In Pursuit of the Essex

by Hughes, Ben;

  As the Essex struggled eastwards with the Essex Junior in her wake, Hillyar moved in for the kill. Lieutenant Burrow noticed Miller and Browne clinging to the Essex’s lifebuoy as the Phoebe swept past, but Hillyar was in no mood to delay. At 3.30 p.m. a Saint George’s Ensign bearing the motto ‘God & Country, British Best Rights, Traitors offend both’ was hoisted on the Phoebe’s main. The Cherub did likewise. Hillyar then went down to the gun deck to address his men. Samuel Thornton Junior thought his captain’s icy demeanour ‘peculiarly impressive … [He] implored the Divine assistance in [his crew’s] endeavours’, the sixteen-year-old recalled, ‘after which he addressed them in a short but spirited speech which concluded with these words, “Do your duty my Lads & you can’t be afraid.”’ After giving the watchword as ‘God Save the King!’, Hillyar returned to the quarterdeck to a rousing three cheers.

  At 3.40 p.m. the Essex anchored with her best bower in 9½ fathoms half a pistol shot from shore. Seeing his opponents raising their banners, Porter ran up three White Ensigns over his usual motto flags and gave the order to clear for action. The partitions were knocked out and the guns run out of the ports. Chaplain Adams joined Doctor Hoffman, the acting surgeon and his mate, Alexander Montgomery, in the cockpit while those on the quarterdeck watched the British ships’ casual approach. Some believed themselves safe, protected by Chilean neutrality, yet Farragut thought it ‘evident … the enemy … intended to attack … We made arrangements to receive him as well as we possibly could’, he recalled. ‘Springs were got on our cables [to turn the frigate broadside on] and the ship was … prepared for action … Even to my young mind’, he continued, ‘it was perceptible in the faces of those around me … that our case was hopeless … [but] it was equally apparent that all were ready to die at their guns rather than surrender.’

  At 3.50 p.m. Hillyar signalled his intention to fight at anchor off the Essex’s stern to the Cherub. The topmen took in the courses, the frigate inched closer under topsails, while the waisters prepared to deploy the springs. One mile from Point Piedra, O’Brien and Murphy caught up. As they scrambled aboard, their boat was swamped by a wave. At 4.00 p.m. the Phoebe entered the bay. Hillyar was about to deploy his anchor and spin on his cables to rake the Essex when a squall blew in from the south. The Phoebe was blown alongside the Essex’s larboard quarter about half a gun shot off while the Cherub sailed round onto the Americans’ starboard bow. At 4.10 p.m., his efforts to close to pistol-shot having been frustrated, Hillyar opened fire. On the gun deck, the command was repeated by Lieutenant Pearson and Acting Lieutenant Gardner to their divisions, the gun captains pulled their lanyards and the frigate’s starboard broadside rippled flame. The cannon leapt back on their breeching ropes and thirteen 18-pound roundshot hurtled towards the Essex. Five minutes later, Tucker fired a volley of grape from his 32-pounder carronades.

  On the Essex the men fell in droves. Roundshot smashed through the hull, tore the rolled hammocks from above the bulwarks and burst in the windows of the great cabin. Skipping along the gun deck they disabled several carronades, scything off ring bolts and carrying away tackle and blocks. Others killed or maimed the crews while grape shot swept the quarterdeck. Employed as ‘Captain’s aid’, Farragut was ‘sickened’ to see ‘a boatswain’s mate [named Henry Kennedy]’ killed beside him. ‘His abdomen was taken entirely out’, he recalled, ‘and he expired in a few moments.’ Lieutenants McKnight and Odenheimer busied themselves returning fire. Loading the carronades on the larboard quarter, the only ones which could be brought to bear, with round and grape, they alternated their fire between the British hulls and rigging while Acting-Lieutenant Burr formed a squad of marines on the quarterdeck to snipe at the British officers. Porter was trying to get a spring rigged to his anchor cable to bring his broadside into action. Acting Sailing Master Barnewall and Boatswain Linscott attached a hawser to the anchor ring, but before it could be fastened to the capstan and hauled taut, it was shot through by the Phoebe’s long 18s. At 4.20 p.m. Barnewell and Linscott tried again, while lieutenants McKnight and Odenheimer ran three long 12s out of the stern ports. Hauling them down the centre of the gundeck, their crews opened fire.

