Prelude to Glory, Vol. 9

by Ron Carter

  Barron replied, “See to the crew. My wounds are not serious.”

  Samuels rose and walked among the dead and wounded, counting, appraising, ordering others to carry them below decks out of the blazing sun, while Budd walked the portside of the frigate, eyes constantly moving, then disappeared below decks for three minutes. When he reappeared he approached Barron, Samuels by his side. The captain was still standing on the quarterdeck wiping at the blood on his tunic, trying to stanch the bleeding from his forehead. Barron leaned forward to address the doctor.

  “Casualties?”

  There was a cutting edge in the surgeon’s voice. “Three dead. Eighteen wounded. Some serious. We may lose one or two more.” Samuels watched the muscles in Barron’s jaw flex and then release. Barron turned to Budd.

  “Damage?”

  “Hulled twice. High. We are not taking on water. Eight of the guns on the port side are out of commission—carriages destroyed. The other two are being repaired. All guns on the starboard side are operable. Some loss of sail and hawsers and damage to the mainmast, but not serious. We’re seaworthy.”

  Barron turned his face upward toward the crow’s nest. “Mister Yates! The incoming ship?”

  “American,” came the call. “Merchantman. She’ll be alongside within ten minutes.”

  Barron peered at the broad sails for a moment, studying the ship as it came on, tacking into the wind, then spoke to the two men before him.

  “Carry on. We’ll deal with whoever that is when they reach us.” He turned to the wheelman. “Hard to starboard and bring her about to due north. We’re returning to Norfolk.”

  The sturdy little frigate answered the wheel, and her two masts leaned left as she turned hard right while the sailors nimbly climbed the ropes to the spars to begin the intricate shifting of the sails to tack a course due north, into the wind.

  They were on course when the call came from the crow’s nest. “The ship behind us is the Camille. Merchantman out of Boston harbor. I recognize her. She means to come alongside.”

  Captain Barron cupped his hands to call to his men in the rigging. “Reduce sail. Let her come alongside!”

  The crews of both ships watched in silence as the little warship slowed, and the larger merchantman labored up to within fifty yards of her portside with the crew of the Camille studying the shattered railing and torn canvas on the lower sails, flapping in the wind. The captain took his horn in hand and made the call.

  “Ahoy, Chesapeake. I am Captain Adam Dunson of the Camille. Merchantman out of Boston. We heard cannon. We saw the British man-o’-war withdraw. Are you sound?”

  Barron answered. “We’re sound.”

  “We see the damage. Do you have dead or wounded?”

  “We do.”

  “Seek permission to board. We have a ship’s surgeon and medicine. Seamen if you need them.”

  Barron looked at Samuels, who nodded, and Barron answered through his horn. “Permission to board granted.”

  Carefully the two ships maneuvered until they touched, and men on both sides lashed them together. Captain Adam Dunson led his boarding party onto the splintered deck of the Chesapeake, stepping over and around the wreckage that still remained, and he read the tell-tale signs as though they were a written page. Dunson was middle-aged, just under six feet in height, solidly built, with dark, intense eyes, square jaw, regular features. He fronted Captain Barron and bowed slightly from the hip.

  “I am Captain Adam Dunson. May we be of service, sir?”

  “I am Captain James Barron. Your home port, sir?”

  “Boston. Dunson and Weems.”

  Barron reflected for a moment. “Matthew Dunson?”

  “Yes. My older brother. He and Billy Weems own the company.”

  “I know of your company. Would you permit us the services of your ship’s surgeon?”

  Dunson turned and gave a hand signal, and a sparse, gray-haired man stepped forward. In his face one could see forty years on the sea and countless sea battles in which he had treated unknown numbers of injured sailors. He took two steps toward Samuels and said, “Where should I start, sir?” He followed the blood-spattered doctor to a hatch, and they disappeared into the hold of the ship.

  Dunson spoke to Barron. “May I inquire what was the occasion that caused the damage?”

  “The British ship was a man-o’-war named the Leopard. She demanded to board to search for British deserters. We had none on board. When I refused the demand, she opened fire without provocation or warning. Three broadsides.”

