was a straightforward, toe-to-toe battle between two adversaries, each confident in his abilities. The Constitution was the bigger, heavier, and, because of her recent yard period, faster. But as this fight was a slugfest, this last advantage was not a factor. Indeed, with his lack of battle experience, Hull may have decided on the direct approach, hoping to minimize having to maneuver and fight simultaneously.
The Guerrière’s wreckage topside was more visible and of consequence in the short term, but the damage below was irreparable; about 30 shot had hulled her below the waterline, according to Captain Dacres. By contrast, the Constitution’s hull damage largely was limited to the mess created in the starboard portion of Hull’s cabin when the two ships entangled the second time. Dacres’ guns, however, had done considerable damage to Hull’s standing and running rigging and spars. In addition to shot-away braces and halyards, both fore and main masts had been shot through, as was the heel of the foretopgallant mast; and the band for the main slings had been broken. Clearly, the larger dimensions of the masts contributed to their survival. In addition, the crossjack had been snapped and the gaff, spanker boom, and gig had been smashed, as had the larboard quarter boat.
The Constitution carried a much larger crew than did the Guerrière—about 450 versus 275 to 300—which rendered the superb service of her guns possible. Moreover, Hull had trained his men daily in the aiming and loading of their guns. Their rate of fire was abetted by the use, in part, of lead foil powder cylinders, which reduced the need to swab guns out after each shot. The British, on the other hand, were handicapped by the fact that their 20-year-old war with France had put such a premium on their powder supply as largely to preclude the use of powder merely for training purposes in their vastly expanded navy. Even so, this was the first frigate duel they had lost since 1803. The morale of the American crew, as well, was superior: the Britons in it, too, were willing to fight. The Americans in the Guerrière’s crew, on the other hand, protested having to do so, and Dacres gallantly sent them below as non- combatants. The death toll for the Britons was 23 as a result of the action, and another 56 were wounded; Hull had had 7 killed and a like number wounded.
For three hours, the Americans attempted to take their prize in tow. By 2300, however, it was evident that the differing drift rates of the two ships and the difficulties of working in darkness made it an almost impossible task. The hawser was cast off. Hull kept the Constitution “at a convenient distance” from the Guerrière through the night, while Lieutenant Read and his prize crew struggled to keep her afloat.
At 0700 on the morning of the 20th, the Constitution’s foretopgallant yard and the damaged foretopgallant mast were sent down and a new mast stepped. Elsewhere, the carpenters were preparing fishes (splints) for the damaged fore and main masts.
As the foretopgallant yard was being sent up at 0730, Lieutenant Read hailed from the Guerrière that she had five feet of water in the hold and that it was gaining on them.
Hull decided to withdraw his men and destroy the hulk. By 1330, all 265 prisoners (including four women) had been removed, and Read and his demolition party went to work. They left for the Constitution at 1500.
Moses Smith has described the Guerrière’s last moments:
At the distance of about three miles we hove to and awaited the result. Hundreds of eyes were stretched in that one direction, where the ill-fated Guerrière moved heavily on the deep . . . Scarcely a word was spoken on board the Constitution. . . .
The first intimation we had that the fire was at work was the discharge of the guns. One after another, as the flame advanced, they came booming toward us. Roar followed roar, flash followed flash, until the whole mass was enveloped in clouds of smoke. . . . The hull, parted in the center by the shock, and loaded with such masses of iron and spars, reeled, staggered, plunged forward a few feet, and sank out of sight.
It was a grand and awful scene. . . .
It was 1515 on 20 August 1812, and Isaac Hull was eager to broadcast news of his triumph. At 1800, he beat to quarters and mustered his crew. Lieutenant Bush and one of the British seamen who had failed to survive his wounds were buried with proper ceremony.
At daylight on the 21st, Hull had his crew back at work repairing battle damage. Rigging was repaired or replaced, new sails bent on, and fishes applied to the fore and main masts. In the afternoon, a new gaff and a new spanker boom were fitted. As the day ended, the Constitution once again was her old self, bowling along on a northwesterly course at 11 knots.
The following week passed in relative quiet. Hull exercised his crew at quarters four times in six days. On the 25th, funeral services were held for the second British seaman to die of his wounds. At 1800 on Saturday, the 29th, Boston lighthouse was sighted four leagues southwest by west. At 0730 on the morning of the 30th, Hull anchored southeast of the light—very nearly the same spot he had left exactly four weeks (to the moment) earlier. An hour later, Lieutenant John T. Shubrick was on his way ashore in the third cutter, bound for Washington with Hull’s dispatches.
With the battle done and the Constitution safely in home port, it is an appropriate moment to consider the background of the adulation that shortly was to engulf Hull and his men, and the effect their victory was to have on future events. The declaration of war was unpopular in several regions of the country, but particularly so in New England. It was thought that nothing good would come of it. Trade would be interrupted or destroyed, insurance rates would rise, and ships would be lost through destruction or capture. At sea, the Royal Navy had been well nigh invincible in nearly two decades of warfare against the might of Napoleon. The minuscule U.S. Navy would be swallowed whole—almost without notice.
This nautical negativism was reinforced by a disaster on land; on 16 August, after some indecisive maneuvering, the U.S. forces at Detroit had surrendered without a fight to an inferior force of British and Indian allies. This news had only recently become known in Boston, just long enough to depress morale even further.
Thus, the stage was set and the nation ready—craving— for good news. The Constitution’s victory over the Guerrière was all that. The fight had been decisive. The Guerrière apparently had been destroyed with expedition and with minimum loss of life and ship damage. The mighty Royal Navy had been humbled by an upstart. A Son of Liberty again had tweaked King George’s royal nose.
Captain Hull, hungry himself for glory and public recognition, did all he could to ensure full mileage out of this success. He wrote two reports of the engagement to Secretary Hamilton, on 28 and 30 August. Neither said anything about the relative positions of the antagonists as they began their slugfest or of the two collisions. The second one was shorter and more ambiguous than the first, and Hull appended a note to it, suggesting that the less said about “a brilliant victory such as this” the better. Thus, this abbreviated report was made public and became the basis for most subsequent historians’ coverage of the event.
Hull got all the adulation and celebration he wanted in response to giving the nation the victory for which it hungered. The Secretary responded to the news on 9 September saying, “we know not which most to applaud, Your gallantry or Your skill—You, Your officers and Crew are entitled to & will receive the applause and the gratitude of Your gratefull country.” Numerous lithographs were reproduced and snapped up by an eager public. Plays were written and songs sung. Congress voted Hull a gold medal, his officers silver ones, and $50,000 for all hands to share in lieu of prize money. Lieutenant Charles Morris was meritoriously promoted to captain. New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, and his home state of Connecticut vied with each other in presenting Hull with rich tokens of their esteem. Above all, the victory became a benchmark, a touchstone, the symbol of all that was good and right with the American way. Perhaps the most perceptive evaluation ever written appeared in The London Times when the bad news reached England:
It is not merely that an English frigate has been taken, after, what we are free to confess, may be called a brave resistance, but that it has been taken by a new enemy, an enemy unaccustomed to such triumphs, and likely to be rendered insolent and confident by them. He must be a weak politician who does not see how important the first triumph is in giving a tone and character to the war. Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate strike to an American.
Bainbridge’s Triumph
Sadly, in his moment of triumph, Isaac Hull learned that his brother in New York had died during his absence. Hull confided in Commodore William Bainbridge, Commandant of the Navy Yard, that he intended that very day to request a shore assignment in order to settle his brother’s affairs and provide for his family. Bainbridge, who had been seeking a combat command, and had expected to relieve Hull in early August, promptly wrote to Secretary Hamilton suggesting that he and Hull exchange commands.
On 14 September, the Secretary’s approval arrived. Bainbridge moved swiftly and took command at 1600 the next afternoon, hoisting his broad blue pennant as a squadron commander.
On 16 October, repairs completed, Bainbridge moved the Constitution from the Navy Yard to a position off Long Wharf to complete loading. Five days later, he moved again to an anchorage in President Roads, whence he could take advantage of a fair wind. The Hornet, the second unit of his squadron, moved to the same locale on the 24th. Both wind and tide came fair on the 27th, and the two ships stood for the open sea. Bainbridge’s orders were to take the frigate Essex (32, Captain David Porter) and brig Hornet (18, Master Commandant James Lawrence) and “to annoy the enemy and to afford protection to our commerce, pursuing that course, which to your best judgment may . . . appear to be best.” The Commodore already had considered this aspect of his orders and had decided to proceed first to waters off the Cape Verde Islands, then in a southwesterly direction, touching on many of the principal sea lanes used by both sides, and then farther south to the waters off Brazil, where the British at that time had considerable commerce.
