When Madison heard of General Hull’s ignominious surrender at Detroit, he was aghast. His war strategy was falling apart, and 1812 was an election year. The president now faced electoral defeat, as well as a war that was spinning out of control.
His fortunes were miraculously reversed, however, when he received help from an unexpected quarter—the United States Navy. On August 19, while Porter and the Essex were making their way toward the Delaware Capes, Captain Isaac Hull (General Hull’s nephew) won a convincing victory over a British frigate—a feat that was never supposed to happen and that amazed the world. Sailing in the 44-gun heavy frigate USS Constitution in latitude 41° 42’ N and longitude 55° 48’ W, Hull fought and crushed the 38-gun frigate HMS Guerriere, one of the Royal Navy’s premier warships, commanded by a capable skipper, Captain James Dacres, in half an hour.
The totally unexpected victory had a profound impact on both countries. Britain was shocked. The Royal Navy’s aura of invincibility was of supreme importance. The Constitution’s easy triumph threatened to destroy it. Britain’s contempt for the American navy made the wound cut even deeper.
Isaac Hull’s triumph was so popular throughout the United States—even in areas like New England, where the Federalists were strong and the war unpopular—that it resuscitated Madison’s electoral hopes, and caused him to completely change his mind about the navy. His belief that the British would make quick work of America’s warships had been proven wrong, and he began searching for ways to employ them more effectively. He also recognized for the first time the urgent need to expand the fleet.
The president had help from the navy’s senior officers. Before war was declared on June 18, Commodores John Rodgers and Stephen Decatur Jr., the senior captains in command, had given the president their views on how to use the navy. They had provided him with markedly different proposals, but Madison—not considering the navy important at the time—had set them aside. Now he was ready to develop a real strategy for the fleet, and he looked again at the thinking of the two commanders.
Rodgers had written on June 3 that the country’s few men-of-war should be grouped together and sent to sea. He expected that the available British warships at Halifax would immediately go after them, drawing the Royal Navy away from the east coast, preventing it from blockading major ports, and allowing the large American merchant fleet then at sea to return home. Rodgers suggested that after the merchant ships were safely in port, the navy could be sent to harass Britain’s commerce along the approaches to the English Channel and the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He pointed out that Britain had most of her naval force overseas fighting Napoleon and servicing a far-flung empire. She was, paradoxically, most vulnerable in her home waters.
Stephen Decatur, the navy’s most celebrated captain, had a different view. He wrote on June 8 that American warships ought to patrol alone or in pairs, attacking the enemy—both warships and merchantmen—over as wide an area as possible, making it impossible for the enemy to destroy the entire American fleet in a single encounter.
After the victory of “Old Ironsides” on August 19, Madison revisited the recommendations of Rodgers and Decatur. Only days later (before Porter and the Essex reached the Delaware Capes) the president decided that commerce raiding would be the navy’s core mission. At the same time he adopted Decatur’s recommendation and divided the blue-water fleet into three small squadrons of three warships each, led by Commodores Rodgers, Decatur, and William Bainbridge, a close friend of David Porter. The three commodores received orders to deploy their squadrons wherever they thought best. Porter and the Essex were assigned to Bainbridge, who planned to attack British commerce around their major base at St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic. It was a course recommended by his friend William Jones of Philadelphia, who would soon become secretary of the navy. Bainbridge’s three-ship squadron would be composed of the Constitution, the Essex, and the sloop of war Hornet, under Master Commandant James Lawrence. When the president settled on his new strategy at the end of August, the Constitution and the Hornet were in Boston and would leave from there. The Essex, which was on her way to Chester, would have to rendezvous with them later.
Once Porter reached the Delaware River he was informed of his new assignment, and he set to work getting ready. Bainbridge notified him of potential meeting places—Porto Praia in the Cape Verde Islands (350 miles off the western extremity of Africa); the island of Fernando de Noronha (220 miles off the northeast coast of Brazil); Cape Frio near Rio de Janeiro; the island of St. Sebastian (200 miles south of Rio); St. Catherine’s Island (500 miles south of Rio); and St. Helena, 600 miles northwest of the Cape of Good Hope.
