The easy capture had presented Porter with a big problem—what to do with 197 new prisoners. He had no wish to keep them aboard the Essex and have them gobble up his supplies, or attempt to take the ship, so he threw the transport’s armament overboard, put her crew and soldiers on parole of honor (which meant they could not fight against the United States until formally exchanged for American prisoners), and sent her on her way with a ransom bond of $14,000.
The Samuel & Sarah soon disappeared over the horizon, and Porter continued his remarkable cruise, capturing one prize after another. Between July 13 and August 1 he took the brigs Lamphrey and Leander, which he sent into port as prizes. On August 2 he caught the Nancy, which he also sent into port as a prize. On the same day he seized the tiny brig Hero, which he burnt. She was of little value. The next day, August 3, Porter stopped the brig Brothers and found to his surprise and delight that famed Revolutionary War hero Joshua Barney, sailing in the privateer Rossie, had previously captured her and was sending her into port with a prize crew. The Brothers had sixty-two of Barney’s prisoners from five other prizes on board. Porter turned her into a cartel ship (a vessel with only one signal gun, whose sole mission was to exchange prisoners), added twenty-five of his own prisoners, and sent her to St. John’s Newfoundland under the command of Midshipman Stephen Decatur McKnight. It was a challenging assignment for the young midshipman, but his captain was confident he’d be up to the task. Sailing and command were in McKnight’s blood, after all. He was the nephew of Porter’s great contemporary, Commodore Stephen Decatur.
Porter captured two more prizes, the King George and the Mary, before running into the Alert on August 13. He sent the King George into port as a prize and burnt the Mary. He kept the Alert with him, however, and sailed with her in company toward the Delaware Capes. It was a passage fraught with peril. A large number of prisoners were now aboard, and they presented a huge problem that soon developed into a crisis. As was their duty, they planned an escape. Captain Laugharne’s coxswain took the lead. On the night of the planned breakout, the cox suddenly appeared standing beside the hammock of Midshipman David Farragut with a pistol in his hand. He stared down at Farragut, who luckily had spotted him approaching and remained perfectly still with his eyes shut. Satisfied that Farragut was asleep, the cox moved on. As he did, Farragut slipped out of his hammock and crept noiselessly to the captain’s cabin and warned Porter, who sprang from his cot and ran to the berth deck, shouting, “Fire! Fire!”
The ensuing hubbub startled the prisoners, but not the Essex crew, who numbered three hundred and twenty. Part of Porter’s training of them had been to sound fire alarms at odd hours of the night. He even had smoke created in the main hold to make the exercise more real. During the drills, when the alarm sounded, each man repaired to his quarters with a cutlass and blanket to await the captain’s orders. Porter conducted the exercise frequently, so that the ship would be prepared for any emergency. This was the first occasion he had to put the exercise to the test, however, and the crew’s performance was near perfect. Outnumbered, utterly confused, the prisoners became disoriented. In a short time they were back under control.
Porter knew before the uprising that having so many hostile tars aboard was asking for trouble, and with provisions and water running low, he decided to send them to Newfoundland. Captain Laugharne readily agreed to the terms. They meant that Laugharne and his men would escape a potentially long confinement in an American prison. On August 18 Porter dispatched the Alert as a cartel ship with Lieutenant Wilmer still in charge. Aboard were Captain Laugharne, his officers, and entire crew. Porter directed Wilmer to take the Alert to St. Johns and return to New York with whatever Americans he could acquire in exchange. Porter was counting on the admiral in Newfoundland (Sir John T. Duckworth) to cooperate. It was an assignment fraught with peril for Wilmer, but he was eager for it.
Porter now turned for home to Chester, Pennsylvania. Situated on the Delaware River, between Philadelphia and Wilmington, Chester was the oldest town in the state. There, Porter would refurbish and resupply the Essex. There too his family awaited, at Green Bank, their mansion on the Delaware. He expected that traveling to Chester would be tricky business. He imagined that the British had established a blockade along the American coast. Since their base at Halifax was close to New England and New York, he assumed their ships would be stationed outside the important ports north of the Hudson River, and possibly as far south as the Delaware Capes, and even Chesapeake Bay.