After two months on that coast, he intended to proceed to the vicinity of St. Helena Island, which was frequented by British East Indiamen returning home. (The Essex, which was in the Delaware when Bainbridge sailed, never rendezvoused with him, Porter pursuing instead an option in his orders: to disrupt British maritime activities in the Pacific. This he accomplished with legendary success before finally being trapped and captured in Valparaiso, Chile.)
Landfall was made on the island of Fernando de Noronha, a penal colony for Portugal, on the morning of 2 December. Under the guise of being British, Bainbridge spent two days in the vicinity taking on board a little water and a few supplies, and hoping to rendezvous with Porter. With no meeting in the offing, Bainbridge left Porter a letter—addressed to the code- named “Sir James Yeo” for the purpose of keeping the American presence a secret—and sailed for the Brazilian coast 200 miles distant.
The Constitution and the Hornet proceeded southward along the coast, periodically closing enough to catch sight of land. Not wishing to reveal his whole strength, on the evening of 13 December, Bainbridge ordered Lawrence in to Sao Salvador (Bahia, today) to contact the American Consul and gain the latest intelligence.
The Hornet returned in the midafternoon of the 18th, and Lawrence boarded the flagship immediately to report. In harbor, he had found HMS Bonne Citoyenne, an 18-gun war sloop repairing a leak caused by a grounding. The sleek, red-sided vessel was said to be carrying $1,600,000 in specie to England. From Consul Henry Hill he had learned that there was no other British warship closer than Rio.
After receiving the stores brought out by Lawrence, the Constitution and the Hornet spent the next few days patrolling to the north and south of the port looking for prizes without success. Bainbridge then ordered the Hornet to remain guarding the Bonne Citoyenne and to take her the minute she left port and cleared territorial waters. He took the Constitution offshore to cruise for prizes.
Between 0800 and 0900 on the morning of 29 December, some 30 miles off the coast, two strange sails appeared, one inshore (to the northwest) and the other to windward (to the northeast). The former was continuing her course along the coast, while the other, larger one altered course toward the Constitution. Bainbridge already had tacked in their direction. The day was pleasant and the sea nearly calm; the wind was light from the east-northeast.
By 1100, Commodore Bainbridge and his officers believed that the windward contact was a British ship-of-the-line. He tacked the Constitution to the southeast to avoid being pinned into pro- British Brazilian territorial waters by a larger adversary. The U.S. frigate was sailing close to the wind with her royals set.
Bainbridge realized that the contact was but a frigate at about 1320, when it was certain she was closing, something no liner could do on a frigate in those conditions. He tacked toward the enemy, taking in his mainsail and royals. When slightly more than a mile separated them, he tacked again. Both ships were heading southeast, with the Briton to windward on Bainbridge’s larboard quarter and coming up. Clearly, she had the speed advantage.
At this point, the enemy hauled down his ensign, although his jack remained aloft. The Commodore ordered his 24-pounders to commence broadside firing aimed at the target’s rigging when the range had decreased to about 1,000 yards—at nearly the maximum effective range of those guns and beyond that of anything the enemy had. Apparently, his intention was to try and at least slow her down, if not stop her before she could outspeed him and bring her guns to bear. In this he was not successful. The enemy held his fire until within range, at about 1400, and the battle was joined, both sides firing furiously. The Briton’s first salvoes were the most damaging; the Constitution’s spars and rigging were well chewed and Bainbridge was wounded in the thigh. Amid the hail of iron, Seaman Asa Curtis slid down the American’s foretopgallant stay to “rebend the Flying Jib Halyards which had been shot away,” thereby preventing the loss of an important head sail. The enemy frigate forged ahead and appeared to be about to cross the Constitution's bow for a devastating rake when Bainbridge loosed a broadside, then masterfully wore around in the smoke. It was 1410. The enemy followed suit, but was once again left on the windward quarter—this time, to starboard. Again the enemy drew alongside and then ahead, seeking to achieve a raking position. And yet again, at 1425, Bainbridge fired and wore in the smoke, denying the advantage. The ships once more were heading generally southeastward.
The faster frigate a third time came up on Constitution’s quarter and appeared to be drawing ahead, when suddenly, she wore and cut under the American’s stem, unleashing a raking broadside at 1435. The Constitution’s wheel disappeared in a cloud of splinters, all four helmsmen down. In the carronade crews, 11 members were dropped. And the Commodore had been hit again in the thigh. It must have been a desperate moment for him, in pain and in shock. He steeled himself and, using a midshipman aide for support, began issuing orders setting up a jury-rigged steering system down below with several midshipmen to relay orders.
While the Americans were thus engaged, the bemused enemy, unaware of the critical damage done, expected the American to turn to starboard and parallel his course. When, instead, the Constitution was seen sailing steadily off, it was assumed she had had enough. The British frigate was tacked back across her wake and another raking broadside fired at rather long range. Then she tacked again and again took the weather gauge, hauling forward to larboard. Bainbridge set fore and main courses and steered still closer to the wind, hoping to bring his carronades with their smashing power into play and inflict some crippling damage before his own situation worsened. His gamble paid off, for at about 1440 his foe’s bowsprit cap, jib boom, and headsails were shot away. Seeing the Constitution beginning to wear again, the British captain, denied the use of his headsails to drive his bow off the wind, decided instead to tack across the wind using his spanker to drive the stern into the turn. It did not work, and, like an airplane stalling at the top of a climb, his ship hung up heading into the wind, temporarily “in irons”—unable to maneuver. Seeing this, Bainbridge continued to wear his ship through nearly three-quarters of a circle to starboard, picking up enough speed to close his enemy’s larboard quarter and get in a murderous rake himself at 1450 before he had to wear to larboard to keep his ship under control. The Constitution swung back to the original heading, the enemy following once he had forced his bow around.
The two frigates were running off to the southeast, the Briton still having the weather gauge. But both sides were watching the advantage shifting to the Americans. British gunfire was becoming less accurate than it had been during those first broadsides. A loss of headsails with the destruction of the jib boom made the British frigate less maneuverable, offsetting in part the Constitution’s lack of a wheel and slower speed. The British captain decided his best tactic was to close and take his adversary by boarding before even that opportunity was lost. Accordingly, at 1535 he sought to run down on the Constitution’s larboard main chains. A misjudgment on his part resulted in the remains of his bowsprit running into the American’s mizzen rigging and momentarily hanging him up. There, with only one of his guns able to bear, he had to suffer the full weight of the Constitution’s metal and the hail of musketry from her well-trained Marines. The enemy’s foremast was severed just below its fighting top and plunged through two decks; then his main topmast went, cut off slightly above the cap. The resultant tangle of wreckage further disorganized his gun crews. A U.S. sharpshooter dropped the enemy captain.
As they separated, both ships brought their heads eastward once more. The Constitution, now having the weather gauge, began forereaching her battered antagonist. Bainbridge wore yet again at 1550 and brought his ship across his opponent’s bow, where he loosed a blazing raking fire. Crossing southward, he continued to wear until he crossed astern on a northerly heading at 1613 and raked again with his starboard batteries before falling off to larboard and coming back around to take up a position on his opponent’s starboard quarter, where he kept station and banged away while the enemy was unable to bring guns to bear on him. When the Briton’s main yard was shot in the slings and her spanker shot away, she slowed down and Bainbridge slid forward abeam. Before he could set more sail, the Britons were able to shoot back with the three to five guns still operational on that side. The enemy’s remaining section of foremast just above the spar deck was shot away, and at about 1655, “Shott Away his Mizen Mast Nearly to the Deck.” All this time the enemy had attempted to return the Constitution’s devastating fire, but the tangled wreckage encumbering his starboard side flamed each time he shot. His cannon went still one by one until, shortly after 1700, silence reigned. His colors having disappeared from the main rigging, Commodore Bainbridge assumed his opponent had surrendered, and he took his ship off to windward a short distance to affect necessary repairs before closing and taking possession. The time was 1710.
But the fact was, the Briton had not surrendered. First Lieutenant Henry Ducie Chads had assumed command upon the wounding of his captain and strove mightily to prepare for further fighting. A staysail was rigged between a topmast jury-rigged to replace the foremast and the bowsprit in an effort to bring the ship under some control. When he tried to rig a sail of sorts on the half of the main yard still aloft, the damaged mainmast—at least, the remaining lower mast—tottered and had to be dropped to keep it from doing worse damage. When the Constitution began to close once more, a half-hour later, the British had rehoisted an ensign to the mizzen stump and were trying to set more sail. Seeing that the American was taking an unassailable raking position across his bow, the British Lieutenant wisely hauled down his flag, just barely in time to prevent another broadside. It was 1750. In the Constitution, recalling the fight against the Guerrière, the “crew gave 3 cheers, as they had done when we first beat to quarters and several times during the action.”