If none of these points of rendezvous worked out, and Porter was left on his own, he was directed to “act according to your best judgment for the good of the service on which we are engaged.” It was a mandate that gave Porter, if he failed to meet Bainbridge, wide latitude, a possibility that must have excited his fertile imagination.
CHAPTER
2
THE MAKING OF A SEA WARRIOR
NO ONE WAS BETTER TRAINED OR MORE MOTIVATED TO fight the War of 1812 than Captain David Porter. His whole life had been a preparation for this great trial.
His father, David Porter Sr., was a redoubtable fighting sailor who had served in the American navy during the Revolutionary War. One of the elder Porter’s more remarkable adventures occurred when he was a midshipman aboard the 32-gun Continental frigate Raleigh, whose skipper was the renowned John Barry. On September 26, 1778, off the coast of Maine, a powerful British squadron forced Barry to run the Raleigh ashore. He escaped with some of his men, but others were captured, including Porter, who was shipped off to New York Harbor in chains and thrown into the hellish prison ship Jersey. By a strange coincidence, Porter’s brother Samuel was already there. He had been badly wounded in a sea fight, captured, and confined to the Jersey, where he received no care and was certain to die. His brother was there to comfort him in his last moments.
Porter spent all his prison time planning an escape. He was a gifted raconteur, and managed to ingratiate himself with the British tars who were his jailers. They must have hated the god-awful Jersey as much as he did. Eventually, he persuaded them to smuggle him off the ship in an empty water cask; after which, he went right back to fighting—mostly in privateers. The elder Porter’s sea stories caught the imagination of his son, who wanted nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps. The third generation, David Jr.’s son, David Dixon Porter, would follow in those footsteps, too, into the naval service, becoming an admiral and a great hero during the Civil War. In 1875, he would write of his father: “The boy, at an early age, manifested the restless energy which ever afterwards characterized him, in that respect resembling his father, whose daring spirit would stop at nothing when there was any enterprise afoot.” Young Porter began his naval career in 1796 at the age of sixteen, sailing—over his mother’s strong objections—as a deck hand on the Eliza, a merchantman his father commanded. The Porters shipped out of Baltimore and sailed to Hispaniola. At the port of Jérémie, they found plenty of trouble when an arrogant British captain from the privateer Harriet attempted to impress hands from their ship. British warships and privateers took American seamen off their vessels whenever they pleased, whether they were at war with the United States or not. The British usually had no trouble, and the Harriet’s captain was not expecting any this time. He was in for a surprise, however. When his unsuspecting pressgang climbed aboard the Eliza, Captain Porter and his men, including his son, attacked them, putting up a spirited fight with inferior weapons. During the bloody mêlée, young David saw a comrade right next to him shot dead. The Porters and their men fought with a ferocity that shocked the attackers. Resistance was so strong, the British raiders retreated.
This was young Porter’s first encounter with impressment, and it left a lasting impression. He had another set-to with the British on his next voyage when he was seventeen and fir
st officer aboard a merchant brig bound from Baltimore to Santo Domingo. A no-nonsense press-gang from a frigate boarded his vessel and hauled him off with a number of other men. Porter was determined to avoid joining the Royal Navy, however, and when he saw a chance to escape, he jumped overboard, swimming to a nearby Danish brig bound for Europe. He joined her crew and worked his passage across the Atlantic to Copenhagen. After landing, he quickly found a vessel returning to America, signed on, and made his way home, after a tempestuous, mid-winter passage. On a third voyage to the West Indies, another British pressgang captured him, dragged him aboard another warship, and roughed him up. He escaped one more time, however, and again worked his way back to the United States.
Given his family background and experience, it was not surprising that Porter joined the fledgling American navy forming under President Adams and Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert in 1798 to fight the Quasi-War with France. Porter obtained appointment as a midshipman, and on April 16 boarded the frigate Constellation as her sixth midshipman. The captain was Thomas Truxtun, a storied veteran of the privateer fleet during the Revolutionary War and a favorite of George Washington. Truxtun was a demanding skipper, and Porter sometimes rebelled, although not openly, against his strict discipline.
