When the War of 1812 was declared, the frigate Constitution had just completed a major overhaul at the Washington Navy Yard and was headed for Annapolis for some final preparations. As she made the short voyage to the small Maryland seaport, Captain Isaac Hull had the declaration of war read to the crew. That their newfound adversary was the world’s most powerful navy did not deter the crew from cheering at the news.
As the Constitution lay at anchor for several weeks loading stores and filling out her complement, the windows in Annapolis rattled almost constantly as Hull drilled his crew by having them fire their weapons at large barrels anchored at ever-increasing ranges from the ship. “The crew . . . must yet be unacquainted with a ship of war, as many of them have but lately joined, and never were in an armed ship before. . . .” Hull wrote the Secretary of the Navy. “We are doing all we can to make them acquainted with the duty, and in a few days we shall have nothing to fear from any single deck ship.”
Hull’s orders directed him to join with Commodore John Rodgers’ squadron, which by then had already departed New York. The orders also gave him the authority to engage any lone warships he might encounter along the way but warned, “you are not, voluntarily, to encounter a force superior to your own.” This last caveat would prove ironic indeed.
On 5 July 1812, the Constitution got underway, sailing down the Chesapeake past the Virginia Capes and out into the Atlantic. For nearly two weeks, she tacked slowly northward against the current and light headwinds in search of Rodgers’ squadron but saw nothing. Then, on the 17th, off the New Jersey shore, the search appeared to be over. Lookouts called down from aloft that they had spotted the sail-loaded masts of five ships piercing the northern horizon. They appeared to be warships and, knowing that Rodgers’ squadron consisted of five ships, Hull immediately crowded on sail and began closing the distance.
The Great Race
For the rest of the day the light winds made progress frustratingly slow and, as darkness fell, the Constitution had not yet even reached signaling range. Several hours later, Hull believed they were close enough to exchange lantern signals, so he ordered a coded recognition signal hoisted. When more than an hour had passed with no response, Hull began to grow uneasy. As the shadowy images of the other ships drew closer and no responding lanterns appeared in any of them, Hull ordered his ship about and headed away from the now-threatening specters.
Hours later, the early light of dawn slowly revealed Hull’s worst nightmare: The five ships had become seven, two nearly within cannon range, all flying British colors. The Constitution was being pursued by a British squadron of four frigates, a ship-of-the-line, a brig, and a schooner.
Hull ordered all possible sail rigged, but as the sun peeked over the horizon, the wind died, and the yards were soon draped in limp canvas. Before long the Constitution was completely becalmed, her rudder useless and her only movement a slow wallow in the Atlantic swell.
The only good news, and it was very good indeed, was that the wind had deserted the British ships as well. They too wallowed on the swell, two of the frigates hovering menacingly but impotently just outside the range of their longest-range guns.
Men climbed aloft with buckets and wetted the sails, but that technique only worked when there was at least a faint breeze, which there was none. Next, Hull ordered two of her boats launched and, with hawsers secured to the bow, the boat crews began the backbreaking work of towing the massive ship. The British imitated the maneuver, and soon a slow-motion chase carried the warships southward at less than a knot.
One of the British frigates was lighter than the Constitution, and she began to close the distance. Hull ordered a number of his guns shifted aft including a two-ton 24-pounder. With the muzzle of the monster raised to maximum elevation, Hull himself touched off a shot and watched as a geyser rose from the sea between the two frigates. The British returned fire from several of their guns, but their shots also fell short. But it was becoming apparent that this would not always be the case as the distance between adversaries continued to shrink.
As American sailors pulled at oars under a hot sun and others waited at their battle stations for combat they knew they could not win, the grim situation began to take its toll on the Constitution’s crew, and an air of fatalistic resignation swept through the ship as “what-ifs” became “whens.” Hull told his officers that he intended to go down fighting, that sinking under fire was preferable to surrender. It was a sad thing to contemplate. Not only the loss of several hundred good men, but the destruction of one of America’s few frigates, one freshly refitted and ready for a good fight under better circumstances. To their credit, no one openly displayed despair, just a grim facing of facts and a determination to at least preserve their honor when all else was about to be lost.
But then, First Lieutenant Charles Morris had an idea. Perhaps they could kedge. Generally used only in harbors as a means of moving ships about without using their sails, kedging involved loading an anchor into a boat, rowing the boat away from the ship, dropping the anchor, and then using the ship’s capstan to heave around on the anchor cable. If the anchor were properly set in the bottom, the ship would be pulled along until over the anchor, which would then be retrieved, and the process would start over again.