At 1800, George Parker, who had succeeded the recuperating Charles Morris as first lieutenant, boarded the defeated enemy from one of the Constitution’s two remaining undamaged boats (out of eight) to find a shambles. Four of his forecastle guns were upended and so were six more on the quarterdeck. Tangled rigging was everywhere. The wounded and dying made it a grisly scene, and the same was true for the gun deck below. The defeated frigate was the 38-gun HMS Java, the former French Renomee, commissioned in the Royal Navy only the previous August. She had sailed from England for India on 12 November and had detoured to Sao Salvador because of a shortage of water. Quite similar to the Guerrière, she carried 28 18- pounder long guns below, and 2 long 9-pounders, 16 32- pounder, and 1 18-pounder carronades on her forecastle and quarterdeck, a total of 47 guns. (Bainbridge had made a small change in his ship’s armament since her last fight, removing the 18-pounder chase gun—leaving 54 guns in all.) The Java’s gunfire, devastating in its opening broadsides, had diminished steadily in accuracy and volume as the fight progressed, symptomatic not only of damage received but also of the presence of a new crew (together barely two months) that had been allowed to fire but six blank cartridges in practice.
The Constitution suffered 9 killed and 25 wounded (5 mortally) out of her crew of 480. Conflicting reports by several present make it impossible to be precise concerning Java. She had somewhere between 373 and 426 people on board at the time of the fight, including 88 impressed men. Reported deaths totaled between 22 and 60, while the wounded were numbered at either 101 or 102. In any event, the disparate ratio of 4 or 5 to 1 in casualties between the two ships illustrates the volume and power of U.S. fire power compared to its enemy’s.
The Constitution once again had come through without crippling damage but had not escaped entirely unscathed, Commodore Bainbridge’s report notwithstanding. Careful scrutiny of the ship’s log for the succeeding days discloses that both fore and mizzen masts were “wounded” severely enough to warrant fishes, as were certain yards. In addition, the maintopmast had to be taken down and replaced. Thus, it would seem that the slightly larger dimensions of “Old Ironsides’” masts had saved her—narrowly—from the fate suffered by her two opponents to date.
Considering his own “damaged” condition, the weakened state of his ship’s spars and rigging, and the fact that he was thousands of miles from home in waters infested with enemy ships, Bain- bridge reluctantly determined to destroy the Java rather than attempt to tow her home. Slowly—very slowly, with only two boats available—the prisoners were brought on board and distributed about the spar and gun decks under guard of U.S. Marines, the enlisted men manacled to preclude an uprising. Last to be transferred was the Java’s mortally wounded Captain Henry Lambert, one of England’s finest frigate captains, whose green, nondescript crew had not been equal to his tactical skill. By noon on the final day of 1812, all people and personal gear were clear, the Java’s wheel was removed to replace the one destroyed, and demolition fires were set. At 1500, she exploded. Noted Surgeon Evans: “The explosion was not so grand as that of the Guerrière, as her small Magazine only took fire.” Bainbridge made sail for Sao Salvador.
At 0830 New Year’s morning, land and a sail were sighted ahead. The number of contacts grew from one to three as the distance between them closed. Soon, the Hornet appeared with two prizes: the salt-laden U.S. merchant ship William, once prize to the Java, and the British schooner Eleanor (or Ellen), which was carrying a cargo valued at $150,000. Lawrence had come out of port when the Java and William first were sighted on the 29th, and had remained hovering off the entrance ever since, keeping the Bonne Citoyenne covered and yet maintaining a position to evade should Constitution be defeated or additional enemy units appear. Bainbridge came to anchor offshore and the Hornet ran alongside, her tops manned and
the crew bellowing out three lusty cheers. Lawrence came aboard and updated the Commodore concerning events in the port, then the frigate got under way and entered Sao Salvador at 1300 that afternoon. The Hornet remained offshore to nab the Bonne Citoyenne, should the Briton choose to leave while the Constitution was busy offloading prisoners and making repairs.
Prisoner offloading began at 1400 on 2 January 1813. The Commodore had arranged parole for all of them, whereby they would return to England, not to fight in this war again prior to formal exchange. Among the last to leave was poor Captain Lambert, in dreadful pain from the musket ball that had broken a rib, punctured a lung, and come to rest near his spine. As he waited on a couch under an awning on the quarterdeck, a limping Bainbridge, suffering himself and supported by two of his officers, came to Lambert and returned his sword, saying, “I return your sword, my dear sir, with the sincere wish that you will recover, and wear it as you have hitherto done, with honour to yourself and your country.” Lambert died on the evening of the 3rd, but this one act of Bainbridge’s ameliorated any animosities existing between victors and vanquished.
Bainbridge then had to consider his next course of action. There still was no sign of the Essex. (She already was farther south at the rendezvous off Cabo Frio at this time.) The Constitution was unfit for extended cruising far from home. British forces in the area would be rallying to his presence soon and would be bent on revenge. And there was the Bonne Citoyenne. Weighing all these factors, the Commodore decided to head home, taking with him the Hornet’s two prizes. He ordered her to remain off Sao Salvador until the Bonne Citoyenne sailed, or superior British forces appeared, or until about the 25th of the month, when she was to head for home. All four ships departed Sao Salvador on the afternoon of the 5th.
When the Constitution appeared off Boston Light on 15 February, the city had been aware of Bainbridge’s victory for six days. Adverse winds prevented the ship from entering the harbor immediately. When Bainbridge finally was able to come ashore at Long Wharf on the 18th, the city was ready. The route to the Exchange Coffee House was decorated with flags and streamers. A procession was formed at Faneuil Hall that included the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, the Boston Light Infantry, and the Wilson Blues. John Rodgers and the stumpy Isaac Hull, as well as other notables, escorted the tall Commodore. Two bands played, and for the next two months Boston and the country gave themselves up to honoring the latest naval heroes. Congress again voted a gold medal to a skipper of the Constitution, and silver medals for the junior officers, and also voted $50,000 in lieu of prize money for the Java. Bainbridge realized $7,500 from this largesse; the average seaman or ship’s boy received about $60.
Fifteen years after she was launched, the Constitution had proved conclusively the correctness of her designer’s work.
Lake Erie
The earliest operations in the War of 1812 occurred in the Northwest and resulted in the loss of Detroit on 16 August when General William Hull allowed himself to be snookered. Instead of an easy march into Canada, which many thought ripe for incorporation into the Union, suddenly the United States was open to attack over land.
On 3 September 1812, Captain Isaac Chauncey, Commandant of the New York Navy Yard, received orders from Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton to proceed with all haste to Sackett’s Harbor, New York, and take charge of the creation of naval forces on the Great Lakes in an effort to minimize or prevent any British capitalization on their Detroit victory.
On Lake Erie, winter was a time of great activity. Sailing Master Daniel Dobbins, a lake sailor who had gone to Washington following the Detroit debacle to impress the leadership with the strategic importance of the area, was carrying out his new responsibilities to build gunboats at Presqu’ile and generally begin the development of U.S. naval power on Lake Erie.
Commodore Chauncey wrote to new Secretary of the Navy William Jones on 5 March 1813, requesting 500 men, 300 to crew ships and 200 Marines for shore guard. He expected to use them in an early campaign to guarantee U.S. control of Lake Ontario, then transfer himself and many of them to Lake Erie to repeat the process. The appearance of another officer under orders to take charge of the Lake Erie theater under the overall direction of Chauncey changed that.
Secretary of the Navy William Jones ordered Oliver Hazard Perry to Lake Erie with instructions to take as many men as he could from the Newport, Rhode Island, area— where he then was stationed—with him. During March, more than 100 from that station filtered through Sackett’s Harbor en route to Presqu’ile. Perry himself arrived on the 27th of the month and promptly began pressing construction of a credible squadron.
The Navy never managed to reach its authorized manning level during the war, and getting sailors to the Great Lakes was a particularly difficult problem, even with a generous bounty for such service. Some smaller ships were laid up and their crews sent thither, while recruiting was pushed in port cities. Commodore William Bainbridge, who recently had returned to Boston after defeating HMS Java, opened the rendezvous on 30 March with a goal of 200 men. In 12 days, he was able to enlist but one man—and he deserted. Lake service was an anathema to deep-water sailors.
On 18 April, Bainbridge took drastic action: On his own recognizance, he ordered 100 members of the crew of his recent command, the USS Constitution, transferred to Chauncey. Nine days later, he ordered away 50 more. How they traveled is not recorded. At any rate, 147 “Constitutions” were on hand when Chauncey returned from his assault on York on 11 May. The Commodore decided he could afford to send 50 men to Perry.