In fact, Porter could not have found a better teacher, as he later acknowledged from time to time. Truxtun believed that the infant American navy had to pay special attention to the training of its young officers and future leaders. He watched over his brood with a sharp eye, tending to their seamanship and character development. More importantly, he showed them by example how to manage a ship of war with maximum effect. Porter was in his natural element, and soon became a favorite of both Truxtun and First Lieutenant John Rodgers.
Porter did not get along with one particular officer, however. After suffering continual harassment from Lieutenant Simon Gross, Porter, in his characteristically impetuous way, punched him in the face during an argument and knocked him to the deck. The surprised lieutenant rose, called for the sergeant of the guard, and grabbed a cutlass. He was about to slice up Porter when Captain Truxtun appeared. The lieutenant froze, as Truxtun took charge. After hearing what had happened, Truxtun had Porter arrested and sent below. Normally, a captain would have then ordered a court martial, and Porter would have been dismissed from the service for striking a superior officer. But Truxtun, who knew the men on his ship well, was not going to let a bully like Gross destroy a young man’s promising career. Instead of punishing Porter, Truxtun put him back on duty, and saw to it that Gross—a sadistic drunk—was run out of the service.
On February 9, 1799, the Constellation became embroiled in the most famous fight of the Quasi-War. She was cruising off the Island of Nevis, two hundred miles south of Puerto Rico, when she fell in with the 40-gun French frigate L’Insurgente, one of France’s finest warships. Midshipman Porter was in command of the foretop. In the ensuing battle an eighteen-pound ball smashed the foretopmast just above the cap. It threatened to break free and fall to the deck or go over the side with its yards and sails, damaging the ship and impeding Truxtun’s ability to maneuver. With the smoke and din on the weather deck making it impossible to communicate the danger to the captain, Porter went aloft at great risk to himself, cut the slings holding the yards to the mast, and lowered the yards to the deck. In saving the mast, Porter allowed Truxtun to carry on and win a stunning victory.
After L’Insurgente surrendered, Truxtun ordered Lieutenant Rodgers, Midshipman Porter, and eleven men to take possession of the prize and transfer its 332 prisoners to the Constellation. When that dicey business was completed, and enough repairs were made on the damaged ships to get them to port, they crawled in company to St. Kitts, arriving three days later at Basseterre roadstead. There the British authorities gave them a warm reception (Britain was at war with France during that time, but not with the United States).
As the Quasi-War progressed, Porter continued to perform exceptionally well. On October 8, 1799, when he was only nineteen, the navy promoted him to lieutenant, and assigned him to the 20-gun schooner Experiment as her second officer. Unfortunately, the skipper, Lieutenant William Maley, was an incompetent coward—totally unlike Truxtun or Rodgers. His character soon became evident. On January 1, 1800, the Experiment was convoying four merchantmen, when she was becalmed in the Gulf of Gonaïves. Local pirates known as picaroons suddenly appeared in ten oar-propelled barges, sweeping out from dens on shore to attack the convoy.
The Experiment was disguised as a merchantman, and thinking she was one, the heavily armed pirates went after her. Maley saw that he was badly outnumbered and decided to surrender, but his officers, led by Porter, refused. First Lieutenant Joshua Blake supported Porter, and seeing this, Maley turned the ship over to Porter, who fought a bloody battle with the pirates for seven hours and eventually beat them off. Many of the picaroons were killed, but only two of the Experiment’s crew were wounded. Porter was one of them, receiving a musket ball in the shoulder. Unfortunately, while the fight raged on the Experiment, pirates captured two of the other merchantmen. For his disgraceful conduct, Maley was dismissed from the navy.
Porter’s next ship was the Constitution. Her skipper was Silas Talbot, of Revolutionary War fame and one of the finest fighting captains ever to serve the United States. Aware of Porter’s ability, Talbot gave him command of the armed tender Amphitheatre, a vessel the Experiment had captured. A short time later, Porter was back on the Experiment as first lieutenant under Lieutenant Charles Stewart, an officer with a brilliant future ahead of him. He and Porter formed a close friendship.