His fears appeared to be confirmed on September 4 when he ran into what he thought were British warships off the tail of Georges Bank. After a lookout aboard the Essex spotted three suspicious ships, Porter went aloft and observed them for a time, before concluding that they were indeed enemy warships. Two larger ones were to the southward and a brig to the northward. The brig was racing after an American merchantman. Porter set out after the brig, which instantly gave up chasing the merchant and dashed for the protection of the two larger men-of-war. Porter cut her off, however, and forced her to sail northward. He continued to chase her, but had to give up when the wind slackened and the brig got out sweeps (long oars).
Meanwhile, the larger warships, seeing what Porter was up to, went after him. A sudden change of wind allowed them to come up fast. By four in the afternoon they had gained his wake. Porter kept straining to stay beyond their reach, hoping that night would arrive before they got within striking distance, and he could disappear into the darkness. They continued gaining on him, however. The largest was still some distance to windward, but the other was only five miles astern, bearing S by W, working hard to catch up before nightfall. Porter did everything he could to keep beyond her reach, planning to heave about as soon as it was dark and pass right by her in the opposite direction. If he found it impossible to sneak by, he intended to fire a broadside into her and lay her on board. He organized boarding parties, and when he revealed his plan, the crew responded with three cheers.
Porter was able to keep ahead of his closest pursuer until seven when it finally grew dark. At 7:20 he hove about and stood SE by S until 8:30, whereupon he bore away SW, and the British ships miraculously vanished. Porter was dumbfounded. He considered their disappearance remarkable, and all the more so since a pistol was accidentally fired by an officer on the Essex at the moment when Porter thought he was but a short distance from the nearest ship. Greatly relieved, he made for the Delaware Capes. He never considered going to New York or Rhode Island, where he imagined British blockaders would be swarming.
As the Essex traveled home, Porter felt a deep sense of satisfaction. The accomplishments of his ship and crew on this first cruise of the war were exceptional. He estimated that his captures were worth in excess of $300,000, a handsome figure, made even more impressive by the fact that he had taken 424 prisoners. He also felt vindicated. His promotion to captain (the highest rank in the navy at the time) had been long delayed, and had not actually been granted until July 2, the day before he left New York. His performance during the Essex’s first cruise was additional proof in his mind that his numerous requests for promotion should have been granted long before they were. One thing he did not feel satisfied with, however, was his triumph over the Alert. She was not enough of a challenge. He longed to do battle with a frigate of at least the size of the Essex, and he became fixated on accomplishing this goal.
The Essex reached the Delaware Capes without further incident. British blockaders were nowhere in sight. Porter was mistaken about there being a blockade. None would be in place for months, although he continued to believe one was. When he dropped anchor off Chester, in the middle of September, he was anxious to repair and resupply the Essex and get right back to sea before he got trapped. He was also anxious about the fate of Midshipman McKnight and Lieutenant Wilmer. He need not have been. Both accomplished their difficult missions without mishap and returned to the Essex while she was still in the Delaware River preparing for her next cruise. Neither Porter nor any of h
is crew suspected that they would be getting ready for what would become one of the most famous voyages in American history, an oceangoing saga unsurpassed in the Age of Sail.
CHAPTER
1
PRESIDENT MADISON’S WAR PLAN
DAVID PORTER’S VICTORY OVER THE ALERT CAME AS A surprise to President James Madison. When Congress had declared war with Britain on June 18, 1812, the president did not think the navy would play a significant part in it. The fleet was so small that almost no one outside the navy’s professional officer core expected much from it. The United States had only twenty warships, while Britain had five to six hundred continually at sea, and many more in shipyards being repaired or built. Eighty-three British warships were in bases within striking distance of the American coast at Halifax, Nova Scotia; St. Johns, Newfoundland; Port Royal, Jamaica; and Antigua, West Indies. Although Madison could not say so publicly, he expected that if he allowed the American fleet to venture out of port, the Royal Navy would make quick work of it, capturing, or sinking it, as they had during the War of Independence. He thought it likely that America’s men-of-war would be blockaded in their harbors for the entire war.