In a short time, however, Isaac Chauncey was imploring William Jones to send him more men. Bainbridge forwarded to him another 100 souls from the Constitution, Siren, and the Boston gunboats (94 arrived). By late July, he felt strong enough to order another 260 men transferred to Presqu’ile, and a final increment of 100 petty officers and seamen was sent under the command of Lieutenant Jesse Duncan Elliott on 4 August. The remainder of Perry’s crews were recruited locally or “borrowed” from the Army.
Research to date has not conclusively identified each and every member of the Constitution’s crew transferred to Commodore Chauncey and later Commodore Perry during the spring and summer of 1813, but even so, their contribution to this inland naval victory can be discerned.
At least six Constitutions were on board the Lawrence on 10 September 1813. Seaman John Smith died in her that day, said to have been struck by a 24-pounder shot while serving as a gun captain. He had been a sponger on the Constitution’s Number 12 24-pounder in earlier days and had seen two shipmates dropped near him in the Java fight. Seaman William Johnson and Ordinary Seaman Jesse Williams each were wounded. They had served the frigate’s Number 3 long gun and her Number 2 carronade, respectively. Both Smith and Johnson had former gun crew mates with them: Seamen John Barnes and William Dawson. The sixth man was Seaman James D. Hammond, who had survived a hail of fire at the Number 12 carronade in “Old Ironsides’” duel with the Java, a hail of fire that killed six and wounded four.
The Niagara carried at least four Constitutions in the persons of Midshipmen John C. Cummings and Dulaney Forrest and Seamen William Edwards and William Johnson (two of this name were involved). Cummings, who had joined the frigate after the Guerrière victory, was wounded in this fight. Forrest reportedly had a close call when stunned by grapeshot while standing near Perry. When queried by his commander regarding his condition, he is said to have reported himself still fit for duty and requested permission to keep the projectile as a reminder of the one that almost had his number on it. All told, this midshipman earned three congressional silver medals in the course of the war and shared more than $350,000 in prize money.
Among the ships less immediately involved in the battle, Seamen Ezekiel Hatch and John Saunders, former carronade crewmen, were present in the Caledonia on this occasion. Peter and Samuel Dunn, James Gardner, and Thomas Jones were in the Trippe. Newly promoted Lieutenant John H. Packett, Jr., commanded the Ariel, thereby gaining his second silver medal of the war, and Seaman Samuel Parsons was that day on board the Scorpion.
It has been written that great results often have been achieved by relatively few men. In the present instance, one would be hard put to find a small group of men who had contributed more to the outcome of a war than the Constitutions.
Fallout
On 1 June 1813, Captain James Lawrence, newly in command of the frigate Chesapeake, sailed his ship out of Boston Harbor and into range of the waiting HMS Shannon. Given the fact that the ships were of similar size and gun power, the ensuing battle ought to have been between equals. But it was not. Lawrence and his crew had never sailed or fought together, while Captain Philip B. V. Broke had trained his Britons to a fine edge. Sail handling problems in the Chesapeake resulted in her overshooting the Shannon to a position where she had to take the enemy’s fire almost without opportunity for response. It was all downhill from there, and in a fearfully short time she became a British prize. That the hitherto perfect record of U.S. frigates should have come to an end was no surprise; that it should have been so sudden and complete was traumatic to the American public. But whatever the people, professional and otherwise, thought about the battle, it had another effect not hitherto addressed.
The Constitution was in the last stages of her overhaul when the Chesapeake was lost. Some recruiting had been going on, and when her new skipper, Captain Charles Stewart, arrived a couple of weeks after the disaster, he was more concerned with how he would break the British blockade than he was worried about manning his ship.
But the Chesapeake’s swift demise soon intruded. Seamen in need of work continued to ship with some regularity, but the rate at which those already in service departed—deserted—rose markedly. From a monthly desertion rate of one or two men prior to 1 June, the numbers soared to an average of ten a month in the weeks immediately thereafter and remained at that level until the ship sailed in mid-December. Firsthand accounts of what it was like to be in battle likely gave bloody dimension to the media accounts of the Chesapeake’s demise. And later in the year, by September, Chesapeake survivors had been exchanged and returned from Halifax by cartel; some of them were assigned to the Constitution. In any event, more than 70 men ran from the Constitution. When combined with the more than 150 transferred before his arrival by Commodore Bainbridge and the normal expiration of enlistments, Stewart was faced with manning his ship in the face of a hemorrhaging personnel situation.
Eventually, he managed to gather a crew of about 450, and when a gap occurred in the blockading squadron, on the last day of 1813 he got his ship to sea. The ensuing cruise is the least known of the Constitution’s four war cruises, probably because there was no frigate duel. But evidently the action was sufficient to put backbone in the crew, for after her return to Boston in April 1814 the desertion rate once again reverted to its previous level.
The bulge in the Constitution’s desertion rate immediately after 1 June 1813 was not reflected in other ships of the Navy. The United States, her sister in port at New London, Connecticut, actually had a peak in desertions immediately following her return from defeating HMS Macedonian and prior to the Chesapeake debacle. Evidently, it was purely a local phenomenon that was barely noticeable among the many problems Secretary Jones faced in keeping his force operational.
Perfection
Captain Charles Stewart finally got to sea in December 1813 and for three months cruised the West Indies, taking four small prizes. He was in the process of shifting hunting grounds across the Atlantic when a failing mainmast hoped was a quick replacement. Unfortunately, he arrived just as the British blockade was being reinforced for the sailing season, and he would spend eight months waiting for a chance to get to sea. It finally came on 17 December.
Taking a British merchantman a few days out, Stewart learned she had been part of a convoy from Canada to the West Indies and turned southward to follow the trail. When it proved fruitless, he headed once more for Europe, making landfall at Cape Finisterre early in February, by which time the ships’ masters to whom he spoke were reporting a peace treaty was about to be ratified. Stewart headed southward to try and intercept a frigate rumored to be bringing specie from India.
The 20th of February 1815 dawned cloudy and hazy with a cold, damp east- northeast wind propelling the Constitution in a southwesterly direction under short canvas, on a course roughly parallel to the African coast. Madeira was about 180 miles to the west-southwest. All was quiet, but Stewart was keeping an alert watch, because his activities of the preceding ten days certainly must have stirred up a hornet’s nest off Gibraltar, a major Royal Navy base. At about 1300 that afternoon, a ship was spied on the larboard bow, heading toward the American. In a half-hour, a second contact was sighted beyond the first and somewhat to westward, “both standing close hauled towards us under a press of sail.” It was clear that the first unit was a full-rigged ship and probably a combatant. So matters stood until nearly 1500, when the closest contact signaled to the other and turned southward, apparently so the two could join company. Stewart instantly crowded on sail in pursuit, setting his stunsails as the big frigate gathered way. He was certain he had two Britons before him and thought their maneuvering meant they intended to keep away from him until nightfall when they could elude him. Every stitch of canvas was set in the Constitution, alow and aloft. At about 1545 a sickening cracking sound gave warning to those below that the main royal mast was giving way. Slowing his pursuit, Stewart quickly sent men aloft to cut away the wreckage while others prepared a spare spar. In an hour, it was aloft and the main royal was drawing smartly once more. With the range closing again, the Constitution “fired on the chase from the first gun 1st division and the chase gun on the forecastle.” The range was too great.
It was apparent that the enemy would be able to combine forces before Stewart could come up on the nearest one, so he cleared for action and made deliberate preparations for battle. Shot was gotten up and powder charges made ready. The decks were sanded. Gun crews were divided to man the guns, port and starboard, simultaneously. Personal weapons for the boarders were broken out and positioned in tubs about the decks, ready to hand.
About the time the Constitution resumed the chase, the enemy “passed within hail of each other, shortened sail, hauled up their courses, and appeared to be making preparations to receive us.” Stewart knew then that his sought- after fight was before him. After briefly trying to get the weather gauge and not succeeding, the Britons “formed on a line of wind at half a cables length from each other.” (That is, they formed a column heading westward with the wind coming over their starboard quarters and with about 100 yards between them.) The smaller of the two was in the lead.
