Six Frigates
Page 66
Here the quarrel might have ended, but a long correspondence, escalating in tone, passes between them. Decatur to Barron, December 29, 1819: “If we fight, it must be of your seeking. I have now to inform you that I shall pay no further attention to any communication you may make to me, other than a direct call to the field.” Barron to Decatur, January 16, 1820: “Whenever you will consent to meet me on fair and equal grounds, that is, such as two honorable men may consider just and proper, you are to view this as that call.” The seconds are chosen: Decatur chooses William Bainbridge; Barron, Captain Jesse Elliot. Bainbridge and Elliot agree that the duel will be fought in Bladensburg, Maryland, at the murderous range of eight paces.
The meeting takes place early on the morning of March 22, 1820. Witnesses include John Rodgers and David Porter. Immediately before the duel, Barron says: “Now, Decatur, if we meet in another world, let us hope that we may be better friends.” Decatur answers: “I was never your enemy.” The duelists seem prepared to conciliate, but Bainbridge and Elliot urge them into their places.
As Bainbridge begins the count, both men fire, both are hit, and both sink to the ground. As they lie bleeding, Barron says, “Decatur, I forgive you from the bottom of my Heart,” and “God bless you, Decatur.” Decatur, bleeding from his abdomen, certain that his wound is mortal, replies: “Farewell, farewell, Barron.”
Decatur is taken back to Washington by John Rodgers (Bainbridge having fled to escape prosecution). He delivers the dying officer to his home on President’s Square. Susan Decatur, not told that the duel was to take place, is shocked and grief-stricken. Louisa Adams, wife of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, visits Susan in the last hours before Decatur’s death. “Oh what an agonizing scene,” she writes. “What irreparable mischief in a few short hours. The very thought makes me shudder.”
Decatur dies early the morning of the twenty-third. His funeral is attended by some ten thousand Americans, including President Monroe, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, and members of the diplomatic corps.
James Barron recovers from his wound. Though he is nationally reviled as Decatur’s killer, he nonetheless wins reinstatement to the navy. Upon the death of John Rodgers in 1838, Barron becomes the senior ranking officer in the service.
1820
Former USS Chesapeake, now HMS Chesapeake, is sold to a private buyer in Plymouth, England. She is subsequently broken up, and a portion of her gun deck timbers used to build the Chesapeake Mill, a commercial flour mill on the River Meon in Wickham, Hampshire.
1820
In July, Constellation sails round the Horn, where she is attached to the Pacific Squadron under Commodore Charles Stewart, patrolling off the coast of Peru.
1821–28
Constitution is returned to service and operates in the Mediterranean, often as flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron. She is visited by the English poet Lord Byron.
1822
Ex-presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, advancing into old age, continue a regular correspondence. For several years after the War of 1812 they do not touch on the subject of the navy. In October 1822, Adams is attempting to organize his files pertaining to the origin of the navy and requests Jefferson’s assistance. Adams’s memory is faulty: he recalls that the March 1794 legislation had called for four (not six) frigates. He asks if Jefferson can remember details of the debate, now nearly thirty years in the past.
“I have racked my memory and ransacked my papers to enable myself to answer the inquiries of your favor of October 15, but to little purpose,” Jefferson replies two weeks later. “My papers furnish me nothing, my memory generalities only.” Lingering briefly on the topic, the Virginian explains his reasons for having opposed an expansion of the navy: namely, that “a navy is a very expensive engine.” He allows that the performance of the navy in the War of 1812 “certainly raised our rank and character among nations.” He apologizes for remembering so little about the events of 1794: “This is all I recollect about the origin and progress of our navy.”
The two old friends, seventy-nine (Jefferson) and eighty-seven (Adams), search their fading memories for bits and pieces of thirty-year-old conversations, rummaging through voluminous files with fumbling, arthritic hands; squinting with failing eyes at old letters and journals; trying in vain to reconstruct historical events in which they had participated directly. Almost two centuries later, the answers to many of Adams’s questions are literally at the fingertips of any person with an Internet connection and a few hours of spare time.
1822–23
USS Congress, Captain James Biddle, patrols the West Indies against piracy, then carries ambassadors to Spain and Argentina.
1826
On July 4, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Independence, Adams and Jefferson both lie on their deathbeds. Adams’s last words are: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier.
The nation mourns. It is believed that the near-simultaneous death of the two revolutionary statesmen on such an important anniversary is a signal of divine providence. When the news reaches the Mediterranean, the flagship Constitution “cockbills” her yards. This traditional sign of mourning involves tilting the lower yards at extreme angles, giving the ship a “slovenly appearance as a sign of bereavement.”
1827
The dormant feud between Joshua Humphreys and Josiah Fox flares up again after thirty years. Letters are published in newspapers and submitted to the Navy Department by relatives and partisans of the two shipwrights, who disagree over the apportionment of credit for the design of the nation’s first frigates. Fox insists that he drew the original drafts; Humphreys insists that Fox only drew copies. Humphreys does concede that Fox is responsible for the Chesapeake, having built her to a design that had been altered, against instructions, from the original draft. “She spoke his talents,” Humphreys writes, “which I leave the Commanders of that ship to estimate by her qualifications.”