  Half a gunshot away, the British were also suffering. Captain Tucker had received a ‘severe contusion’ to both legs soon after firing his first broadside. Whipping across the quarterdeck, the roundshot had also hit several marines. Private William Derbyshire was killed. Corporal John Edwards and Ernest Rafferty suffered minor injuries and joined their captain on Surgeon Ramsey’s operating table in the cockpit below. In Tucker’s absence the sloop drifted to leeward and passed out of carronade range. The Phoebe was also in difficulties. Burr’s marines were peppering the forecastle, spar and quarterdeck. Seven 32-pound shot had hulled the frigate between wind and water and several others had drilled through the waist. The sails and rigging had been badly torn by grape and the Essex’s long 12s were bringing accurate fire down on the frigate’s quarterdeck. Hillyar was concerned. The Phoebe was being blown close to shore, his shot appeared to be producing ‘no visible effect’ and, despite the fact that his gun captains had demonstrated accurate fire in cutting both of the Americans’ springs, the close range seemed to be playing towards his opponent. At 4.30 p.m. Hillyar ceased fire and gave the order to wear.

  Porter was pleased with the opening exchanges. Considering his disadvantageous position, the first twenty minutes had gone well. Both the Phoebe and the Cherub had received damage to their sails and rigging; although Captain Tucker had remerged from the cockpit, his sloop’s ‘top-sail sheets were flying away’ and the frigate’s mainsail was ‘much cut’, her jib boom was ‘badly wounded’ and her fore, main and mizzen stays had been ‘shot away’. To make matters worse, just as the Phoebe was coming to the wind on the larboard tack, a shot from one of the Essex’s long 12s ‘passed through several folds of … [her] mainsail’. Given the strong winds howling out of the south, the course could not be reset for several moments and with the jib similarly disabled, the Phoebe drifted out of contact while firing ‘a few random shot’. As Hillyar was forced to admit, ‘appearances were a little inauspicious’.

  The Essex had also received her fair share of damage. Over a dozen roundshot had gone through her hull, ‘the gaff, with the ensign and motto flag at the mizzen, had been shot away’, a number of guns had been disabled and ‘several men had been killed and wounded’, the majority in the first ten minutes before McKnight and Odenheimer had deployed the long 12s. In the cockpit, Doctors Hoffman and Montgomery and the ‘indefatigable’ Chaplain Adams were already up to their elbows in gore. Acting Lieutenant Cowell, who had been hit in the breast and his assistant Edward Barnewall, soon regained their positions on the quarterdeck, but others were killed by flying splinters while under the surgeons’ hands. Nevertheless, Farragut thought they had ‘suffered less than might have been expected’ and the officers and men ‘were nowise discouraged’, as Porter recalled. ‘All appeared determined to defend their ship to the last … and to die, in preference to a shameful surrender.’ A second ensign was ‘made fast in the mizzen rigging …, several jacks were hoisted in different parts of the ship’ and Porter had a third spring attached to the anchor cable. Tying it off at the capstan, the marines hauled the Essex broadside on. The Americans were ready for the second round.

  To the north the British were making repairs. In a feverish ten minutes, spare courses were set, torn rigging spliced and new spars hoisted to replace those damaged in the tops. At 4.40 p.m., Hillyar tacked and the Phoebe turned through the wind to face her opponent. The mainsail was furled and Tucker was signalled to come within shouting distance. Putting his speaking trumpet to his lips, Hillyar announced his intention to close to within long-range of his 18-pounders, anchor on a spring cable and pound the Americans into submission, while the Cherub was to keep under weigh ‘and take a convenient station for annoying’ the enemy. First Lieutenant Ingram was appalled. Believing ‘it was deliberate murder to lie off at long range and fi
re at [the Essex] like a target’, he ‘begged [his] Captain … to bear down and board [her]’ instead. Hillyar was unmoved. He refused to risk the lives of his men to satisfy a youngster’s lust for glory and at 4.50 p.m. the Phoebe began her second, measured approach towards the Essex’s starboard quarter.

  By now a crowd of locals had gathered on the bluff to watch the battle. As well as the nine daughters of Antonio Carrera, a cousin of José Miguel who owned a nearby hacienda, Acting Governor Formas and Joel Poinsett were present. At some stage, the American trade consul asked the acting governor to order his artillerymen to engage the British ships for contravening Chilean neutrality. With the United States’ influence declining with every shot, Formas refused to act.

  At 5.00 p.m. the wind dropped, a phenomenon Gardiner put down to the heat of the firing and it wasn’t until 5.25 p.m. that Hillyar could reengage with a pair of forecastle-mounted long 9s. Returning fire with the long 12s on his quarterdeck, one of Porter’s first shots struck the Phoebe’s taffrail. A cloud of jagged splinters scythed across the quarterdeck. One tore open William Ingram’s scalp. With blood gushing from the wound, the young First Lieutenant was carried below.

