Aside from the personal tragedies, Porter’s time in New Orleans was exceptionally stressful. He was tasked with doing the near impossible: enforcing President Jefferson’s embargo in an area swarming with smugglers, pirates, and corrupt politicians. And on top of that, he had to deal with General James Wilkinson, the military commander in Louisiana, who was as devious and dishonest an officer to ever wear the uniform.
Luckily, during his stay in Louisiana, Porter met someone whose friendship helped him over the roughest patches. Navy purser Samuel Hambleton became his closest friend and confidant and would later serve as his prize agent.
When Porter’s tour was up, he and his family set sail for Green Bank, their great stone mansion on the Delaware River, arriving on August 3, 1810. They must have been overjoyed to see the old house. It would be the first opportunity they had to live in it. It would also be the first time young Farragut was separated from his father.
Being back in Chester in a comfortable mansion did not mean that Porter had lost his zest for action. Far from it. He wasn’t home for long before he was writing to the secretary of the navy, Paul Hamilton, requesting promotion to captain and assignment to a frigate. He had to wait for his ship and his promotion, however. It was peacetime, and the navy was not expanding. He would not receive orders to take command of the Essex until August 1811, and he was not promoted to captain, a rank commensurate with his new position, until June 1812.
With war looming, Porter suggested to Secretary Hamilton that when fighting broke out, the Essex should be sent to the Pacific to harass British whalers and merchantmen. Porter’s request was ignored, however. When the War of 1812 actually began, he was ordered to join Commodore John Rodgers’s squadron in New York. In pursuance of these orders, Porter brought the Essex into the city during the second week of June 1812, but she needed extensive repairs, and Rodgers decided not to wait for her, taking the rest of his squadron to sea on June 21, 1812. Porter was left on his own.
Commodore Rodgers, the navy’s senior officer in command, had gathered nearly the entire serviceable American fleet (only five warships) for the first cruise of the war. His flagship was the 44-gun heavy frigate President. Commodore Stephen Decatur sailed with him, in command of the 44-gun United States. Rodgers’s plan was to attack a huge convoy of British merchantmen (over a hundred) traveling from Jamaica to England. He never found the convoy, but he did succeed in drawing the British fleet at Halifax away from the coast of the United States in search of him. (His departure had been no secret.) This allowed 516 American merchant vessels then at sea to return safely to their home ports. They had no idea war had been declared, and would have been easy prey for the British fleet had it been waiting for them off Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other major ports.
Unhappy to be stuck in port while the war he had been preparing himself for finally had begun, Porter was nearly frantic to get the Essex repaired and out to sea. Luckily, Captain Isaac Chauncey, with whom Porter had served in 1803 on the New York, was in charge of the New York Navy Yard. He had the Essex repaired and ready for action in a remarkable three weeks. Porter put to sea on July 3. As he stood out from Sandy Hook, he could not have been in a better mood. The previous day he had finally received notice of his appointment to captain, and since Commodore Rodgers had already left New York, Porter was on his own. He immediately went on the hunt and found plenty of action. The crew, which he had been training hard since first taking command, performed brilliantly. The greatest prize was, of course, the Alert, taken on August 13. But as we have seen, there were other triumphs, too, during this unusually productive cruise. In mid-September, the Essex arrived in Chester laden with laurels, her captain and crew filled with great expectations.
When Porter dropped anchor near his home in Chester on September 14, he expected to refurbish, resupply, and put right back to sea. He soon learned that his victory over the Alert was the first of the war. That was great news, but the disparity in size between the two combatants made him continue to downplay his success and to crave more than ever a one-on-one battle with a frigate.
On October 6, while supplies were dribbling in, and Porter was hard at work on the Essex, he began receiving his orders. Instructions from Bainbridge described Porter’s assignment in the commodore’s three-ship squadron. The next day, he was given Bainbridge’s plan for how they were going to rendezvous. On October 8 a letter from the secretary of the navy confirmed the arrangements. Porter could not help but be pleased that the president had finally settled on a new strategy for the navy, and that the Essex would play an important part. He preferred being on his own, of course, not having to share laurels and prize money, but joining Bainbridge was the next best thing.