A little after 1700, the Constitution broke the Stars and Stripes as she came ranging up on the windward side of the enemy column. They responded by hoisting Red Ensigns. At about 1720, “Old Ironsides” was alongside the aftermost ship at about 600 yards with her sails lifting gently, her momentum carrying her forward until she was in a position at the apex of an isosceles triangle, her opponents’ column forming the baseline. From this ideal position, Stewart, standing near the larboard entry port for a better view, “invited the action by firing a shot between the two ships which immediately commenced with an exchange of broadsides.” A British ball killed two men nearby in the waist and continued its way to smash one of the ship’s boats. Firing continued hot and heavy for about 15 or 20 minutes, when enemy fire slackened markedly, his shot falling short. By this time, the sea and the combatants were smothered in smoke, and the sun was lowering across the western horizon. In the smoke and dimming light, the aftermost Briton altered course to starboard to close the distance and get his guns into more effective range. Stewart ordered a cease-fire to allow the smoke time to drift clear ahead and to determine the condition of his opponents. It took a few minutes before the aftermost of his opponents came into view, and he appeared to be luffing to cross under his stern and rake. Blasting a final broadside into the smoke where he assumed the leading enemy was, Stewart threw his main and mizzen topsails flat aback, with topgallants still set, shook all forward, let fly his jib sheet, backed swiftly astern, and unleashed a heavy fire. The rear enemy attempted unsuccessfully to wear away, receiving much damage to his sails and rigging, and a hail of musketry, in the process. He fell out of control, coming to his bow in a southeasterly direction, sails flat aback and headsails and spanker either ruined or snarled in wreckage. As this was happening, the leading enemy appeared out of the smoke, seemingly trying to get across the Constitution’s bow and rake her from ahead; but Stewart once again filled his sails, boarded his foretack, and shot forward. When the enemy wore to larboard, Stewart rewarded him with two raking broadsides in the stern from 100 yards, at which time the Briton ran off to leeward and darkness to escape the heavy fire and to restore order to gun crews that twice had attempted to desert their posts.
Looking east, Stewart saw that the larger of his opponents was attempting to get under way again. He wore short and slid into position on his larboard quarter. Just as he was about to give the starboard battery an opportunity from a range of just 50 yards, the enemy struck his colors, showed a single light, and fired a gun to leeward. The time was 1845. In short order, Second Lieutenant Beekman V. Hoffman was aboard with 15 Marines to take possession of HMS Cyane, a light frigate under the command of Captain Gordon Thomas Falcon.
At 1945, having taken the enemy officers into the Constitution and assured himself that his prize crew could control the Cyane, Stewart set off after the other enemy vessel. That ship had not, in fact, run away, but had instead drawn off to affect repairs to her sails and rigging, and was returning to the fray. Thus it was that, within 15 minutes of setting sail, Stewart found himself bearing down on an enemy that clearly was heading for him. At 2040 the two passed each other at 50 yards going in opposite directions and exchanged starboard broadsides. The enemy then wore to run with the wind. Stewart adroitly wore short and got in a stern rake before he was out of range. Realizing how unequal the contest was, the enemy made all sail, seeking escape. Stewart quickly was in chase, and at 2130 began picking away at him with two bow guns, every shot being carefully sighted and few missing. The range steadily decreased until the U.S. seamen could hear planking being ripped up as their shots told. Some of these sounds may have been those of the tiller being shot away. Because his rudder tiller was positioned above the main deck, the enemy could not use stern chasers. A few minutes after 2200, as the Constitution was ranging up on the larboard quarter and recognizing there could be no escape, the Briton came by the wind and also fired a leeward gun. Third Lieutenant William B. Shubrick went over to accept the surrender of HMS Levant, a new 18-gun corvette commanded by Captain George Douglas, the senior of the two British captains. A midshipman accompanying Shubrick has left this record of his first sight of Levant’s quarterdeck area:
The mizen [sic] mast for several feet was covered with brains and blood; teeth, pieces of bones, fingers and large pieces of flesh were picked up from off the deck. It was a long time before I could familiarize myself to these and is possible more horrid scenes that [sic] I had witnessed.
In summary, Charles Stewart and the Constitution had everything going for them in this fight: heavier gun batteries (although he could only suspect so beforehand); a tough hull better able to resist damage—with spars and rigging to match; and, thanks to the fact that the British blockade had put so many Americans on the beach, Stewart had been able to ship what was perhaps the most experienced crew “Old Ironsides” ever would have. Captain Stewart himself proved to be a superb tactician and shiphandler who took advantage of every break he got and acted decisively to deny the enemy any. He fought at ranges that ensured his gunners rarely would miss while his enemies were working beyond their maximum effective range. If his adversaries can be said to have done anything “wrong,” it would have to be having had the temerity to challenge him in the first place. On that day, in those circumstances, Stewart, the Constitution, and her crew simply were unbeatable.
Paddle Wheels for “Old Ironsides"
When a dramatic technological advance occurs, attempts are most often made to use it in as many applications as possible. The results frequently are ludicrous in their design or results, or disastrous. In a few cases, they work. When steam went to sea, its potential propulsive power was hitched to systems of articulated oars, to paddle wheels, and to screws. In 1819, the U.S. sailing packet Savannah, equipped with an auxiliary steam engine and retractable paddle wheels, crossed the Atlantic from New York to Liverpool in 29 1/2 days. She arrived out of coal but had steamed for only 82 hours. Still, it was a first, and interest in paddle-wheel applications increased. They were tried astern, within hulls, between hulls, and even horizontally underneath the hulls.
In February 1821, Navy Secretary Smith Thompson ordered Sailing Master Briscoe S. Doxey from the Washington Navy Yard to Boston to conduct an experiment using the Constitution, then readying for a Mediterranean deployment, as his test vehicle. Doxey was to construct and demonstrate the practicability of the “propello marino,” a device “invented by him for propelling becalmed ships.”
Doxey arrived early in March, and for the next five weeks or so, he, with the assistance of Master Builder Jonah Barker and his men, set about erecting his machine and installing it in the Constitution. In essence, it was a “portable” set of paddle wheels installed on separate axles mounted through gun ports and powered by a large number of the crew.
The first test, during mid-April, failed because the paddles were too short and they could not “take proper hold of the water.” Following modifications, successful tests were made in Boston Harbor on 23 April, when the ship, tethered to an anchor by “two hawser lengths” as a precaution, was propelled at a stately three knots. The paddles revolved five times a minute on a circle of 23 1/2 feet diameter and “the effect was such as to move the ship against a strong wind and tide.”
Two test runs were made, and then the “propello marino” was dismounted. In the month to follow, Doxey received encouraging letters from many witnessing officers, including Master Commandant William B. Shubrick, Lieutenants Foxhall A. Parker, Samuel L. Breeze, John Percival, David Geisinger, and Uriah P. Levy, and Midshipman Samuel F. Dupont.
Doxey forwarded these letters to Commodore John Rodgers of the Board of Navy Commissioners. Doxey’s own letter said:
Permit me to tender to you my warmest thanks for the interest your honourable board have taken . . . by giveing [sic] my Propellor a trial on board the . . . Constitution . . . being the first that has ever been tryed [sic] on so large a vessel, it must be naturally expected to have some defects, which ... I am in a fair way to remedy . . . And under the generous patronage of your Honourable board I hope to improve the propellor so as to get ... at least five knots, with much ease. . . . [SJhould your honourable boddy [sic] think it expedient to make the improvements sug[g]ested . . . it will give me great pleasure to attend to them . . .
The Constitution’s captain, Jacob Jones, apparently had declined to endorse Doxey’s effort and was directed to take the “propello marino” with him to the Mediterranean. Jones, upon arrival at Port Mahon, Minorca, in June 1821, off-loaded the rig into the Navy’s warehouse there. It gathered dust until Jones backloaded it in the spring of 1824 for the voyage home.
The rest is silence.
Join the Navy and See the World
The Constitution spent most of the 1820s in the Mediterranean, and most of the time in the Aegean area, observing the events of the Greek Revolution and ensuring the safety of American businessmen in the region. The conflict was a particularly savage one, as the moribund Ottoman Empire sought to maintain its territory. Atrocities were a regular occurrence.
The island of Psara, west of Chios, was attacked by the Turks in 1824 and its Greek inhabitants massacred. As it was happening, one 6-year-old Greek boy was put in a small boat and shoved off from shore by his mother, a younger brother in her arms. As he drifted seaward, he watched as they were cut down by berserk Ottomans. A short time later, he was picked up by a passing American warship and was shipped as a ship’s boy.
On 27 April 1827, after having been shifted from ship to ship during the intervening years, the lad, now known as George Sirian, was transferred to “Old Ironsides” along with four others. Befriended by Lieutenant Robert B. Randolph, upon the ship’s return to the United States, he was placed in the care of Randolph’s married sister, Elizabeth Sargent, in Virginia. She placed him in an academy at Newport, Rhode island, for an education.
About five years later, formal education at an end, young George met another expatriot Greek who happened to be a gunner in the U. S. Navy. Known as George Marshall, he began teaching Sirian the skills of his trade. On 20 April 1837, Sirian had learned enough to be appointed acting gunner himself, assigned to the ship-sloop Fairfield. In 1840, he married Marshall’s daughter, Eleanor.
In 1843, Sirian was formally warranted gunner with his original date of rank. Later that year, he found himself ordered to Constitution. In her, during the next three years, he made a voyage around the world, visiting Brazil, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Singapore, Danang, Macao, Manila, Honolulu, Mazatlan, and Valparaiso before returning to Norfolk.