On September 1, 1800, the Experiment captured the eight-gun French privateer Deux Amis. Stewart ordered Porter and four seamen to take command of the prize. When Porter climbed aboard the Deux Amis he found forty Frenchmen. They would be problem enough, but soon Stewart and the Experiment disappeared—chasing another prize. Porter was left alone in a dangerous situation. The closest port was St. Kitts, at least three days away. Undaunted, he herded the prisoners below, kept cannon loaded with canister shot pointed at the hatches, and sailed to St. Kitts, where he arrived four days later.
The Quasi-War with France ended on March 3, 1801, the last day of John Adams’s presidency. The country began demobilizing. President Adams, who had been defeated for reelection by Thomas Jefferson, drastically reduced the navy in the hopes that Jefferson would not do away with it entirely. The Peace Establishment Act, which Adams signed on his last day in office, was very much in tune with Jefferson’s thinking. Under it, the navy’s officer corps was cut: to nine captains, thirty-six lieutenants, and 150 midshipmen. Porter survived.
The new president wanted the navy to be as small as possible, but a new war restrained him. Just as Jefferson came into office, Tripoli declared war on the United States. He was forced to use what was left of the fleet to fight the pirate state. Nonetheless, Jefferson made sure the navy remained small.
The war with Tripoli, which lasted for four long years, proved to be a seminal event in the life of David Porter. In the early stages he performed remarkably well, as he had in the past, serving in a variety of ships under different commanders. In 1801, now twenty-one, he was first lieutenant aboard the 12-gun armed schooner Enterprise (the Experiment’s sister ship). Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett was the Enterprise’s skipper.
Sterrett and Porter had served together under Truxtun on the Constellation. Sterrett was well known in the navy for an extraordinary incident that had happened on that ship. During the Constellation’s battle with L’Insurgente, amid heavy fighting, seaman Neale Harvey became terrified and abandoned his cannon. The twenty-one-year-old Sterrett flew into a rage and ran his sword through him. Harvey was one of only two men killed aboard the Constellation during the fight.
Captain Truxtun did not reprimand Sterrett, nor did the navy. The young lieutenant’s execution of a man under his command during combat was let stand. Sterrett suffered no punishment, not even to his career, which proceede
d apace. His action never became a precedent, but it was never condemned either.
When Sterrett arrived in the Mediterranean with Porter, he was looking for a fight, and on August 1, 1801, he found one. The Enterprise was off Malta when she fell in with the 14-gun Tripoli, a polacre-rigged warship under Rais Mahomet Rous, commander of the Tripolitan navy. As soon as Sterrett recognized the flag, he closed to within pistol shot and blasted away, commencing a savage battle that lasted for three hours. The Tripolitans tried three times to board the Enterprise, but each time Sterrett, Porter, and their men beat them off. The Tripoli’s deck became an ugly sight; mangled bodies were strewn everywhere. With no hope remaining, Rous finally gave up and struck his colors. Porter led a boarding party to take the surrender, and he was appalled at the slaughter on the Tripoli’s decks. The Enterprise had no dead and no wounded. It was a complete rout.
The following year, Porter was assigned to the 36-gun Chesapeake, and then transferred in April 1803 to the 36-gun frigate New York as her second lieutenant. The New York was Commodore Richard Morris’s flagship. Morris was commander of the Mediterranean fleet at the time, tasked by President Jefferson with protecting American commerce and defeating Tripoli. Porter was not pleased with the transfer; he had little respect for Morris, who appeared to have no appetite for fighting. Porter’s unhappiness was relieved somewhat by his association with the New York’s first lieutenant, Isaac Chauncey, with whom he formed a close relationship. The two lieutenants had the same low opinion of Morris. During the first week of June 1803 Porter did get into some action, leading a night raid against Tripolitan vessels. His party was beaten off, however, and he was wounded. Midshipman John Downes participated in the raid, impressing Porter with his daring and courage.
The Shining Sea Page 3