  Barron saw the anger rise in Dunson as he inquired. “Dead? Wounded?”

  “Three dead so far. Near twenty wounded. They took four of my crew. Three native-born Americans. I do not know about the fourth man.”

  “You are short seven of your crew and have others disabled? I have seasoned sailors who we can spare. Would that be of help?”

  Budd looked at his captain, and the need was clear in his eyes.

  Barron nodded. “It would. We could use up to ten men if you can spare them.”

  Dunson turned to his first officer. “Can you see to it?”

  “Aye, sir.” The man spun on his heel and quickly returned to the deck of his own ship to begin pointing at men who nodded.

  Dunson continued. “What port do you intend making?”

  “Norfolk. The nearest one with a hospital. The wounded need a hospital.”

  Dunson nodded. “Two days from here, if this nor’east wind holds. May we accompany you? I can get my crew back when you’re docked.”

  “It will cost you three days.”

  Dunson raised a hand as though to brush off the concern. “No matter.”

  Barron replied, “Your help would be appreciated.”

  Dunson glanced about. “Would some of your crew care to take mess with us this evening?”

  “How many?”

  “All, if necessary.”

  “Could you prepare strong broth for the wounded?”

  “We can, sir. Is there anything else?”

  Barron’s eyes narrowed, and his words came measured, clipped. “Yes, Captain Dunson, there is. Could you have one of your officers inspect this ship for all damage? All of it. Get the names of the dead and wounded and the names of the four men the British took. When your inspection is complete, have that man write what he has seen. Have it witnessed by yourself and your first officer. I want that document as evidence of this incident. It is my intention to call the British to account for taking my men, and for the murder and the unprovoked attack on the high seas on a ship of a neutral nation with which the British were not at war. If you could provide that to me, I would be most grateful.”

  Dunson turned, gave a hand signal, and a younger man stepped to his side, waiting. He was slightly taller and more slender than Adam Dunson, but with the same intensity in his dark eyes. His face tended to be heart-shaped, features regular and strong.

  Dunson gestured. “This is our navigator. John Matthew Dunson. My nephew. Does well with writing. I will have your document ready for you when we leave you in Norfolk.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dunson looked about at the shattered, splintered timbers and the litter on the bloodied deck, and took a deep breath. “Captain Barron, if there is nothing else pressing at this moment, there is much for both of our crews to do. Shall we be about it?”

  Notes

  On June 22, 1807, off the Virginia capes, the captain of the British man-of-war HMS Leopard, Salusbury Humphreys, ordered the American warship USS Chesapeake to stop while the British boarded her to search for British seamen reportedly being held by the Chesapeake. The British captain was acting on written orders of Admiral George C. Berkeley. The Chesapeake was a newly built frigate and was on her maiden voyage, out through Chesapeake Bay into the Atlantic. The American captain, James Barron, refused to obey the order. The British ship carried fifty cannon, the American ship, thirty-eight. At that time America and England were officially at peace, and the
American ship was neutral; thus, the order by the British admiral and the British captain was illegal and unprecedented. Nonetheless, upon Barron’s refusal, and without warning, the British gunboat delivered three broadsides at point-blank range and badly damaged the ship, killing three American seamen and injuring eighteen others, including Captain Barron. Then the British forcibly boarded the crippled American ship and removed four seamen. Three were Americans. The incident infuriated the United States and later became one of the pivotal reasons for America’s declaration of war against the British on June 19, 1812.

  The historical accounts of this incident are not all consistent, with some differences in the details; however, the essence of the matter is as above set forth and as presented in this chapter.

  Bernstein, Thomas Jefferson, pp. 166–7; Malcomson, Lords of the Lake, pp. 12–13; Whitehorne, The Battle for Baltimore, 1814, pp. 5–6.

  For the detail of the incident wherein the British gunboat Leander pursued an American merchantman into New York harbor and fired at her, killing at least one American seaman and wounding others, which resulted in President Jefferson’s banning the HMS Leander from all American ports, see Whitehorne, The Battle for Baltimore, 1814, p. 5.