Ten years later, following duty in several ships and at two navy yards, Sirian was ordered to the frigate Congress and spent three years in the Mediterranean. While there, he tried unsuccessfully to find his roots.
The gunner was stationed at the New York Navy Yard when the Civil War broke out. In September 1862, he was ordered to the transplanted U.S. Naval Academy at Newport and assigned to the then-school-ship Constitution yet again. For two years, he supervised the maintenance of her reduced battery of guns and assisted in the training of midshipmen. In 1864, he was transferred to USS Vanderbilt, where he finished the war.
Among his postwar assignments, Sirian returned to the Pacific and duty in the Asiatic Squadron, seeing ports in Japan for the first time and returning to old haunts in China, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia. He finally retired in December 1880 and died at Portsmouth, Virginia, on 22 December 1891. Two of his sons also served in the Navy, one dying in a gunnery accident in USS Paducah at Guantanamo Bay in 1915. A great-grandson still lives at Virginia Beach.
George Sirian is the only person known to have served in Constitution on three occasions over a 40-year period. His career literally fulfilled the Navy’s age-old recruiting promise and made for an incredible life for a small boy fleeing for his life.
The Constitution Resolutions
The USS Constitution, in mid-June 1835, was just days from completing a voyage to France as transport for Minister (Ambassador) Edward Livingston, sent by President Andrew Jackson to adjust differences resulting from a treaty ratified by the two nations in 1831. The Minister had not been successful, and fully expected war. For the ship, it had been a miserable voyage. A gale had arisen on the first night outward bound, the jibboom was lost, and a gun broke loose and threatened to stove in the bows. Another gale greeted the ship early in the return voyage, and she only narrowly avoided being wrecked on the Scilly Isles. In three months, ten men had died of various causes—a number much above normal. Morale was so bad that 50 would desert in the two months after the return, and a number of officers would request transfer or furlough. In this environment, when all hands were looking forward to the voyage’s end, the officers and midshipmen found time and inclination to look beyond their present dour existence and consider the future of their profession. On 20 June, they met “for the purpose of concerting measures to affect the establishment of a Naval Academy.” Chaired by Lieutenant John Berien Montgomery and with Purser Henry Etting acting as secretary, the group drew up a series of resolutions to be presented to their peers, the Secretary of the Navy, the President, and the Congress, urging action. They argued that a “Naval School” was the only way adequately to impart “the progressive improvements in the arts and sciences, which distinguish the present age” to new officers. They went on to state that “Ships Schoolmasters can rarely, if ever, impart such . . . knowledge, or advance the education of the Navy Officer,” and that therefore that corps of instructors ought to be “absolutely abolished.” The Constitutions suggested that the monies spent on teacher salaries be used instead to “liberally sustain a Scientific institution.”
Using funds provided pro rata by all the officers in the ship, 500 copies of the resolutions were to be printed and distributed “to each Naval Station, Squadron, and U. States Ship in Commission,” in addition to those earmarked for Washington. The ship’s commander, Captain Jesse Duncan Elliott, and Minister Livingston were provided copies for comment.
No comment has been found from Captain Elliott, but Minister Livingston forwarded his copy to Secretary of the Navy Mahlon Dickerson with a note that he wished to pay a personal call to discuss the subject. Dickerson acknowledged receipt of his own copy without commitment in a note on 29 July. Distribution of the resolutions to active units brought no groundswell of support, only a similar petition from the officers of the USS Vandalia in the West Indies. These petitions alone, however, stirred former Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard, then Senator from New Jersey, to introduce a bill establishing such an academy. Although it failed, its brief existence was the impetus for founding a “cram course” for officers at the Philadelphia Naval Asylum, a course whose staff subsequently would play a central role in the successful effort of 1845.
Of the dozen officers identified in the Constitution resolutions, only Purser Etting is known to have served at the school they all so earnestly desired: he kept its books for the 1858-1859 school year and on the subsequent summer cruise in the USS Plymouth.
Vietnam Visit
After two days of contrary winds, the big frigate was at last able to beat into the bay, chopping seas spewing in froth from her bows. On the starboard hand, mountainous ridges, their roots in the sea, marched into the distance to the west and northwest. To port, the blunt, abrupt knob that would become known to a much later generation as Monkey Mountain gave way to low, flat land that made up the south short of the bay. Rounding to smartly west of the knob, the frigate Constitution came to anchor, two months from Singapore and three weeks shy of a year since she had sailed out of New York. The date was 10 May 1845. “Old Ironsides,” commanded by Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival, was on a mission typical of the time: show the flag, ensure civil treatment of Americans in foreign lands, determine the potential for trade in new areas, check on resident U.S. naval agents, and investigate the possibilities for expanding logistical support in remote places.
The Constitution was at Turon (now Danang). On the 13th, after preliminary arrangements had been made by subordinates, Percival went ashore to visit the Mandarins of the city, taking with him a small party of officers, sailors, and Marines. His party grouped behind him, the Captain seated at one side of a table set in the open. The Chief Mandarin, with his umbrella bearer and other attendants, appeared shortly thereafter and sat opposite. Despite the ceremonies, the meeting was but a short exchange of introductions and pleasantries, with the Mandarin agreeing to pay a return call on board the U.S. man-of-war.
The next day, Wednesday, 14 May, the Chinese, as they were termed, returned Percival’s call and were received with appropriate ceremony. All went well, and the Chinese left, apparently properly impressed with both the Captain and his ship. After they had gone, one of Percival’s men discovered that someone in the party had left a letter behind. The Americans found it had been written by a French missionary, Bishop Lefever, who stated that he “with 12 Cochin Chinese, were . . . under sentence of immediate death.”
Captain Percival quickly called for a party of sailors and Marines, all “armed to the teeth,” loaded them into the ship’s boats, and headed for the beach. Up the streets, across the market place, and through a double rank of foreign soldiers went Percival. The natives acted as if nothing was going on, but the American skipper took the precaution of stationing an unbroken line of sailors and Marines in sight of one another all the way from the boats to the Chief Mandarin’s house. Help could be called at the slightest hint of trouble.
Once again, the Captain took his place at one side of the table, and the Oriental headman took the other. Per- cival demanded that the Mandarin dispatch immediately a letter he had prepared to the Frenchman, and that an answer be returned within 24 hours. Furthermore, the three known local native leaders would be held in the Constitution as hostages. If the deadline was not met, Percival declared he would take possession of the three forts near the town and all the shipping he could lay his hands on.
Tensions mounted on board as the 24 hours ticked away. When the appointed time had passed without result, Percival cut all communication with the shore until the arrival of the Bishop’s reply. The Constitution shifted anchorages to a position closer to town and just a half-mile from one of the forts. To reinforce his demands, the Captain directed that three man-of-war junks seen a mile-and-a-half off be captured.
It soon became apparent that the three targets would not get away, being both anchored and moored to the shore. The wretched, half-naked people manning them offered no resistance to the Americans who came piling aboard. All junks were moved and anchored off the quarters of “Old Ironsides.”
The next three days passed uneventfully. Then, on Monday, the 19th, the Constitution was kedged in still closer to the river mouth at the town and well within range of the forts on either side. Springs then kept her starboard battery trained shoreward. Indications from the shore were that Captain Perci- val’s threats had no effect. Returning to the ship after a long and fruitless parley, he ordered the hostages released, hoping thereby to break the stalemate.
Tuesday dawned squally and nasty. Taking advantage of the cover provided by the wind-driven rain, the three prizes slipped their cables and ran with the wind, seeking escape from the Americans by dashing upriver. One was shortly retaken, as the Constitution’s opening broadsides caused her crew to drop anchor and jump overboard. The other two succeeded in crossing the bar and appeared to be making good their escape.
But U.S. boat crews sent in pursuit were undaunted by the tempestuous weather and seas or potentially hostile Chinese. Pulling boldly, the launch and four cutters surged past six or eight armed boats loaded with native soldiers, through waters covered by guns of the forts on either bank. The native craft scattered without a shot having been fired. The second junk was soon retaken without opposition and a small guard left on board. Onward pressed the U.S. force. A mile upstream, the last escapee had run aground and was abandoned, its sails destroyed. After a quick inspection, the Americans refloated the junk and returned to their ship.
As dawn broke on the 24th, to the Americans’ surprise, three ships wearing “the yellow flag of Cochin” were seen anchored below the hill fort on the side of Monkey Mountain. They apparently had come in quietly during the night.
The weather moderated during the night that followed, and the temperature again H rose to an oppressive level. No sign or word of the French priest was forthcoming. Captain Percival attempted to visit the three newly arrived brigs but was refused permission to go aboard, his gig being pushed off “with oars & sticks.”
The next morning, two letters arrived from the Mandarin and from an unknown “little officer.” The former said nothing was known about the Frenchman and asked for the return of the junks; the other stated that the priest would be surrendered when the junks were returned. To reinforce the demand, provisions were stopped until the junks were freed. Percival bowed to this, and food and water again came to the ship— but no Frenchman.
