by Dean King
While some of the men were bending the fore and main sail, the fore, main and mizzen-top sails were bent; main-top-mast and middle and topgallant stay sails bent; jib and spanker bent; mizzen-stay-sail, top sails, top gallant halyards rove, fore and main braces rove; likewise all the running rigging that was necessary. All this was done by sun set. On the 25th, one-half the ship’s company was employed on one side of the ship taking on guns, while the other half, on the other side, the larboard, were taking in provisions, stores and water.
On the 26th, she was complete and ready for sea and on the 28th, of the same month, she joined the Channel fleet. To explain the manner in which they rig a ship so quickly, the reader will understand that the rigging is already fitted in the dock yard, before the ship is launched. All they have to do is put it in a lighter, bring it alongside and put it in its place.
I must here make mention of our crew which our captain was so loath to part with; he applied to the Admiralty and got a grant to keep them in the temporary hulk for three months, expecting that his ship would be over-hauled and ready to sail at the end of that time. However, the ship carpenters found her hull so rotten that she was obliged to undergo six months repairs. The crew was accordingly drafted.
It is a courtesy that is always extended to captains to allow them to keep their own boat’s crew. When our crew was drafted away, the captain chose to keep the band instead. So we were sent aboard the St. Salvadore, a guard ship, to await his pleasure. Now she had been a Spanish ship of 120 guns which the British had captured. She had on board 1,750 men, including prisoners. Here we were to tarry, I mean the band, until our captain was ready for sea. I went on board this ship March 7, 1812, and left her February 19, 1813.
On June 18, 1812, war broke out between the United States and Britain. Durand complained bitterly about the unfair treatment of American sailors serving in the Royal Navy during the war. Against his will, he served through 1815 and even saw service in American waters. In his memoir, he reported that he was threatened with hanging, put in irons, and kept on water and maggoty bread for refusing to take part on the attack on Stonington, Connecticut.
1 In 1807, Durand was on board an American merchant brig that ran the British blockade of France. As the brig was leaving Belle Isle, France, bound for the West Indies, she was taken by the British frigate Shannon.
2 British Navy officers seemed to hold a high opinion of Americans as fighting men. Frequent comments are made, although sometimes in a sneering tone, of the capabilities of the Yankees as fighters and navigators. But Michael Scott (“Tom Cringle’s Log”—Blackwood’s Magazine, 1829–1830) gave an estimate which is worth repeating.
Scott, born in Glasgow in 1789, lived in Jamaica, the West Indies, for many years. He was a careful observer and shrewd commentator upon men and events between 1806 and 1817. “More of contemporary life can be learned from Scott than from all the official papers and documents of the time” (Adams).
“I don’t like Americans,” Scott said. “I never did and I never shall. I have seldom met an American gentleman, in the large and complete sense of the term. I have no wish to eat with them, drink with them, deal or consort with them in any way. But let me tell the whole truth—nor to fight with them, were it not for the laurels to be acquired by overcoming an enemy so brave, determined, alert and in every way so worthy of one’s steel as they have always proved.
“In the field, or grappling in mortal combat on the blood-slippery quarter deck of an enemy’s vessel, a British soldier or sailor is the bravest of the brave. No soldier or sailor of any country, saving and excepting always those damned Yankees, can stand against them.”
(The italics and punctuation do not appear in the original.)
3 Durand was not the only American prisoner who was found “too good to be discharged.”
“The British were keen to impress American sailors, who proved themselves the best seamen in the King’s Navy. For that reason the British were loath to abandon their practice of search and seizure” (Lossing).