Porter was also happy that Madison was finally using the navy for commerce raiding, instead of relying exclusively on privateers. Like most naval officers, he had no respect for privateers. “I detest the idea of trusting to our privateers for the destruction of British commerce,” he wrote to Samuel Hambleton; “are we to become a nation of buccaneers, a nest of villains, a detestable set of pirates? When a general system of piracy is countenanced by our government, when the whole maritime defense of a nation consists of buccaneers, farewell national honor, farewell national pride! Then we sink to the level of the bashaw of Tripoli, and the emperor of Haiti.”
Porter did not anticipate that refurbishing the Essex would take very long, if supplies arrived from the Navy Department as quickly as he hoped. The ship needed a new suit of sails, the standing rigging replaced, and the bowsprit taken out and fished. She also needed as many supplies as she could hold, including double clothing for the crew, fresh fruits, vegetables, and lime juice to fight scurvy. Ammunition also had to be replenished and leftover gunpowder examined. It should have taken no more than two or three weeks to accomplish all of this, but since supplies were slow in coming, the work dragged on until the end of October. Part of the reason for the delay was that another warship, the eighteen-gun sloop of war Wasp, was being readied for sea in nearby Philadelphia at the same time that the Essex was. Her skipper, Jacob Jones, needed supplies as much as Porter did. Years of neglecting the navy were now taking their toll. Porter feared that if he delayed much longer, a British blockade would trap him in the Delaware. “If we do not get out soon,” he wrote to Hambleton, “we shall all be kept in until winter, as the British force has been so much augmented.” Porter’s recent run-in with the three enemy warships off the tail of Georges Bank had heightened his fears. He was convinced that Britain was making a determined effort to close all the principal American ports. He told the secretary of the navy that, having run into the three-ship squadron, the Essex was already “cut off from New York and Rhode Island,” which is why he had put into the Delaware River.
He was so worried about being blockaded that even while repairs were still being made on the Essex, he sailed her down to the Delaware Capes looking for intelligence about the British fleet. His fears intensified when he spoke a merchantman who told him that an enemy squadron was nearby. Porter feared that if he didn’t get to sea right away, he would be stuck in the Delaware for a long time.
His concern was unwarranted, however; he was in no immediate danger. The British had not even begun to mount their blockade of the American coast. After Porter’s last cruise, he could have easily put into Boston, New York, or Newport. The enemy ships that the merchantman was warning him about actually constituted nearly the entire usable British fleet at Halifax, and it was searching for the American squadron commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, not patrolling off New York or Narragansett Bay. Britain would not have a blockade in place until the middle of 1813, and even then, it would be far from complete.
Porter blamed Secretary of the Navy Hamilton for the delay in getting supplies to the Essex. “The neglect of the Department is unpardonable,” he wrote to Hambleton. “There must be a change or we never can expect to do anything except on our own responsibility; there is no energy, nor will there be while a pint
of whiskey can be purchased in the District of Columbia—it is shameful.”
Secretary Hamilton’s drinking problem had been bandied about Washington for years. It was rumored that nothing got done in the Navy Department after lunch, although that was an exaggeration. President Madison was aware of the problem, but even after war had been declared
on June 18 Hamilton remained in charge of the department. Keeping Hamilton was a measure of how unimportant the navy was to the president at the time.
Porter’s urge to be back at sea in search of glory was demonstrated again when a challenge to a sea duel came on September 18 while he was waiting impatiently for the Essex to be ready. The challenge was delivered in an unusual way. The Democratic Press, a Philadelphia newspaper, published what was purported to be a letter from Sir James Yeo, captain of the British frigate Southampton, stationed in the Bahamas. It read: “Sir James Yeo [presents] his compliments to Captain Porter of the American frigate Essex—would be glad to have a tete a tete anywhere between the Capes of the Delaware and Havana, where he would be pleased to break his own sword over his damned head and put him down forward in irons.”