On the 25th, Percival made a final try for the Bishop by sending a letter ashore saying he would leave shortly for Canton, where he would report the incident to the French authorities, who undoubtedly would wreak swift retribution. The response indicated the Chinese considered the threats hollow, and that unless a “good letter” was drafted, no further communication would be forwarded to the king.
Threats had failed, bribes had been rejected and, thus far at least, aggressive actions tolerated. But beneath the surface, the native leadership was marshaling its forces. The three brigs that had arrived, the released junks had been refitted, and three ships that had been lying in ordinary were completing reactivation. Ashore, the forts were being refurbished and extended, their approaches being rendered more difficult. Percival recognized that the situation could only get worse and judged his solitary frigate, glorious record notwithstanding, insufficient to the task. After sunset on 26 May 1845, following 16 hectic and fruitless days, the Constitution departed quietly, leaving things much as they were before she arrived.
Lieutenant John B. Dale summed up this first Navy-Marine Corps experience in Vietnam:
... it seems, I must say, to have shown a sad want of “sound discretion,” in commencing an affair of this kind, without carrying it through to a successful issue.
How true, then and now.
Author's Note: Adapted from an article in Marine Corps Gazette, February 1977.
Barbo, Grebo, and Mayo
Rhode Islander John Rudd recommissioned the Constitution on 22 December 1852 in New York. He was the first officer of the rank of commander to he regularly ordered to command the frigate, an indication of her advancing age and diminishing position as a fighting unit in a mid-century navy shifting from wind to steam propulsion.
His ship flew the flag of Commodore Isaac Mayo, new commander of the African Squadron. Mayo was no stranger to West Africa, having been flag captain under Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry when the African Squadron was begun a decade earlier. On 2 March 1853, a steamer towed the frigate clear of New York Harbor and she was off on a voyage that would keep her out of home waters for more than two years.
She reached Monrovia, in the new nation of Liberia, in August. Under way from there on 25 August, the Constitution stopped at Sinoe (Greensville today) and Cape Palmas. During the latter stop, the governor asked Commodore Mayo to try and end a tribal war that had been simmering on Liberia’s southern boundary for some three years. At issue were the slave-raiding habits of the Barbo tribe against the long-suffering Grebo people. Mayo consented.
Arriving off the mouth of the Cavally River on 4 September, Mayo sent a lieutenant ashore in a ship’s boat to scout the terrain and locate the disputants. The Grebo town was soon found and the people seen ready and willing to secure an end to the unhappy situation. Across the river, however, the Barbos threatened the lieutenant with death and vowed to resist any force sent against them. Mayo reacted to his emissary’s report decisively, no doubt recalling a similar incident on his last African tour, when he had found himself in mortal combat with a native chief. On that occasion, “King” Ben Krako lost.
At 0830 the next morning, five boats—including the barge bearing the Commodore—with Captain Rudd, 200 men, rockets, and a 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzer— said to have been the first time one was used in the field— put off from the frigate and pulled smartly toward shore. Holding off the bulk of his force for the moment, Mayo sent in one boat under a white flag to renew the mediation offer. The Barbos rebuffed his advance again. Equally determined, the Commodore commenced a bombardment of the Barbo town on the river’s left bank with both the howitzer and the rockets. The situation required only the destruction of a few huts to convince the natives that negotiation was the only sensible course of action.
Before the sun was high in the sky, deputations from both tribes were brought to the poop cabin of the frigate for a “Grand Palava” with Commodore Mayo. By way of hand signs and broken English, the savage nobility, in all their animal finery, conversed with the crusty old salt, in his blue and gold. In the end, after “going through various frantic actions,” and accompanied by the “Spewing of Water & Shaking of Hands,” they reached a peace agreement. (The “spewing of water”—literally, the same sort of performance required of us by a dentist—was meant to wash away the bad words and feelings; perhaps the shaking of hands was purely to satisfy the Americans.) Dinner for the deputations followed, and the former enemies returned ashore after the presentation of “dash” (trade goods gifts).
On 6 September 1853, the Barbo-Grebo Peace Treaty formally was ratified on board the Constitution. With more “dash,” the natives were put ashore. At that, the frigate weighed anchor for the Gulf of Guinea.
The Centuries Go By
In spring 1873, after she had lain idle for 18 months, the Constitution began undergoing thorough repairs and restoration to prepare her for public exhibition during the principal year of the nation’s centennial observance (1876). The Philadelphia Navy Yard was beginning the huge task of relocation at that time, however, and this last ship job was so poorly managed that she was not ready for the festivities. When the work finally was declared done in 1877, she was employed as an apprentice training ship, making cruises up and down the East Coast and to the Caribbean with upward of 200 teenagers on board.
Five years later, in August 1881, the Constitution sailed from her home port of Newport, Rhode Island, on a series of “day sails” that found her at New London, Connecticut, on the 26th. For the next few days, more Navy units came in until there were seven. They were there to participate in a final centennial observance. Sailmaker Charles E. Tallman was there for the 6 September event:
Today is the celebration of the Massacre of Fort Trumbull, at Groton Height. At noon all the saluting ships fired a salute of 21 guns. The scene was enacted as in 1781, when the British attacked Fort Trumble [sic]. At that time a preconcerted signal was made between the American Army & Navy, to fire 2 guns from the fort in the morning, & if all was right, to be answered from the flagship by one gun. The morning was foggy & the British came in, with Benedict Arnold (the traitor) on board the flagship. The two guns were fired from the fort, and Arnold being aware of the American signal, caused the answer of one gun to be fired from the British flagship thus misleading the Americans. The British imediately [sic] landed on both sides of the harbor, & moved on the fort thus easily securing its capture. On this day (Sept. 6 1881) the Constitution frigate took the part of the British flagship, in the drama and fired one gun and launched the troops & moved on the fort, same as the British did a hundred years ago. The day was foggy as it was then. The smoke of the firing mixing with the fog, made it quite dark and gave the sky the appearance of a copper color. It seemed that nature itself took part in the event of the day.
The Constitution had fired a 17-gun salute to the governor of Connecticut in the morning, before dressing ship and firing the noon salute. In the early evening, she expended 22 “Coston signals” and 14 rockets in a 20-minute fireworks display. A 21-gun salute at sunset the next day concluded this “last hurrah.” Nearly 100 years later, “Old Ironsides” found herself once again involved in a major national celebration, this time, the bicentennial. Activity on 4 July 1976 was limited to firing a 21-gun salute at her berth in the Boston National Historical Park. On 10 July, however, she proceeded out to the harbor entrance, turned about, and led a parade of Tall Ships into Boston. As she stood up the harbor, she fired minute guns heralding the arrival of these visitors from all around the world. It was never planned that way, but the guns fired 76 times.
The Constitution was under way early the next morning with Secretary of the Navy J. William Middendorf II on board. Returning to the harbor entrance, this time she greeted the sleek, dark-blue HMS Brittania, bearing Queen Elizabeth II of England. With the Royal Standard at her main truck, the Secretary’s flag at the fore, the Commandant’s flag at the mizzen, and a huge 1812 Stars and Stripes at the spanker gaff, “Old Ironsides” fired a welcoming 21- gun salute. A message flashed between the ships: “Your salute was magnificent, Brittania sends.”
Later in the day, the royal visitor and her consort came aboard to see for themselves this nemesis of her ancestors’ fleet. The visit was an amicable one, lasting about 45 minutes. A story circulated later that as she was viewing the 24-pounder guns, some of which bore the royal mark of King George III, the Queen allegedly remarked, “I say, Philip, we really must talk to the Secretary about these foreign arms sales!”
Gold Medals All Around
In the U.S. Navy, the USS Constitution remains unique as the only ship ever to have had four of her commanding officers honored with gold medals for actions while commanding her.
Commodore Edward Preble commanded the frigate from May 1803 until October 1804, and during the summer of the latter year led a series of generally successful attacks against the Barbary pirates at Tripoli, in modem Libya. By the time he returned home, his reports already had been forwarded to Congress and action had begun to recognize his exemplary performance of duty. On 3 March 1805, a resolution was approved requesting the President to express the thanks of Congress to the Commodore and all hands. A gold medal was to be struck for Preble, “emblematical of the attacks on the town, batteries, and naval force of Tripoli,” and swords were to be presented to each commissioned officer and midshipman distinguishing himself in these operations. A month’s pay was awarded each sailor and Marine.