Part IV
The Napoleonic War, Continued, and the War of 1812
Samuel Leech
HMS Macedonian vs. USS United States
1812
THE WAR BETWEEN BRITAIN and the United States was not one of great fleet actions. In fact, the fledgling U.S. Navy had no fleet of line-of-battle ships. In that sense, King George III’s Royal Navy, perhaps the most dominant naval force in history, was forced to fight down a level and on relatively equal terms. While the big ships of the Royal Navy blockaded the U.S. coast unchallenged, it was Britain’s frigates that would do the high-profile fighting. The U.S. Navy did have powerfully built, heavy frigates. At first, the proud, fighting frigate captains of the British Navy did not realize or would not acknowledge that they were simply outgunned by the large U.S. frigates.
Samuel Leech, R.N., fought in the brutal October 25, 1812, battle between the 38-gun HMS Macedonian, commanded by Captain John Surman Garden, and the 44-gun USS United States, Commodore Stephen Decatur. Leech’s valuable account of this classic mismatch is one of the most telling of a naval action of the time. It lacks the characteristic reserve of the period. His honest introspection and grim detail paint a darker, more realistic picture than is normally the case.
AT PLYMOUTH we heard some vague rumors of a declaration of war against America. More than this, we could not learn, since the utmost care was taken to prevent our being fully informed. The reason of this secrecy was, probably, because we had several Americans in our crew, most of whom were pressed men, as before stated. These men, had they been certain that war had broken out, would have given themselves up as prisoners of war, and claimed exemption from that unjust service, which compelled them to act with the enemies of their country. This was a privilege which the magnanimity of our officers ought to have offered them. They had already perpetrated a grievous wrong upon them in impressing them; it was adding cruelty to injustice to compel their service in a war against their own nation. But the difficulty with naval officers is, that they do not treat with a sailor as with a man. They know what is fitting between each other as officers; but they treat their crews on another principle; they are apt to look at them as pieces of living mechanism, born to serve, to obey their orders, and administer to their wishes without complaint. This is alike a bad morality and a bad philosophy. There is often more real manhood in the forecastle than in the ward-room; and until the common sailor is treated as a man, until every feeling of human nature is conceded to him in naval discipline—perfect, rational subordination will never be attained in ships of war, or in merchant vessels. It is needless to tell of the intellectual degradation of the mass of seamen. “A man’s a man for a’ that;” and it is this very system of discipline, this treating them as automatons, which keeps them degraded. When will human nature put more confidence in itself?
Leaving Plymouth, we next anchored, for a brief space, at Torbay, a small port in the British Channel. We were ordered thence to convoy a huge East India merchant vessel, much larger than our frigate and having five hundred troops on board, bound to the East Indies with money to pay the troops stationed there. We set sail in a tremendous gale of wind. Both ships stopped two days at Madeira to take in wine and a few other articles. After leaving this island, we kept her company two days more; and then, according to orders, having wished her success, we left her to pursue her voyage, while we returned to finish our cruise.
Though without any positive information, we now felt pretty certain that our government was at war with America. Among other things, our captain appeared more anxious than usual; he was on deck almost all the time; the “look-out” aloft was more rigidly observed; and every little while the cry of “Mast-head there!” arrested our attention.
It is customary in men of war to keep men at the fore and main mastheads, whose duty it is to give notice of every new object that may appear. They are stationed in the royal yards, if they are up, but if not, on the topgallant yards: at night a
look-out is kept on the fore yard only.
Thus we passed several days; the captain running up and down and constantly hailing the man at the mast-head: early in the morning he began his charge “to keep a good look-out,” and continued to repeat it until night. Indeed, he seemed almost crazy with some pressing anxiety. The men felt there was something anticipated, of which they were ignorant; and had the captain heard all their remarks upon his conduct, he would not have felt very highly flattered. Still, everything went on as usual; the day was spent in the ordinary duties of man-of-war life, and the evening in telling stories of things most rare and wonderful; for your genuine old tar is an adept in spinning yarns, and some of them, in respect to variety and length, might safely aspire to a place beside the great magician of the north, Sir Walter Scott, or any of those prolific heads that now bring forth such abundance of fiction to feed a greedy public, who read as eagerly as our men used to listen. To this yarn-spinning was added the most humorous singing, sometimes dashed with a streak of the pathetic, which I assure my readers was most touching; especially one very plaintive melody, with a chorus beginning with,
“Now if our ship should be cast away,
It would be our lot to see old England no more,”
which made rather a melancholy impression on my boyish mind, and gave rise to a sort of presentiment that the Macedonian would never return home again; a presentiment which had its fulfilment in a manner totally unexpected to us all. The presence of a shark for several days, with its attendant pilot fish, tended to strengthen this prevalent idea.