Instead of counting on his navy, the president was relying on Napoleon Bonaparte, a man he detested, to force Britain into negotiating with the United States. For months Madison had watched as the French emperor amassed an army of over 600,000, the largest in history to that time, along the Polish border with Russia. Everyone expected Napoleon to launch an all-out attack before the end of June, and he did, on June 24. Everyone assumed he would compel Tsar Alexander I to ask for terms in a matter of weeks, certainly before the end of September. After that, Bonaparte was likely to turn his attention to his longtime nemesis, Great Britain. He had threatened to invade England twice in the past and had pulled back because of the insuperable power of the Royal Navy. But if Napoleon tried again with all of Continental Europe under his control, he would likely be able to amass enough sea power to drive a massive army across the Channel, occupy London, and dictate terms.
Madison had his own terms. He wanted to force London to negotiate an end to three issues that had precipitated his call to arms—the Royal Navy’s wholesale impressment of American seamen, London’s brazen attempt to control American trade, and its support of the Indian nations fighting to preserve their territory. The president was convinced that the British would not want to be fighting America at the same time they were facing a Napoleonic invasion.
To bring added pressure on London, Madison planned to attack Canada as soon as war was declared. Although he had an inexperienced, poorly led regular army of a mere seven thousand, he intended to augment it with enough militiamen to seize at least part of Canada during the summer of 1812. He thought the British would be so preoccupied with Europe they would be unable to defend Canada. Only a small contingent of His Majesty’s regulars were stationed there. Madison assumed they would be inadequate, and that Canadian militiamen would be of little practical value. In addition, Madison believed that the many Americans who had emigrated to Canada—lured by land grants and promises of low taxes—would not oppose an American invasion. He thought that if he acquired even a portion of Canada he would have a strong lever to use in any negotiation with London.
Madison intended to bring even more pressure on Britain. He would unleash hundreds of privateers to attack her commerce, as the patriots had done so successfully during the Revolutionary War. Instead of relying on the navy, he thought privateers would provide America’s muscle on the high seas. During the War of Independence, the Continental Navy had contributed almost nothing to America’s victory, whereas privateers had been of great service. As the Revolutionary War progressed, shipbuilding centers like Salem, Massachusetts, had increased the size and quality of their privateers, until by the early 1780s some of them were carrying twenty guns—the equivalent of Britain’s powerful sloops of war. Hundreds of American privateers (the exact number has always been in dispute) set out during the Revolution and ravaged enemy merchantmen, contributing to the war weariness in Britain that eventually forced a reluctant king to accept American independence. The president anticipated that privateers would perform the same service during this war, which many believed was America’s second War of Independence.
Madison much preferred negotiating to fighting. He had been extremely reluctant to go to war, but he felt that he had no choice. London had pushed him beyond the breaking point. The issues in dispute had been souring relations for years, and despite Madison’s determined attempts to resolve them peacefully, the reactionary Tory government of Spencer Perceval refused to seriously negotiate. Perceval was confident that he could keep impressing whomever he pleased, interfering with American trade, and supporting the Indians without suffering any consequences. America’s pitifully small army and navy, and deep political divisions between the Federalist Party (which remained pro-British) and Madison’s own Republican Party, elicited Perceval’s contempt.
Right up until Congress declared war, London believed that Madison would never actually issue a call to arms, no matter how often he threatened to. The president became so frustrated with Britain’s unwillingness to take America’s complaints seriously that he decided the only way to bring Perceval to the negotiating table was to actually declare war. Thus, on June 1, 1812, an exasperated president urged Congress to vote for war, and after a bitter eighteen-day-long debate it did.