Preble was at Washington when the resolution was passed, and on the way north to his home at Falmouth, Maine, some two weeks later, he stopped at Philadelphia and had his portrait drawn by Rembrandt Peale for use on the face of his medal. Surrounding the bust of Preble on the obverse of the medal is the legend “Edwardo Preble Duci Strenuo” and “Comitia Americana.” On the reverse, above a scene of the squadron attacking Tripoli, is the legend “Vindici Commercii Americana,” and below it “Anti Tripoli MDCCCIV.” Engraved by John Reich, the medal was delivered to the Commodore in 1806.
On 19 August 1812, some 600 miles east of Boston, Captain Isaac Hull, in the Constitution, defeated HMS Guerrière in an action that electrified the nation. As events transpired, his was but the first in a series of rapid victories scored by the tiny U. S. Navy over units of the vaunted Royal Navy in the heady opening months of the War of 1812. On 29 January 1813, Congress resolved that the President present gold medals to Hull, to Captain Stephen Decatur for his victory over HMS Macedonian, and to Captain Jacob Jones for his victory over HMS Frolic. Their commissioned officers were to receive silver versions of their captains’ medals.
In February 1813, Congress was considering awarding the Constitution’s crew $100,000 for their work, and another amount for Captain Jones and his crew, when the Constitution returned from her second war cruise with the news that HMS Java had fallen victim to her guns off Brazil. Elated by the news, but sobered by the potential cost of their proposed generosity, the congressmen settled for a “package” of a total of $125,000 to be divided $50,000 each to Hull’s and Bainbridge’s crews (largely one in the same), and $25,000 to Jones’s. This was approved on 3 March 1813, the same day another resolution requested the President to present a gold medal to Bainbridge and silver copies of it to his commissioned officers.
The last of the Constitution’s wartime victories was two years in coming. Off the northwest coast of Africa, nearly 200 miles from Madeira, on 20 February 1815, the big frigate, then under command of Captain Charles Stewart, took on HMS Cyane and HMS Levant in a twi-night action of unsurpassed maneuver and tactical skill. She finally returned home in May of that year, and after some delay in the war’s aftermath, on 22 February 1816, Congress authorized Stewart his gold medal and his officers silver copies. The Cyane was taken into the Navy and on 26 April, Congress also provided a $25,000 reward for taking the Levant, which had been recaptured by the British in a neutral port after the war had ended, so the Constitution again had money to share.
War’s end also had an effect on the promptness with which the authorized medals were delivered. Secretary of the Navy William Jones was in office from January 1813 until December 1814, but in the press of wartime concerns never got around to implementing the creation of the medals in the President’s name. Benjamin Crowninshield, who succeeded him, apparently was not briefed on this matter when he took office, and so things languished. Naval Agent George Harrison at Philadelphia had the responsibility for their production and Moritz Furst of that city for engraving the designs.
In May 1818, Agent Harrison queried the Secretary about the number of medals to be struck of each design. After determining their potential as mementos over an above those specifically awarded by the Congress, Crowninshield at the beginning of August responded that, with regard to the medals for Hull, Bainbridge, Decatur, Jones, Oliver Hazard Perry, Thomas Macdonough, Stewart, and Johnson Blakeley, “let there be 50 extra struck in Silver and 150 of each in composition or in Copper. Of the other medals it will not be necessary to have more struck than 25 of each in Silver, and 75 in composition or Copper.”
Captain Stewart’s medal was the last of those being considered to be completed, probably because he was in command of the Mediterranean Squadron from 1816 to 1820 and correspondence was slow.
At long last, on 10 February 1820, recently installed Secretary Smith Thompson issued ten letters directed to officers grouped according to the ship in which they had once served so gloriously, forwarding their medals. Delivery, not surprisingly, turned out to be more difficult than might have been imagined. Surgeon’s Mate Donaldson Yates, who had participated in both the Guerrière and Java fights, died on 29 October 1815. His silver medals finally were delivered to John Donaldson Wetheret, a nephew by marriage, during the summer of 1825. In the case of Marine First Lieutenant William Sharp Bush, killed in the Guerrière fight, not until early 1835 was his silver medal presented to his nearest male relative, one Lewis Bush Jackson, via his congressman.
Why the Constitution?
Ships are preserved and memorialized around the world for many reasons. Phaoronic funerary craft and the Wasa have secured modern care because, through accidents of history, they were forgotten and rediscovered centuries later. The Victory, Mikasa, and Olympia are preserved because they were the flagships of historically popular leaders at the moments of their triumphs. The Warrior and Nautilus represent firsts in the evolution of the ship. Myriad warcraft from World War II are maintained around the world as rallying points for the now-dwindling number of veterans of that maelstrom. And then there is the Constitution.
Her continued existence, quite simply, owes to her having been involved in a series of one war’s events that thoroughly ingrained themselves into the warp and woof of our national character. It does not depend on one man or one battle.
When the United States declared war on Great Britain in June 1812, the U.S. Navy comprised 17 ships. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected anything good to come from the war—or from any aspect of it, for that matter. In mid-August, Major General William Hull surrendered Detroit to an inferior British force in a foul-up of the first magnitude. Gloom and doom pervaded the land, fueled by many “I Told You Sos.” And then, at the end of the month, Hull’s naval nephew, Captain Isaac Hull, arrived at Boston in the Constitution, announcing he had destroyed a British frigate in single combat. It was incredible; the country was delirious with joy. The London Times grumbled that it could set the tone of the whole war. It did.
Even as the Constitution was sailing on a second war cruise, Captain Stephen Decatur, in her sister, the United States, captured another Briton in single combat. And while the country still was savoring this good news, Commodore William Bainbridge brought the Constitution back to Boston and announced that a second British frigate had fallen to the Constitution. Subsequently, the Admiralty ordered that henceforth no U.S. frigate like the Constitution was to be taken on in single combat. The fact that Americans eventually began losing some battles never erased the euphoria of these heady opening months.
In September 1814, Commodore Thomas Macdonough trounced a British squadron on Lake Champlain, even as peace negotiations were in progress. In January 1815, Major General Andrew Jackson defeated a British invasion force at New Orleans, even as a peace treaty awaited ratification. And in February 1815, the Constitution, under the command of Captain Charles Stewart, completed the cycle of land, freshwater, and saltwater victories with her own third triumph of the war, one in which she defeated two enemies simultaneously. She had gained the first and last frigate victories of the war and proved U.S. sailors were second to none. The depth of the ship’s attraction is clear from a proposal that appeared later that year to bring the ship ashore and preserve her under cover for all time.
When, in 1831, an erroneous newspaper report in Boston indicated the ship was being considered for scrapping, an aroused Harvard student, Oliver Wendell Holmes, penned a protest poem. Its stirring “Aye, tear her tattered ensign down, Long has it waved on high” set off a storm of indignation. Had Secretary of the Navy John Branch ever entertained any such notion, he was well disabused of it.
James Fenimore Cooper, the first U.S. naval historian, wrote in 1853 of how the ship then was viewed:
It is seldom, indeed, that men have ever come to love and respect a mere machine as this vessel is loved and respected . . . , and we hope the day may be far distant when this noble frigate will cease to occupy her place on the list of the marine of this republic.
At about this time, the Constitution’s legend led to her being outfitted as a school ship to inspire U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen. And while she was out of the war, the largest ironclad in the fleet was named the USS New Ironsides. Her legend also resulted in her being the first flagship of the then-new Training Squadron in 1881, shortly before the wear and tear of her long career, and the financial limitations of a navy in the doldrums caused her to be taken out of service. An ugly “bam” was built over her spar deck and she was hauled into the backwater at Portsmouth, New Hampshire—out of sight, perhaps, but not out of mind, for Congressman John F. Fitzgerald orchestrated her return to Boston for her centennial in 1897.
The centennial observances set off a number of efforts to restore the ship to her former glory. The United Daughters of the War of 1812 and the Massachusetts Historical Society were among the principal activists, but not everyone was of such a mind. Navy Secretary Charles Bonaparte proposed the old frigate be used as a target. In response, Armenian immigrant Moses Gulesian offered him $10,000 to prevent it. President Theodore Roosevelt reappointed “Lunchbox Charlie” to be Treasury Secretary and ended that threat.
A restoration in 1906 and 1907 transformed the ship’s outward appearance to an earlier day but did little to repair problems below. By the mid-1920s, she was in danger of sinking at the pier. A public campaign raised more than $600,000, and Congress chipped in still more for a four-year restoration effort. She then spent three years touring the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Pacific coasts under tow, drawing more than 4.5 million visitors.
Since that time, Boston has been her home, where she still serves both as the oldest commissioned warship afloat in the world and the longest commissioned warship currently in service in the U.S. Navy—in fact, the only remaining unit of the six authorized in 1794. Visited annually by more than one million people from every part of the United States and more than 100 countries, she continues to inspire patriotism and instill pride.
Commodore Bainbridge had occasion to toast the ship not long before his death. He began “Let me toast the ship! Never has she failed us!”
How right he was.