Elizabeth busied herself with the baby, and ignored her “worrisome” husband. Soon she was caught up in the excitement and spirit of the crowd around them, and forgot about his dire misgivings. In the distance, the people could see the sails of the British frigate, dingy and sea-stained as she headed on a southerly course to cut off the American. The fight could only be a few hours away, and people excitedly pointed out various features of both ships, and spoke most positively of the anticipated results of the conflict. A few of the people on the hillside opened hampers, and spread out picnics on their blankets, making a festive atmosphere even more so. Of course there were ample spirits flowing as the men wagered on the rapidity with which Captain Lawrence would bring the British to heel.
* * * * * *
Robert Coleman and Jake Tate, both aloft on the main tops’l yard, watched the chaos on deck as landsmen and seamen from Constitution tried unsuccessfully to merge with the Chesapeakes of the last cruise to make a cohesive, functional unit. Confusion reigned and Bosun Clements, along with the freshly minted lieutenants and the few midshipmen, harangued and bullied them without regard to their backgrounds. Ahead and to the north, the topmen could see quite plainly their adversary, some fifteen miles off, and sailing south on the starboard tack.
“Robert, I got a real bad feelin’ ‘bout this. Cap’n Lawrence is astrainin’ at his lines to take on that frigate yonder. I can’t figger how this bunch of misfits gonna be able to fight without they ain’t had no time to learn even where they’s stations at when quarters is sounded.”
“Aye, Jake. I’m with you there, lad, but at least we got mostly a full crew. Though God alone knows where they come from. That bunch from Constitution what come over with Tim seems to know what they’re about, but this ain’t Constitution, and I’m guessin’ that they gonna be needin’ some time to…”
“Aloft there! Stations to set stu’ns’ls fore an’ main.” The bosun’s voice floated up to the men perched on the yards as already the necessary spars were being swayed into position. Coleman shook his head.
“Crowding on more canvas so we can close with ‘em faster. Seems like this breeze is fadin’ on top of it. All right men, let’s get that stu’ns’l yard set. They’ll be sendin’ up the canvas quick as ever they can, you can be sure.”
The topman’s observation on the wind was right on the mark; it was indeed dropping and the frigate’s speed with it. As they finished with the additional sails, the topmen could hear the piped call for dinner and grog and, to a man, as they climbed down or slid down the backstay, each thought there might be a reprieve from what they had feared would be their destiny. Tate voiced it for all of them.
“Mebbe with this wind dyin’ off like it be, we ain’t gonna be up with ‘em afore dark, an’ we can slip by without they’s seein’ us. Get us up toward Nova Scotia an’ take some merchant prizes afore we haveta fight one o’ they’s frigates.”
“Have a look, would ya, at them wee vessels what’s followin’ us out. Lookin’ for a show, I’d reckon. Must be three score an’ more.” The topmen heard their old shipmate, gunner’s mate Tim Conoughy, talking to another as they made their way forward to the mess. Tim’s Irish brogue was instantly recognizable, and Coleman caught up to him.
“Tim, you old dog, what of the guns? Any of ‘em able to fire?” The continuing good-natured controversy between the gunners and the topmen would never cease, even in the face of an upcoming engagement. The comment was tinged with a nervous laugh and a forced smile.
“Well Robert, I surely do hope so, or your arse up yonder won’t be worth a tin shillin’. Without my guns, you lot aloft there won’t be seein’ a friendly face for a while, I’d warrant. If that frigate really is Shannon like what the lads say, I’d say you better be prayin’ real ‘ard that my guns, and the others as well, be workin’ right perfect.” The Irish gunner’s face split into a broad grin as he clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “With all that canvas you got set up there – royals and stu’ns’ls, indeed – we’re surely ‘eadin’ pell mell right into the devil’s maw as quick as ever Cap’n Lawrence can take us. I hope ‘e don’t think ‘e’s back on Hornet takin’ on the little Peacock. These lads’ll fight, but they need time on the guns.”