The Sabbath came, and it brought with it a stiff breeze. We usually made a sort of holiday of this sacred day. After breakfast it was common to muster the entire crew on the spar deck, dressed as the fancy of the captain might dictate; sometimes in blue jackets and white trowsers, or blue jackets and blue trowsers; at other times in blue jackets, scarlet vests, and blue or white trowsers with our bright anchor buttons glancing in the sun, and our black, glossy hats, ornamented with black ribbons, and with the name of our ship painted on them. After muster, we frequently had church service read by the captain; the rest of the day was devoted to idleness. But we were destined to spend the Sabbath, just introduced to the reader, in a very different manner.
We had scarcely finished breakfast, before the man at the mast-head shouted, “Sail ho!”
The captain rushed upon deck, exclaiming, “Mast-head there!”
“Sir!”
“Where away is the sail?”
The precise answer to this question I do not recollect, but the captain proceeded to ask, “What does she look like?”
“A square-rigged vessel, sir,” was the reply of the look-out.
After a few minutes, the captain shouted again, “Mast-head there!”
“Sir!”
“What does she look like?”
“A large ship, sir, standing toward us!”
By this time, most of the crew were on deck, eagerly straining their eyes to obtain a glimpse of the approaching ship and murmuring their opinions to each other on her probable character. Then came the voice of the captain, shouting, “Keep silence, fore and aft!” Silence being secured, he hailed the look-out, who, to his question of “What does she look like?” replied, “A large frigate, bearing down upon us, sir!”
A whisper ran along the crew that the stranger ship was a Yankee frigate. The thought was confirmed by the command of “All hands clear the ship for action, ahoy!” The drum and fife beat to quarters; bulk-heads were knocked away; the guns were released from their confinement; the whole dread paraphernalia of battle was produced; and after the lapse of a few minutes of hurry and confusion, every man and boy was at his post, ready to do his best service for his country, except the band, who, claiming exemption from the affray, safely stowed themselves away in the cable tier. We had only one sick man on the list, and he, at the cry of battle, hurried from his cot, feeble as he was, to take his post of danger. A few of the junior midshipmen were stationed below, on the berth deck, with orders, given in our hearing, to shoot any man who attempted to run from his quarters.
Our men were all in good spirits; though they did not scruple to express the wish that the coming foe was a Frenchman rather than a Yankee. We had been told, by the Americans on board, that frigates in the American service carried more and heavier metal than ours. This, together with our consciousness of superiority over the French at sea, led us to a preference for a French antagonist.
The Americans among our number felt quite disconcerted at the necessity which compelled them to fight against their own countrymen. One of them, named John Card, as brave a seaman as ever trod a plank, ventured to present himself to the captain, as a prisoner, frankly declaring his objections to fight. That officer, very ungenerously, ordered him to his quarters, threatening to shoot him if he made the request again. Poor fellow! He obeyed the unjust command and was killed by a shot from his own countrymen. This fact is more disgraceful to the captain of the Macedonian than even the loss of his ship. It was a gross and a palpable violation of the rights of man.