Humphreys claims credit for the success of the frigates in 1812. “Had our frigates been less powerful, ’tis probable they might not have been successful, and if they had been taken, the ardor and spirits of our navy would have been very different this day. The first victory gave a tone and led to all the rest; it raised our own spirits and lowered those of the British.” He reiterates his case for large, powerful frigates. “A wise general will never send 1000 men to take another thousand (if he can avoid it). He will always send a greater force…by making our ships large, it [was] the only plan by which this country [could] in any wise be formidable with a small comparative number of ships.”
1828–30
United States puts into the Philadelphia Navy Yard for major repairs. In 1830, she is transferred to New York, where she is rebuilt and made ready for service again in 1832.
1830–33
Constitution is laid up in ordinary in Boston. A rumor circulates that the Secretary of the Navy has recommended that she be broken up. A young Oliver Wendell Holmes writes a poem decrying the alleged plan, which he entitles “Old Ironsides.” The final stanza proposes that the revered frigate, rather than face the indignities of the wrecker’s yard, should be abandoned at sea, her “holy flag” nailed to the mast, her sails all set, “And give her to the god of storms / The lightning and the gale!” The poem stirs public outrage, and the Navy Department announces that Constitution will be repaired and returned to service. The episode is one of America’s earliest historic preservation campaigns. She enters the huge Dry Dock No. 1, specially built in Charlestown, in 1833.
1834
A new figurehead, depicting U.S. President Andrew Jackson, is installed on the bow of the Constitution. Jackson’s political opponents, who are numerous in Boston, are outraged. The commandant of the Navy Yard receives death threats. On July 2, under cover of darkness and rain, the frigate’s Jackson figurehead is decapitated and the wooden head stolen. It is later recovered and the figurehead repaired
.
A survey of the Congress finds the thirty-four-year-old frigate unfit for repair. She is broken up at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk.
1835
In October, Constellation sails to Florida to assist in suppressing the Seminole uprising. She carries an army invasion force to land ashore, and deploys her boats on river raids.
1835–38
The newly restored Constitution serves once again as flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron.
1838
Henry Adams born in Boston. As a young child, he is a frequent visitor to the home of his grandfather, former President John Quincy Adams.
1839–41
Constitution serves as flagship of the Pacific Squadron.
1841–43
Constellation, as flagship of the East India Squadron, circumnavigates the world. First deployed to waters off southern China (by way of the Cape of Good Hope) during the Opium War, she crosses the Pacific, calling at Hawaii and several South American ports, and rounds Cape Horn to return to the United States.
1842–43
United States serves as flagship of the Pacific Squadron. When the ship calls at Honolulu in 1843, Herman Melville, seeking passage back to the United States, enlists as an ordinary seaman. He serves aboard her for fourteen months, during which there are 163 reported floggings. Melville is appalled by a system of naval discipline that allows a man to be “scourged worse than a hound…for things not essentially criminal.” His novel White-Jacket (published several years later) is a thinly fictionalized account of his service aboard the United States. He would later write Billy Budd, a short novel about a miscarriage of justice aboard an American warship.
1844
United States returns to Boston in the fall. Melville and the rest of the crew are paid off, and the frigate is taken out of commission.
James K. Polk campaigns for president on the slogan: “Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” The slogan refers to the latitude of the southern border of Russian Alaska, which Polk demands as the northern boundary of the Oregon Territory. A third Anglo-American war looms. After Polk’s election, his administration finds itself preoccupied with hostilities with Mexico to the south, and negotiates with England to fix the northwest border at the 49th parallel.
1844–51
Constitution circumnavigates the world under the command of Captain John “Mad Jack” Percival. In 1849, at Gaeta, Italy, the frigate is visited by Pope Pius IX.
1845
On October 10, the U.S. Naval Academy is established on the grounds of Fort Severn in Annapolis, MD. The initial class of fifty midshipmen begins work under a faculty of seven professors.
1846–49
United States is recommissioned and deployed to Africa, the Mediterranean, and Europe; she returns to Norfolk and is again placed in ordinary in February 1849.
1853
Constellation is broken up at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk. Some of her timbers may have been incorporated into a new sloop of war, also christened the Constellation. (The latter remains afloat in Baltimore Harbor.)
1853–55
Constitution serves as flagship of the African Squadron, patrolling the “Guinea coast” against slavers.
1858
Theodore Roosevelt is born in New York on October 27.
1860
Constitution, now more than sixty years old, is converted into a training ship at the Naval Academy in Annapolis.
1861–65
Constitution, still in Annapolis at the outbreak of the Civil War, is threatened with destruction by pro-Confederate militias in Maryland. She is transferred to Newport, RI, with the faculty, staff, and students of the Naval Academy, where she remains for the duration of the war, serving as a dormitory and classroom for 200 midshipmen.