Commander in chief was a role Madison was ill-prepared for. He had done everything he could to avoid a war, and now he had to lead the republic in the most perilous undertaking in its short history. He was not counting on the navy in any way. His lack of interest in the fleet was due in part to his expectation that the war would be over quickly. He even entertained the idea that actual combat might not be necessary. He hoped that the threat from Napoleon, the potential loss of Canada, and massive privateer attacks, would force Britain to come to terms before the war had progressed very far. It would not matter, in his view, whether America had a strong navy or not.
IRONICALLY, THE NAVY’S WEAKNESS WAS A DIRECT RESULT OF Madison’s own policies and those of his mentor, Thomas Jefferson. They had always opposed building a respectable fleet. When President George Washington proposed creating a new federal navy in 1794, Jefferson (even though he was Washington’s secretary of state) and Madison (the leader of the House of Representatives) opposed him. America had not had a navy since the end of the Revolutionary War, and by 1794 President Washington thought it was time the country built one. America was strong enough financially, in his view, and international conditions made it imperative. The Barbary pirate state of Algeria was seizing American merchantmen with impunity; Britain was impressing American seamen and interfering with her trade, while revolutionary France was aggressively trying to involve the United States in her war against monarchical Europe. Washington planned to use the new navy to force all three nations to respect American rights on the high seas, and her neutrality in the French Revolutionary Wars then consuming Europe.
Jefferson, Madison, and their supporters fought Washington every step of the way. They could not prevent him from starting a navy, but they did succeeded in keeping the number of ships to a bare minimum. President John Adams also ran into stiff opposition from the same quarter in 1798 when he tried to expand and strengthen the navy to fight the Quasi-War with France. Adams was temporarily successful, but once the war was over in 1800, he drastically reduced the fleet, hoping that Jefferson, his successor, would not confiscate it altogether.
When Jefferson took office in 1801, he could not do away with the navy, as he might have liked. Tripoli had declared war on the United States, and he had to use the warships the country still had to fight the pirate state. Nonetheless, he, and then Madison (his hand-picked successor), had, with the support of most Republican congressmen, deliberately kept the navy small. They were afraid that a larger fleet would never be large enough to stand up to a European navy, particularly the Royal Navy. They fel
t it would be too expensive, embroil the country in unnecessary wars, be a powerful instrument in the hands of an ambitious executive, and, in short, be a threat to the Constitution. Thus, when the War of 1812 began, the United States had practically no navy. The largest of her twenty warships were old frigates, every one of them built in the 1790s prior to Jefferson taking office. No frigates, or much of anything else—except tiny gunboats of limited use and a few small warships—had been built in American yards since 1801.
President Madison soon found out that he was wrong about the need for a potent navy, however. As with most conflicts, once the War of 1812 began, nothing went as the president had planned, except for the privateers. They put to sea in significant numbers only days after Congress declared war. But Napoleon’s push into Russia did not have the immediate success Madison expected. Tsar Alexander’s badly outnumbered army successfully avoided the early showdown that Bonaparte wanted. Instead, the Tsar conducted a masterful retreat, coupled with a scorched-earth policy that drew the French deeper into Russia during a blisteringly hot summer that deprived Napoleon of desperately needed supplies, and consumed his troops in significant numbers. And the Canadian invasion, which was also supposed to be easy and quick, turned into a disaster. On August 15 an American army under General William Hull suffered a major defeat at Detroit.
The president had planned a simultaneous, three-pronged invasion of Canada. The first thrust was to come from Detroit, across the Detroit River to Amherstburg in Lower Canada. The second was to be a dash across the Niagara River. The third was an attack on Montreal. Nothing was working out, however. Not only did General Hull fail, but the other invasions never took place when they were supposed to, and each eventually ended in total failure.
The Shining Sea Page 2