  The Phoebe’s fire, combined with the occasional shot from the Cherub’s two long 9s, was also causing casualties. Acting Lieutenant Cowell was shot through the leg. Rather than being taken below, he insisted on being ‘placed on the coamings of his hatchway, where he continued to give his orders’. By 5.15 p.m., seeing ‘no prospect of injuring [the enemy] without getting under weigh and becoming the assailant’, Porter ordered his men to set any sail they could. The task proved nigh-on impossible. ‘My top-sail sheets and haliards were all shot away, as well as the jib and fore-top-mast-staysail-halliards’, Porter explained, but ‘after many ineffectual attempts’ the flying-jib was hoisted. Ordering his cable cut, Porter bore down on the Phoebe to board her.

  With the Cherub unable to close due to the ‘light and baffling winds’, the Phoebe was taking all the Americans’ fire. A single 12-pounder had hulled her three feet below the waterline, the carriage of a 9-pounder bow chaser had been destroyed, one of the small-bore carronades in the tops had had its slide smashed, the fransom bolt on a gun deck 18-pounder was damaged and the main-masthead was ‘badly wounded’ below the first quarter. Three able seamen had been killed. Several others, including two marine privates, had been badly wounded and carried below and Ingram was barely conscious and still bleeding from his wound. Nevertheless, ‘the Almighty disposer of events’ seemed inclined to grant Hillyar victory. The Essex was crippled and although Tucker was taking little part in the fight, despite ‘using every exertion’, the Essex Junior, at anchor four miles to windward, was equally ineffective. While Porter could only fire a few long 12s, the Phoebe remained broadside-on. Double-shotting, the gun crews began hulling the Essex with every shot.

  By 5.30 p.m., American casualties were mounting. ‘The decks were … strewed with dead’, Porter recalled, ‘and our cockpit filled with wounded’. Farragut, racing round like ‘Paddy in the cat-harpins’, witnessed several fall. ‘While … standing near the Captain, just abaft the mainmast’, he recalled, ‘a shot came through the waterways and glanced upward.’ Four men, stood by the side of the gun, were killed instantly. The last was struck in the head. His brains smattered Porter and Farragut with gore. Unable to wear with just the one sail set, the Essex was drifting backwards towards the Phoebe, exposing the stern guns to her fire. At least ten of the men crewing them were killed and a dozen wounded, but by constantly replacing those that fell, lieutenants McKnight and Odenheimer were able to return the British fire.

  By 5.45 p.m. it was clear that Porter’s attempt to run aboard the Phoebe was futile. Although victory was now beyond his reach, the Bostonian refused to countenance surrender and decided to run his ship aground instead, thus allowing his men to escape capture. Luck had deserted him, however. With the Essex just a musket shot from shore, the wind began blowing off the land and swung the frigate’s bows round to face the Phoebe, exposing her to a ‘dreadful raking fire’. John Hughes, the fourteen-year-old boy recruited at Tumbez, had his right leg fractured; John Glasseau, a young Scot who had been with the Essex since the Delaware, was hit in the right shoulder with grape; and Able Seaman John Alvison was drilled through the body with an eighteen pound roundshot. He expired with the words ‘“free trade and sailors’ r-i-g-ht-s” … quivering on his lips’. Manning the bow guns, a young Scot named Thomas Bailey had his leg shot off close to the groin. ‘He used his handkerchief as a tourniquet’ and, bidding farewell to his messmates, leaned on the sill of the port and threw himself overboard. Acting Lieutenant Cowell had fainted from loss of blood and been carried below, while Edward Barnewall, his assistant, had been hit for a second time and joined his superior in the cockpit. Farragut, meanwhile, continued to lead a charmed life. ‘An old quarter master, named Francis Bland, was standing at the wheel when I saw a shot come over the fore-yard in such a direction that I thought it would strike him or me’ he recalled. ‘I told him to jump, at the same time pulling him toward me … [but] the shot took off his right leg.’

  At 5.50 p.m. Lieutenant Downes arrived from the Essex Junior. ‘[As] he could be of no use to me’, Porter recalled, ‘I directed him to return to his … ship, to be prepared for defending and destroying her in case of an attack. He took with him several of my wounded, leaving three of his boat’s crew on board to make room for them’. Downes’ acting lieutenant, William Kingsbury, was amongst those who ‘had insisted on ‘shar[ing] … the fate of his old Ship’. Downes also took some specie to the Essex Junior. Having captured considerable treasure during the cruise, Porter was determined it would not fall into Hillyar’s hands. The Bostonian then had one last attempt at confounding his enemy ordering Lieutenant Wilmer to deploy the sheet anchor with a spring in an effort to turn the Essex broadside on. No sooner had the young lieutenant succeeded, however, than he was knocked overboard by a splinter and drowned.