Dinner was a quiet affair; the men finished their meal and grog, and in twos and threes, drifted back onto the spar deck, watching the British frigate draw closer, as the fleet of small craft which followed the American ship set more sail to keep up, not wanting to miss a second of the upcoming action. The men formerly of Constellation and before that, the privateer Glory, stood at the weather bulwark on the fo’c’sle, each lost in his own private thoughts. Clements looked aloft and spoke for the first time.
“You think Cap’n Lawrence’s afraid o’ havin’ the ensign shot down? He’s got three of ‘em flyin’. Lookee there, will ya…there’s one up on the mizzen royal ‘s’well as one at the peak o’ the gaff. And there, even on the main yard he’s got one.”
“Aye, Jack, but that one for’ard gonna get some attention from them Brits – “Free Trade an’ Sailors’ Rights.” Ain’t seen that one afore. Course, I ain’t been in the Navy long, neither.” Tate pointed at the fore royal masthead as he spoke and his mates followed his finger to the large white flag inscribed with the slogan that had become the battle-cry of the past year. No one else spoke; they, with most of the others on deck, were deep within themselves, and the ship, save for the gentle sounds of the wind through the rigging and the water hissing quietly by below, was shrouded in an eerie silence. The two men-o’-war continued to close.
At a few minutes before five o’clock, Captain Lawrence gave the order to shorten down, and the topmen scrambled aloft to hand the royals, t’gallants and stu’ns’ls. The royal yards and stu’ns’l booms were lowered to the deck. They could see Shannon had altered her course to the southeast and also reduced sail to jib, tops’ls and spanker, her fighting sail, a clear indication of what was to come. The ships were some fifteen miles off Boston Light and still separated by more than five miles. Chesapeake beat to quarters and ran out her guns. From his station aloft, Robert Coleman heard the familiar beat of “Heart of Oak” drifting faintly across the water as the British frigate followed suit, and he recalled his years in the Royal Navy.
The Shannon, showing the effects of long periods at sea without a major refit, looked shabby. Her sides were now a dull black, streaked with salt and a year’s worth of crud, the yellow band below her gun ports had faded badly, and her sails were yellowed and stained from countless days patrolling the New England coast. For a brief minute, Coleman hoped that the poor appearance might be an indication of her fighting ability, but quickly realized the opposite would likely hold true; if she had been so long at sea, her crew must be trained and capable and he silently prayed that the Chesapeakes would be up to the task ahead.
A forward wind’ard gun fired suddenly on the American ship, a signal they intended to fight, and Shannon immediately answered it, then hauled her wind and hove to, waiting for them to engage. Coleman and Tate, both assigned as breech haulers on the number fourteen gun, jumped as the sound reverberated on the quiet sea. Orders came from the quarterdeck to change sails as the wind backed to the southwesterly and freshened. Shannon was now also making a sail change and turned back to the south, paralleling the American’s course and just within the range of an eighteen-pounder long gun. After his ship had way on, the British captain ordered the spanker brailed up and again lay to, waiting to the American to make the first move.
“Would you look at that, Jake. That bastard’s just waitin’ for us.” Coleman was incredulous at the action of the British frigate and mentally compared what he saw with what he imagined Captain Winston of HMS Orpheus, his last Royal Navy frigate, might have done. Winston, he reckoned, would have gone straight at ‘em and begun firing as quick as his guns could find the range. This captain and his shabby vessel were playing at something he didn’t understand. And Lawrence held the weather gauge. Th
e topmen returned to their gun posts – and waited.
“Looks like we’re gonna bear off some, then round up under ‘er stern and rake ‘er, by God! Watch, Jake, and you’ll likely see something glorious to be’old.” Coleman had enough experience in naval battles to recognize what would happen. But it didn’t.
At a few minutes before six o’clock, at a distance within easy musket range, a shot from one of the Shannon marines in British maintop rang out. And Lawrence’s voice from Chesapeake’s quarterdeck followed before the sound had faded, heard clearly fore and aft. “FIRE AS SHE BEARS, LADS! PEACOCK HER! PEACOCK HER!” Gun fourteen spoke first and put a ball into the stern of their quarry. A cheer rose from the crew as they saw their shot go home.