This would only work if the water were shallow enough and the anchor cable long enough. For many long hours it had seemed that the Constitution’s luck was predominantly bad, but now her fortune seemed to shift as the charts revealed that the bottom lay only 24 fathoms away and they were able to locate enough rope to allow two kedge anchors to be used.
The unorthodox tactic was put into motion and soon, by alternating the two anchors in two different boats, the Constitution began to crawl ahead of her pursuers at more than a knot.
No fools the British, they too were soon employing the tactic. But they were at a distinct disadvantage. As the pursuers, if they gained too much ground their boats would be within range of the Constitution’s guns before their parent ships could catch up, making them easy targets for an American crew who was quite adept at blowing target barrels out of the water. Consequently, the British were obliged to hang back, maintaining the chase but waiting for a wind to restore their maneuverability.
Briefly, at about 0900, that hoped-for breeze sprang up, and one of the enemy frigates was able to close on the Constitution. The two ships exchanged fire but neither had any effect before the air vanished once again.
To lighten ship, Hull jettisoned most of the ship’s fresh water, and the race continued, with the Constitution managing to stay just out of reach of her pursuers but not able to escape. The day wore on with the sailors continuing to pull at oars, work capstans, and haul heavy buckets aloft anytime there was a hint of breeze, all under a hot July sun with no air movement.
Only the coming of night brought the exhausted sailors some respite as the heat dissipated and a light breeze sprang up, allowing all ships to set sail. At dawn, the sails continued to function and, though the British ships had managed to move in dangerously close to their quarry, the good work of the shipwrights at the Washington Navy Yard was soon appreciated by the Constitution’s crew, as her freshly cleaned hull and brand new sails allowed her to make better speed than the Royal Navy ships, and she began to gradually win the race.
The chase continued for another day before the British finally gave it up and hauled away. It had been a very near thing, but the Constitution and her crew would live to fight another day. The British commodore had to have felt great frustration at having lost the opportunity to take one of America’s few frigates out of the war, but his lamentation would have been far greater had he known what the future held for the ship that had outfoxed him.
As the War of 1812 progressed, the Constitution would provide more glorious moments.
‘Old Ironsides’
Putting back to sea, the Constitution was off Cape Race, athwart the main lane of transatlantic traffic, on the afternoon of 19 August 1812, when Captain Hull sighted the British frigate Guerriere. Although the Constitution was a more powerful ship, mounting 30 24-pound long guns and 24 32-pound carronades to the Guerriere’s 30 18-pounders, two 12-pounders, and 18 32-pound carronades, the Guerriere’s captain did not hesitate to offer battle. For nearly two decades, the Royal Navy had emerged victorious from almost every ship-to-ship encounter, and he had no fear of what The Times of London had called “a handful of fir-built frigates under a bit of striped bunting.”
For the next three-quarters of an hour the ships maneuvered for position, with the Constitution holding fire while the Guerriere crossed her bow and fired her starboard broadside at long range at the oncoming American, then came about and fired her portside guns as the Constitution continued to bear down on her. At last, Hull gave the order to fire. “Now, boys, pour it into them!” he shouted. A line of flame spread along the Constitution’s starboard side, as her double-shotted cannon poured death and destruction into her opponent.
The two ships sailed alongside exchanging broadsides, and at one point, someone reportedly saw a British shot bounce off the Constitution’s side, and shouted, “Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!”—and so was born the nickname that endures to this day: “Old Ironsides.”
Within 15 minutes, the Guerriere’s mizzenmast had been shot away. “We’ve made a brig out of her,” cried Hull. Dragging the wreckage of her fallen mast astern, the Guerriere’s maneuverability was severely reduced, allowing the Constitution to cross in front of her and deliver a devastating broadside that carried away her remaining two masts. With his opponent now unable to move, Hull stood off for some quick repairs, then returned to place his ship across the Guerriere’s bow once again. Facing the inevitable, the British captain struck his flag.
An American boarding party found their prize a shambles, with 23 of her crew dead and 56 wounded. In contrast, the Constitution’s “iron sides” had kept her casualties to only seven killed and seven wounded. The Guerriere, damaged beyond salvaging, was set afire.