  By 6.00 p.m. the situation on the Essex was appalling. ‘Many of my guns had been rendered useless by the enemy’s shot’, Porter recalled, ‘and many … had their whole crews destroyed’. The hold was filling with water, fires had broken out both forward and aft and loose cartridges were exploding on the gun deck. Daniel Gardner was ‘blown up with powder’, ‘flames were bursting up each hatchway’ and several men’s clothes were set ablaze. Some were stripped by their comrades while William Kingsbury leapt overboard to douse the flames. Others continued to fall victim to the Phoebe’s guns. William Whitney, captain of the foretop, had his thigh broken and was wounded in the side; Peter Coddington was hit in the head; John Ripley, having lost a leg, apologised to his comrades that he could be no more use and hopped out of the bow port; and Able Seaman John Lazarro had his leg pierced with a dozen shards of shrapnel when the gun he was serving was struck by an 18-pound shot. To make matters worse, the cable Wilmer had set had parted and the Essex was drifting away from the shore.

  By 6.10 p.m. discipline had collapsed. Lieutenant Odenheimer had hidden deep in the hold and Quarter-Gunner Adam Roach had deserted his post. Found ‘skulking on the berth deck’, he was chased by Able Seaman William Cole dragging the ‘shattered stump’ of one of his legs behind him. Hearing of the incident, Porter ordered Farragut to execute Roach before his example spread, but the quarter-gunner escaped on the ship’s pinnace with six others before the midshipman could reach him. Moments later, Farragut saw ‘the Captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway … struck full in the face by an eighteen pound shot … [He] fell back on me’, the twelve-year-old recalled, ‘[and] we tumbled down the hatch together. I struck on my head and … he fell on my hips’. As Farragut returned to the quarterdeck, Porter was knocked down by a shot passing narrowly overhead. Fortunately for the Bostonian, the only injury received was to his hat.

  At 6.15 p.m. Porter convened an officers’ meeting on the quarterdeck. Lieutenant McKnight and Carpenter Langley were the only ones able to atten
d. ‘[The former] confirmed the report respecting the condition of the guns on the gun-deck’, Porter recalled, ‘[and] I was informed that the cock-pit, the steerage, the ward-room and the birth-deck, could contain no more wounded … and … unless something was speedily done … the ship would … sink from the number of shot holes in her bottom…. [Langley] … informed me that all his crew had been killed or wounded and that he had been once over the side to stop the leaks, when his slings had been shot away and it was with difficulty he was saved from drowning.’ Seeing no other options left open, Porter decided the game was up and gave the survivors permission to abandon ship. Roughly eighty men complied. The Essex’s three remaining boats were soon full. The rest leapt overboard. Braving the icy water and strong currents, they struck out for the beach three-quarters of a mile away.

  At 6.20 p.m. Porter gave the order to strike. The ensign was hauled down, but as a motto flag was still flying, the Phoebes fired ‘several more broadsides’. Meanwhile, Farragut was ordered to ensure Lieutenant Odenheimer had destroyed the ship’s signal book. ‘I could not find him … for some time’, he recalled, ‘but at last saw the [book] … lying on the sill of a port and dashed it into the sea.’ Farragut and Midshipman Isaacs then began throwing small arms overboard to prevent them falling into enemy hands, while Porter destroyed several parts of his journal and the ship’s log and muster roll. All the while the Phoebe’s shot came crashing in. Four men were killed at Porter’s side after the order to strike and eleven others fell below decks. Eventually, a man was ordered to scramble up the rigging and haul down the offending banner. ‘A shot took him, Flag & all, just as he was in the act of striking it’, Samuel Thornton recalled. It was 6.30 p.m. The Battle of Valparaiso was over.

  Blinking through the gun smoke, their ears ringing from repeated concussion, it took the Phoebes a moment to realise they had won. Hillyar ordered the small bower deployed to stop the frigate drifting further off shore, had the sails furled and sent Second Lieutenant Pearson and Acting Midshipman Thornton with twenty men and two petty officers to take possession of the prize. ‘Nothing was to be seen all over [the Essex’s] decks, but dead, wounded & dying’, Thornton recalled. ‘We threw 63 overboard … & there were several wounded that it would have been a mercy to do the same to. One poor fellow, who had his thigh shot off, managed to crawl to a Port, & tumble himself into the water.’ Several others decided to take their own lives. Dressing himself up in ‘a clean shirt and jerkin’, Able Seaman Benjamin Hazen, a married man from ‘Groton[,] … addressed his remaining mess-mates … telling them he could never submit to be[ing] a prisoner of the English, [and] threw himself into the sea’, while Ruff, Lieutenant Wilmer’s ‘negro boy, deliberately jumped [overboard] and was drowned’. After berating Porter for allowing his men to flee the ship, Lieutenant Pearson demanded the Bostonian’s sword. ‘That sir’, Porter replied, ‘is reserved for your master.’