Lawrence realized as he gave the order to fire that Chesapeake was going fast enough to pass by the English ship before he could fire a full broadside. In the next breath, he ordered his ship luffed up some instead of bearing off to pass behind his enemy, to enable the American ship to fire an unanswerable raking broadside. As Chesapeake’s sails shivered, a full broadside from Shannon rent the air, filling the short distance between the two with dense smoke, splinters and screams. The battle had become general and the ships tore at each other in a deafening cacophony of thunderous claps of cannon fire, shattering yellow pine bulwarks, screams of wounded and dying men, and falling rigging.
With Shannon’s second broadside, Chesapeake’s jib sheets were cut, her fore tops’l chains shot away allowing the yard to drop into the lifts, and her spanker brails were likewise cut. The spanker billowed out against the rigging and, in combination with the loss of his jibs, prevented Lawrence from passing out of stays and regaining way on his ship. Worse, however, was the loss of his wheel; in a cloud of splinters and blood, the great wheel had simply disappeared, the two helmsmen with it. And the American frigate hung helplessly in stays, her larboard quarter exposed to the Shannon’s raking fire. Lawrence’s misadventure had enabled the English captain to gain a telling advantage and fire unanswerable raking broadsides into Chesapeake’s stern and quarter.
Hopelessly in stays, the Chesapeake began to slip astern, her whole deck vulnerable to the deadly, accurate fire from Shannon. The British captain had ordered grape and canister shot along with the ball, intending to win the day by decimating the crew rather than destroying the vessel. It told. The carnage was terrible; more than fifty men were killed immediately and over seventy were wounded. Guns dismounted from their carriages along the larboard side of the ship as British shot hammered in bulwarks and then the guns themselves. The American decks ran thick with gore; blood and unidentifiable bits of flesh spattered remaining bulwarks, masts, and gun carriages. The dead and wounded lay where they landed, hands unable to get them below to the surgeon quickly enough. The sand spread to provide traction on slippery blood-soaked decks had been washed away by the gore and was ineffective; the scuppers released a steady stream of crimson into the sea.
Tim Conoughy’s number eight gun flew into the air as an eighteen-pound ball scored a direct hit. More than half his crew lay dead with two seriously wounded. Conoughy, spared through pure luck as he stepped away to grab a fresh linstock from the sand bucket, picked up one of the wounded and moved him gently to the foot of the foremast. The words he shouted to the man over the din went unheard; he was already dead. Conoughy saw he was needed on number twelve and moved quickly to help, replacing the gun captain killed by musket fire from the maintop of Shannon. He grabbed a sailor standing in stunned immobility by a fire bucket and roughly shoved him toward the after breeching tackle on the gun. He quickly organized what was left of the crew and tried to sight the gun at the bow of the British frigate. It would not bear and the Irishman ran aft, looking to find a gun that would help the American cause. He saw his ship was crippled, in stays, and desperately wounded. He caught up with Lieutenants Cox and Blanchard, both heading for the quarterdeck and spattered with the blood of their gun crews, just as another broadside thundered out from Shannon.
The trio reached the quarterdeck where Captain Lawrence, blood running from a wound in his shoulder, was trying unsuccessfully to regain control of his ship just as a marksman’s ball fired from the foretop of Shannon struck him in the stomach. He fell and Cox, seeing his beloved commander down, rushed to his side. First Lieutenant Augustus Ludlow, himself wounded and bleeding, shouted to Cox.
“Get him below and then get back to your post. See the surgeon gets to him quick as he can. You there, gunners mate, lend a hand with Cap’n Lawrence.”
The ship slipped backwards and, with a grinding crunch heard over the now almost continuous British cannon fire, fouled her larboard aft channel and mizzen shrouds in Shannon’s starboard bow anchor. The two were joined. Men moved quickly on the fo’c’sle of the British ship to secure the two so the fouled American could not get away.