During the Civil War, vital exports of cotton to Britain are interrupted by the Union blockade of the southern coast. Before Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 freeing the slaves in the Confederate states, British public opinion largely favors the rebels. The British provide aid, weapons, and materiel to the southern states by running the Union blockade. Confederate commerce-raiding vessels are built and launched in English seaports.
United States remains in ordinary at Norfolk at the outbreak of the war. In April 1861, the Norfolk Navy Yard is captured by rebel troops. The Confederates repair the frigate and commission her as CSS United States. Because of her poor condition, she is fitted with cannon and moored permanently in the harbor as a floating battery.
On November 8, Captain Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto stops and boards the British mail packet Trent at sea, near Cuba. The Americans arrest and remove two Confederate envoys. In England, the news is greeted with outrage, and Lord Palmerston’s government threatens war. President Abraham Lincoln, declaring that he wishes to fight only “one war at a time,” disavows Captain Wilkes’s action and hands the prisoners over to the British.
In May 1862, the CSS United States is sunk in the Elizabeth River to obstruct attacking Union vessels. When the rebel shipwrights first attempt to scuttle the ship, an entire box of axes is worn out attempting to chop through her live oak frame. Eventually, they succeed in boring through the hull with drills. When Union troops recapture the yard later that month, United States is raised from the riverbed and towed back to the Navy Wharf.
1865
Constitution returns to Annapolis at war’s end. The United States is broken up at the Navy Yard in Norfolk, and her timbers sold to private buyers.
1878–79
Constitution carries American exhibits to the Paris Exposition, docking in Le Havre for nine months. She runs aground under the White Cliffs of Dover off the English coast on her return passage, but is eventually rescued by a local tugboat.
1882
TR publishes The Naval War of 1812.
1882–97
Constitution serves as a receiving ship and barracks for navy recruits in Portsmouth, NH. A roof is built over her decks, giving her the look of a large, dilapidated houseboat.
1887
TR delivers his “Supreme Triumphs of War” speech at the Naval War College in Newport, RI, and is introduced to Alfred Thayer Mahan.
1889
The first two volumes of Henry Adams’s History of the United States published by Charles Scribner’s Sons. TR, a friend of Adams’s, reads the advance copies and recommends them to Captain Mahan and others.
1890
Alfred Thayer Mahan publishes The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783.
1897
Largely through the efforts of Massachusetts congressman John F. Fitzgerald (grandfather of JFK), the Constitution is placed on public exhibition in Boston Harbor.
1897–98
TR serves as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Secretary John Long in the first administration of William McKinley. He campaigns for a naval buildup and prepares for a coming war against Spain. After reviewing naval maneuvers and gunnery practice off Hampton Roads in September 1897, TR writes: “Oh, Lord! If only the people who are ignorant about our Navy could see those great warships in all their majesty and beauty, and could realize how well they are handled, and how well fitted to uphold the honor of America, I don’t think we would encounter such opposition in building up the Navy to its proper standard.”
That same month, hearing a rumor that the British have offered to return the frigate President, captured off New York in January 1815, TR writes John Hay, former ambassador to Great Britain and recently named Secretary of State: “I earnestly hope that you will refuse to have anything to do with so preposterous and undignified an effort. How any man with any self-respect can ask you to do such a thing I don’t see. To beg to be given back, as a favor, what was taken from us by superior prowess, would be to put us in a position of intolerable humiliation. When the British ask us to give back the flags and guns of the frigates and sloops which we took in the War of 1812, then it will be quite time enough for us to ask to get the President ba
ck…. She is of no more value to us than the Macedonian or Guerrière or Java would be to the British if we were able to return them.” TR later learns there is no truth in the rumor. (The President was broken up in Portsmouth in 1817.)
1898
USS Maine explodes in Havana Harbor on February 15. The ship sinks to the floor of the harbor, though a portion remains above water. Nearly 300 American sailors perish. There is no evidence of a Spanish attack, but the United States declares war on Spain and quickly gains control of the Philippines, Hawaii, Guam, the Samoan Islands, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. TR obtains an army commission to lead an expeditionary force to Cuba (the “Rough Riders”). TR explains his decision to William Sturgis Bigelow: “I have consistently preached what our opponents are pleased to call ‘jingo doctrines’ for a good many years…it seems to me that it would be a good deal more important from the standpoint of the nation as a whole that men like myself should go to war than that we should stay comfortably in offices at home and let others carry on the war that we have urged.”
1900
TR elected vice president in the second administration of William McKinley.
1901
TR has promised not to voice public dissent to the policies of the McKinley administration. However, he tells Cecil Spring-Rice there is one exception. The Monroe Doctrine is “a doctrine about which I feel so deeply that I should take my stand on it even without regard to the attitude of the administration.”
In September, President McKinley is shot and killed by a deranged assassin in Buffalo, NY. TR becomes president.