Yeo, it seemed, wanted to goad Porter, whom the British had a special dislike for, into a one-on-one fight. Porter’s handling of a well-publicized row in New York City at the start of the war had aroused the Admiralty’s ire. And Whitehall remembered Porter from an old incident at Malta involving the lashing of a drunk and disorderly British tar.
The latest episode involved John Erving, a sail maker’s mate aboard the Essex. On June 26, eight days after the United States had declared war, Porter called upon the crew of the Essex to take the oath of allegiance to the United States, but Erving refused. He protested that he was an Englishman and could not do so. Immediately, one of his shipmates contradicted him, swearing that Erving was an American from Barnstable, Massachusetts. Erving admitted that he had lived in the United States since 1800, but insisted that he was still a British subject, and if he were caught fighting against his country he would be hanged as a traitor. Porter wasn’t pleased, but he refused to whip the man and kept his irate crew from beating him. That didn’t end the matter, however. When some of the Essex men asked the captain’s permission to tar and feather Ervin and put him out on the streets of New York with appropriate labels affixed to his body, Porter, in his usually impulsive way, said yes.
The treatment of Erving angered the British consul in New York, and he quickly became involved. He asked the New York police to safeguard Erving, declaring him to be a British subject. The police did intervene, protecting Erving while the consul arranged passage for him to Halifax. Porter strongly objected to letting Erving go, pointing out that he could be a spy and might report to the enemy all he knew about the American navy. Porter’s superiors did not support him, however. Secretary Hamilton found his actions deplorable, and sent him a blistering rebuke, telling him that “mobs should never be suffered to exist on board a man of war.” Needless to say, the secretary’s scolding did not sit well with Porter, who continued to believe that releasing Erving was a mistake.
The wide publicity afforded this latest controversy added to the rancor the Admiralty felt toward Porter. Their Lordships promised to chastise him at the first opportunity. He was aware of their enmity, and he gloried in it.
Yeo’s challenge, thus, came as no surprise. Porter assumed it was genuine and lost no time penning a reply: “Captain Porter of the U.S. frigate Essex, presents his complements to Sir James Yeo . . . and accepts with pleasure his polite invitation. If agreeable to Sir James, Captain Porter would prefer meeting near the Delaware, where Captain Porter pledges his honor to Sir James, that no American vessel shall interrupt their tete a tete. The Essex may be known by a flag bearing the motto, ‘Free trade and sailors’ rights,’ and when this is struck to the Southampton, Captain Porter will deserve the treatment promised by Sir James.”
Porter pleaded with Secretary Hamilton not to prohibit him from accepting Yeo’s challenge. When Hamilton made no objection, Porter rushed down to the Delaware Capes during the last week of September and hovered off them briefly before sailing back to Chester. The loud-talking, but cautious Yeo never appeared. He may have had second thoughts about his chances against the Essex. The Southampton was the oldest frigate in the Royal Navy, having been built in 1757. She carried thirty-two guns, but she would have had a hard time against the American frigate. The Southampton’s long guns might have been a factor in her favor. Despite being old, if she were skillfully handled, she might have given the Essex a real battle. As it was, for one reason or another, Captain Yeo did not appear.
CHAPTER
5
THE ESSEX
PAST AND PRESENT
IN OCTOBER 1812, CAPTAIN DAVID PORTER WAS ANXIOUS TO get to sea, but he had serious reservations about the Essex. What he objected to most was her armament. She carried forty 32-pound carronades and six long 12-pounders, a total of forty-six guns. The mix of weaponry was the exact opposite of what he wanted. Carronades were most effective as supplements to a main battery of long guns; they were not intended to be a frigate’s primary weapon. As far back as October 12, 1811, Porter had written to Navy Secretary Hamilton complaining that carronades remained “an experiment in modern warfare. . . . I do not conceive it proper to trust the honor of the flag entirely to them.” A little over a month later, after he had returned from a short cruise, Porter wrote to Sam Hambleton, “I am much pleased with my ship, and I wish I could say as much for her armament—She is armed with carronades which in my opinion are very inferior to long guns.”