The Constitution returned to Boston to a celebration made even more enthusiastic because her victory had come amid a rising tide of disasters in the war on land. The conquest of Canada had gone awry as a result of poor planning and leadership. Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) had been captured by the Indians, who promptly proceeded to massacre the entire garrison. And ironically, Isaac Hull’s uncle, General William Hull, had surrendered Detroit to the British after only a token defense.
To the British, the loss of the Guerriere came as a profound shock. The Times of London reported that it “spread a degree of gloom through the town, which it was painful to observe.”
But there was more to come.
Reprise
On 29 December 1812, the Constitution, now under command of William Bainbridge, was cruising off the coast of Brazil in company with the sloop-of-war Hornet, when they sighted a large British frigate, HMS Java. The Constitution enjoyed a firepower advantage over her Royal Navy opponent of about 6 to 5, but in the engagement that followed, it soon was apparent that the Java enjoyed a significant advantage in speed and maneuverability that caused Bainbridge to later complain, “the enemy [was] keeping at a much greater distance than I wished.” Initially using her maneuvering advantage to good effect, the Java was able to work her way across the American’s stern and delivered a raking broadside that carried away the Constitution’s helm and wounded Bainbridge and a number of his crew.
Eventually Bainbridge was able to close his opponent, and in the slugfest that ensued, the Java began to take the worst of it. Although by now twice wounded and his white trousers now a dark crimson, Bainbridge remained on the quarterdeck and continued to fight his ship. His counterpart in the Java also was wounded, but his injury was mortal and he was carried below, leaving the Java’s first lieutenant to continue the fight. After about an hour, all three of the Java’s masts were shot away, and with the British ship no longer able to move, Bainbridge pulled away and lay to out of gun range as his crew made repairs.
After a time, sails billowed again from the Constitution’s yards, and she slowly came about and moved in on her immobile prey. Carefully maneuvering across the Java’s bow, Bainbridge stopped Old Ironsides in a classic “crossing-the-T” position. For a few tense minutes, all was quiet as the British sailors stared into the threatening muzzles of their adversary’s guns, and Bainbridge’s men stood ready to fire the instant the order was given.
The Java’s damage was substantial, and many of her crew lay dead or wounded. Some of her guns were entangled in the rigging that had fallen with the toppled masts, but more importantly, most of her weapons were unable to bear on their enemy in their relative positions. It was time to face the inevitable and, illuminated in the late afternoon sun, the Java’s colors came down.
It was another impressive victory for the U.S. Navy, and a particularly sweet one for William Bainbridge, who had redeemed himself at last for the loss of the frigate Philadelphia off Tripoli during the Barbary Wars.
Final Action
Sailing off the coast of Madeira, Spain, in the late afternoon of 20 February 1815, Old Ironsides encountered two smaller British warships, the 24-gun HMS Cyane and the 18-gun HMS Levant. Unaware that the Treaty of Ghent had ended the war three days earlier, the three captains cleared for battle.
At 1805, Captain Charles Stewart commenced firing on the British ships. What followed was a classic example of seamanship and tactics. Deftly maneuvering his frigate—at one point actually moving his ship astern by backing sails—Stewart was able to defeat first the Cyane, then the Levant, the battle ending shortly after 2200.
Aftermath
The Constitution continued to serve after the War of 1812, but in 1830 she was declared unfit for sea. A public outcry, aided by the publication of Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem “Old Ironsides,” induced Congress to pass an appropriation for reconstruction, and in 1835 she was placed back in commission.
She subsequently served as flagship to several overseas squadrons, and, beginning in March 1844, she began a 30-month voyage around the world. In the 1850s, she patrolled the African coast in search of illegal slavers, and during the Civil War served as a training ship for U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen. After another period of rebuilding in 1871, she transported goods for the Paris Exposition of 1877.
In 1905, public sentiment saved her once more from scrapping, and in 1925 she was restored, this time through the donations of schoolchildren and patriotic groups.
Recommissioned in 1931, she set out for a tour of 90 port cities along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts of the United States. Nearly 5 million people visited her during this three-year journey.
Having secured her position as an American icon, she returned to her home port of Boston, and in 1941 she was placed in permanent commission, making her the oldest ship still in commission in the world. A 1954 act of Congress made the Secretary of the Navy responsible for her upkeep.
One can hope that the Constitution is at last immune to the shortsightedness of budget-cutters with no appreciation of intangible values (“harpies of the shore,” according to Holmes), and that the “Eagle of the Sea” will continue her important duty as a tangible symbol of what is good about this Navy of ours and of the great nation that it protects.