  The merchantman Camille and the parts played by Adam Dunson and John Dunson are fictional.

  Washington, D.C.

  October 1807

  CHAPTER II

  * * *

  In the still warmth of a bright, rare October morning, Matthew Dunson, tall, slender, striking, dark eyes, dark hair showing prominent gray at the temples, stood still and silent at the rail of the Dunson & Weems schooner Ohio, staring west in disbelief at Washington, D.C., as the crew lowered the gangplank to the newly constructed dock of the United States navy yards on the Anacostia River on the eastern border of the city. His face showed the burn of wind and weather that marked men who had spent much of their lives on ships at sea.

  He had come here expecting to see a proud city rising from the wilderness between Maryland and Virginia—a city worthy of a new nation that had challenged England, the greatest military power on earth, and won a six-year war, fought on the insane notion that common people could govern themselves. And the upstart Americans had won! More unthinkable, fifty-five of them had created a document they called their Constitution in which they had gambled everything on the common man; they had vested the ultimate power of government in the vote of the people! Think of it! The uneducated man mixing the mortar to bind the bricks into the walls that would become the Executive Mansion for the president, would have his say in who came to live there! The notion had rocked the world. This city was intended to become the gem that would represent this infant, impudent, upstart nation, and take its place among the great capitals of the world, grand and elegant. Paris. London. Petersburg. Moscow. Amsterdam.

  But on this day, from the docks of the navy yard, Matthew stared in shock at a muddled, disconnected chaos of trash dumps, meandering dirt roads, and the rudimentary beginnings of buildings that suggested no sense of organization, scheme, or design. The dock was nearly deserted. In the distance, a few men moved back and forth, carrying planks from a wagon to a nearby stack. The only sounds were the seabirds, the high-pitched hum of mosquitoes, and the lap of water against the huge pilings that had been driven forty feet into the mud of the river to support the fourteen-inch square, rough-hewn timbers of the wharf.

  Matthew grasped the handle of his sea bag and walked down the gangplank onto the dock, unaware of the slight roll to his gait, common to men who had spent much of their lives on the undulating decks of ships at sea. He picked his way through the piles of junk and rubble that had been randomly tossed aside, toward the six men working on the lumber stack. He was ten feet away when the nearest one turned to face him, and they all stopped and gathered.

  Matthew nodded. “Good morning. I’m Matthew Dunson. I have need for transportation to the city. I expected there would be hacks for hire here at the navy yard, but apparently I was wrong.”

  One of the men eyed him for a moment. “Not many hacks for hire anywhere around here. No need. The city, you say? You have business there?”

  “Yes. With the secretary of state. James Madison.”

  The man scratched at stubble under his chin. “Don’t have an idea where to find him, but when we get this lumber unloaded, we got to go back into town—such as it is—for another load. You don’t mind riding a lumber wagon, we can get you there. You’ll have to ask someone there how to find the secretary of state, whoever he is. We won’t be too long. Want to wait?”

  “I’ll wait. Can I help?”

  A wry smile crossed the man’s face. “Don’t look to me like you’re much dressed for it. You got to see someone in the gov’ment, you best let us do this. Why don’t you sit a spell out of the sun?”

  Matthew nodded and carried his sea bag to where nine kegs of nails were lined against the wall of a tool shed and sat down on the nearest keg, his sea bag at his feet. For several minutes he watched the six men work in teams of two, moving the twelve-foot planks from the wagon to the stack. He glanced about, then stood and walked to the center of the clearing that was called the navy yard, and studied the land to the west for a time before he returned to sit down once again while his thoughts reached back, and he let them go. A smile came and went at the remembrance of the convoluted history of how the city of Washington, D.C., came to be.

  Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the United States Constitution authorized the seat of the government to be established on a parcel of land “ . . . not exceeding ten miles square . . . ,” but failed to designate where the land was to be. In the battle for ratification of the Constitution that spilled over from 1787 to 1788, Alexander Hamilton, slender, sharp-faced, self-confident to the point of occasional cockiness, had joined with James Madison and John Jay to write a series of political essays under the title The Federalist Papers, which were published in several leading newspapers. Hamilton found himself rising on the national scene with new celebrity, and President George Washington appointed him secretary of the treasury, an office refused by the financial wizard, Robert Morris of Pennsylvania. On January 14, 1790, Hamilton made his first Report on Public Credit to Congress, wherein he proposed consolidating state and national debt and issuing securities to retire both, and at the same time promote economic growth. An incidental to the plan was Hamilton’s suggestion of where the ten-mile-square plot of ground was to be.

  Congress deadlocked on the proposal, with James Madison of Virginia, his colleague in creating The Federalist Papers, leading the contingent violently opposed to the Hamilton plan. Hamilton was driven to near distraction by the deadlock, and in a chance meeting with tall, lanky Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson in the street fronting the home of the president, walked him up and down the cobblestones while he harangued him with his terrible fear that failure of his proposal would threaten the nation’s credit at home, and worse, with nations abroad. Indeed, he argued, it could lead to dissolution of the Union! And it would leave unresolved the issue of where the seat of government was to find its ten-square-miles of land.

  Bright in Jefferson’s mind was the painful remembrance of his own crippling problems with the national debt while he was in the diplomatic service of the fledgling country. More critical to Jefferson was his deep conviction that the seat of government ought to be in a rural area, among common farming people who were close to the earth. Was it not absolutely clear that those who worked with Mother Earth stood infinitely closer to The Almighty than those who flocked to cities for wealth and power? The opposition was equally clear that the seat of the government ought to be in a great city that was a crossroads of world commerce, driven by the pulse of international affairs.

  Thoughtfully, Jefferson tugged at his chin, and then made a proposal that was a stroke of genius, but loaded with the possibility of fireworks, not to mention high hilarity. He, Jefferson, would host a dinner to which he would invite both Hamilton and Madison. In the course
of the evening, they would see to it that Hamilton and Madison engaged in a discussion of their battle over Hamilton’s plan. With some of the country’s prominent celebrities seated at the table, neither Hamilton nor Madison would dare turn the discussion into a shouting match, and with some clever guidance provided by Jefferson and others, it was possible the one-time colleagues would find a solution, renew their fractured friendship, and resolve their differences.

  The dinner was held, and with a modicum of sour expressions and disgruntled concessions from both sides, their suffering friendship was restored sufficiently to support their agreement on Hamilton’s plan, which included terms providing that the ten-mile square would be on the Potomac River. Further, it would include a piece of Maryland joined with a piece of Virginia, so dear to the hearts of the Virginians, Washington, Madison, and Jefferson. Finally, to allow time to survey the ten-mile square, obtain land titles from Maryland and Virginia, lay out the new city, and build enough of it to house the new government, the seat of the government would remain in Philadelphia until the year 1800, and then take up its new residence.

  Thus, Washington, District of Columbia, was born! President George Washington named the French-born Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant to plan the new city, and Vice President Jefferson called on Benjamin Banneker, a self-educated former slave, to assist. One could not fail to notice that the design of the city, with the Capitol on the highest hill and the great boulevards laid out like spokes of a gigantic wheel, was decidedly French.

  Surveying these early and humble beginnings of the capital’s lofty design, Matthew impatiently waited for the wagonload of lumber to be stacked. Restless and anxious to be about his business, he reached to touch the letter in the inside breast pocket of his black coat. It was this letter from James Madison that had brought him from Boston to the navy yard docks. The letter requested that Matthew find time to visit with Secretary of State Madison in his office in Washington, D.C., “ . . . at your earliest convenience . . . to discuss critically important matters of state.” Matthew had made the voyage on the Dunson & Weems schooner Ohio, loaded with New England stoves, kettles, and plows for delivery to Norfolk, Virginia, where she had taken on two hundred tons of Virginia rice for delivery back in Boston before turning north on Chesapeake Bay, then sailing northwest up the Potomac River to the site of the new capital city to wait one day at the navy yard docks while Matthew met with James Madison. Now, sitting on a keg of nails at the nearly deserted navy yards, Matthew’s mind reached back to the strange path that had led him to James Madison those many years before.