Porter remained so disgruntled that he asked Secretary Hamilton on October 14 to give him another ship, preferably the twenty-eight-gun Adams, sitting in the Washington Navy Yard. Porter told Hamilton that because of her inadequate armament and “bad sailing” the Essex was the “worst frigate in the service.” Porter’s hyperbole did not move Hamilton. The secretary did not take the complaint about her poor sailing seriously, but faulting her battery of carronades had validity, which Hamilton was aware of. Nonetheless he turned down Porter’s request for another ship. The Adams was not ready to go, and even if she were, there wasn’t enough time to make a switch before Porter had to leave and join Bainbridge.
The carronade was a relatively new weapon. The Carron Iron Company had developed it during the American Revolution in their massive iron works (the largest in the world) on the Carron River near Falkirk, Scotland. Made of cast iron, carronades were short and smoothbore with one-third the weight of a conventional long gun, but with explosive power. They were placed on a sliding rather than a wheeled carriage, and a turn screw achieved their elevation rather than quoins (wooden wedges). The screw was mounted on a lug underneath the barrel. Carronades required a smaller crew to operate, were easier to aim, and fired faster. At short range (less than 500 yards) they could be devastating. The British gave them the name “smasher” because of their ability to create clusters of deadly splinters when employed against an enemy’s wooden works, and their ability, at very close range, to drive through the hull of a ship as large as a frigate.
Without a doubt, carronades had real advantages, but at long distances they were ineffective, and this was what bothered Porter. Until the Essex got close to an enemy, she was at risk. An alert British commander could cripple her with long guns (the main battery on all British frigates) before she got near enough to employ her carronades. An adverse wind, or anything else (such as enemy fire) that affected her ability to sail, could make the Essex a sitting duck. “Was the ship to be disabled in her rigging in the early part of an engagement,” Porter complained to Secretary Hamilton “a ship much inferior to her in sailing and in force, armed with long guns, could take a position beyond the reach of our carronades, and cut us to pieces without our being able to do her any injury.”
Porter knew that if the Essex tangled with an enemy frigate, he would be forced to run in close to her, blast away with his carronades as he went, and hope thei
r devastating firepower would force a surrender. If not, he would have to board and fight it out hand to hand. His only hope would be to overwhelm the enemy with numbers, which is why he had an unusually large crew for the size of his ship—319 officers and men, including thirty-one marines.
The Essex had not been designed to carry primarily carronades. At her commissioning in December 1799, her battery was well balanced with twenty-six long twelve-pounders and ten six-pounders, and her crew numbered 260. Her first skipper, thirty-eight-year-old Captain Edward Preble of Portland, Maine, received permission to substitute nine-pounders for the original six, giving her more firepower but added weight. After the change, Preble was well satisfied with her armament. By the time David Porter took command in August 1811, however, that had all changed.
The Essex’s vulnerability gnawed at Porter, but he could not convince Hamilton to exchange the carronades for long guns or to give him a different ship. So Porter was forced to work with what he had. He never considered resigning; his sense of duty and desire for fame and prize money were too strong for that.
In spite of his grumbling and penchant for hyperbole, Porter undoubtedly knew at some level that the Essex, apart from her carronades, was a fine ship. It was one of the subscription warships built during the Quasi-War, just as the Philadelphia had been. In the spring and summer of 1798 President John Adams had persuaded a Federalist-dominated Congress—against the strong opposition of Republican leaders Jefferson, Madison, and Albert Gallatin—to approve a new navy department and a substantial fleet to cope with French aggression on the high seas. In a remarkably short time Adams dramatically expanded the navy that George Washington had started in 1794.
Adams also sought help from private citizens, and they responded. Patriotic fervor and the need to protect merchant vessels from French privateers led wealthy citizens in nine seaports along the Atlantic coast—Newburyport, Salem, Boston, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk, and Richmond—to build substantial warships and loan them to the federal government. Adams and the Congress helped the effort by requiring the Treasury to issue interest-bearing stock at six percent to the contributors.
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