As the approaching ship showed American colors, all doubt of her character was at an end. “We must fight her,” was the conviction of every breast. Every possible arrangement that could insure success was accordingly made. The guns were shotted; the matches lighted; for, although our guns were all furnished with first-rate locks they were also provided with matches, attached by lanyards, in case the lock should miss fire. A lieutenant then passed through the ship, directing the marines and boarders, who were furnished with pikes, cutlasses, and pistols, how to proceed if it should be necessary to board the enemy. He was followed by the captain, who exhorted the men to fidelity and courage, urging upon their consideration the well-known motto of the brave Nelson, “England expects every man to do his duty.” In addition to all these preparations on deck, some men were stationed in the tops with small-arms, whose duty it was to attend to trimming the sails and to use their muskets, provided we came to close action. There were others also below, called sail trimmers, to assist in working the ship should it be necessary to shift her position during the battle.
My station was at the fifth gun on the main deck. It was my duty to supply my gun with powder, a boy being appointed to each gun in the ship on the side we engaged, for this purpose. A woollen screen was placed before the entrance to the magazine, with a hole in it, through which the cartridges were passed to the boys; we received them there, and covering them with our jackets, hurried to our respective guns. These precautions are observed to prevent the powder taking fire before it reaches the gun.
Thus we all stood, awaiting orders, in motionless suspense. At last we fired three guns from the larboard side of the main deck; this was followed by the command, “Cease firing; you are throwing away your shot!”
Then came the order to “wear ship,” and prepare to attack the enemy with our starboard guns. Soon after this I heard a firing from some other quarter, which I at first supposed to be a discharge from our quarter deck guns; though it proved to be the roar of the enemy’s cannon.
A strange noise, such as I had never heard before, next arrested my attention; it sounded like the tearing of sails, just over our heads. This I soon ascertained to be the wind of the enemy’s shot. The firing, after a few minutes’ cessation, recommenced. The roaring of cannon could now be heard from all parts of our trembling ship, and, mingling as it did with that of our foes, it made a most hideous noise. By-and-by I heard the shot strike the sides of our ship; the whole scene grew indescribably confused and horrible; it was like some awfully tremendous thunder-storm, whose deafening roar is attended by incessant streaks of lightning, carrying death in every flash and strewing the ground with the victims of its wrath: only, in our case, the scene was rendered more horrible than that, by the presence of torrents of blood which dyed our decks.
Though the recital may be painful, yet, as it will reveal the horrors of war and show at what a fearful price a victory
is won or lost, I will present the reader with things as they met my eye during the progress of this dreadful fight. I was busily supplying my gun with powder, when I saw blood suddenly fly from the arm of a man stationed at our gun. I saw nothing strike him; the effect alone was visible; in an instant, the third lieutenant tied his handkerchief round the wounded arm, and sent the groaning wretch below to the surgeon.
The cries of the wounded now rang through all parts of the ship. These were carried to the cockpit as fast as they fell, while those more fortunate men, who were killed outright, were immediately thrown overboard. As I was stationed but a short distance from the main hatchway, I could catch a glance at all who were carried below. A glance was all I could indulge in, for the boys belonging to the guns next to mine were wounded in the early part of the action, and I had to spring with all my might to keep three or four guns supplied with cartridges. I saw two of these lads fall nearly together. One of them was struck in the leg by a large shot; he had to suffer amputation above the wound. The other had a grape or canister shot sent through his ancle. A stout Yorkshireman lifted him in his arms and hurried him to the cockpit. He had his foot cut off, and was thus made lame for life. Two of the boys stationed on the quarter deck were killed. They were both Portuguese. A man, who saw one of them killed, afterwards told me that his powder caught fire and burnt the flesh almost off his face. In this pitiable situation, the agonized boy lifted up both hands, as if imploring relief, when a passing shot instantly cut him in two.
I was an eye-witness to a sight equally revolting. A man named Aldrich had one of his hands cut off by a shot, and almost at the same moment he received another shot, which tore open his bowels in a terrible manner. As he fell, two or three men caught him in their arms, and, as he could not live, threw him overboard.
One of the officers in my division also fell in my sight. He was a noble-hearted fellow, named Nan Kivell. A grape or canister shot struck him near the heart: exclaiming, “Oh! my God!” he fell, and was carried below, where he shortly after died.