Lieutenant Cox and Gunners Mate Conoughy carried the twice-wounded Lawrence to the companionway. The captain called out, “Don’t give up the ship, lads; fight her as long as she will swim!” They took him below to the surgeons where he repeated again and again his orders, “Never surrender; don’t give up the ship!”
On deck, the forward guns of Shannon continued to pour a staggering fire into the helpless American; not one of the Chesapeake’s guns spoke in return. Those that weren’t dismounted either would not bear or had no crew to man them. Aloft, marksmen on both ships fired into the deck of the other, killing and wounding sailors and officers alike. But the men on Chesapeake bore the brunt of the punishment, falling dead or wounded like leaves before the gale.
On the American quarterdeck, First Lieutenant Ludlow saw an opportunity. He cried out for seaman Brown to blow the bugle Lawrence had given him and then bellowed, “Boarders, boarders away! Board ‘em lads and we’ll carry the day!”
Brown was unable to draw a single note from the instrument and Ludlow’s command went unheard in the horrendous din of the battle. And the young lieutenant fell, wounded more severely this time by a splinter thrown up from the railing of the quarterdeck. He was carried below as British boarders responded to their captain who was rallying his own boarding party on Shannon’s fo’c’sle with the cry, “Follow me who can!”
The British sailors, officers, and midshipmen rallied behind their captain who had leaped onto Shannon’s railing and, without a look behind him, scrambled over Chesapeake’s shattered bulwark and onto the quarterdeck brandishing his sword and pistol. As he landed on the American ship, he dispatched a seaman who blocked his way and then another with an efficiency born of years with the sword. Nearly fifty Shannons followed, including the first lieutenant and two midshipmen. What remained of the Chesapeakes were driven forward and off the quarterdeck in fierce hand-to-hand fighting.
Coleman and Tate, freed from their unserviceable gun and with no chores aloft, grabbed up cutlasses from the rack at the foot of the mainmast and ran to the spardeck.
“Jake! Keep an eye out for Mister Blanchard, lad; ‘e’ll know what to do. Watch to your left…oh my God…throw me that pike…oh God…Jake, back up, they’s more comin’…” The scream of wounded men from both sides of the fray, mixed with the ring of steel on steel and underscored by the now sporadic musket firing drowned out most of Coleman’s words. He and Jake fought side by side, gradually driven forward along Chesapeake’s spar deck.
“Robert…I am hit! Oh God, it hurts…my arm…” Tate screamed for his mate as he fell against the mainmast, clutching what remained of his shattered right arm. His cutlass clattered to the deck as two British seamen, seeing him go down, left him and moved on forward immediately engaging the next American sailors they encountered. Coleman ran to his friend’s side.
“’Ang on there, Jake. I’ll get you below. The surgeon’ll take care o’ that quick as you please.” Robert struggled to pick up his wounded American shipmate with his free hand and dragged him toward a companionway. The hatch was blocked with American sailors fighting hand-to-hand with British and making heavy weather of it
. Robert set Jake down by the starboard bulwark and leaped into the melee. Jack Clements, blood spattered over his bare arms and shirt-front, was in the thick of it, wielding a discharged pistol like a cudgel and cracking British skulls as fast as he could swing. Still, the Americans gave ground.
Suddenly a cheer went up from the quarterdeck, followed almost at once by a thunderous roar of British cannon fire. Coleman, Clements, and the other Americans stopped in mid-stride to look aft. The Blue Ensign of the Royal Navy had been raised to the mizzen peak, below the American flag.
Seeing the visible indication of an American triumph Bosun Clements cried out, “We’re carryin’ ‘em boys, keep it up.” He emphasized his words by landing the butt of his pistol on a convenient head and laid out an enemy midshipman who went down without a sound. A cutlass flashed in the rays of the late afternoon sun and Clements let out a mighty roar as the blade neatly sliced off the majority of his right ear; blood poured out and mingled with the blood of others covering his arms and shirt. The bosun whirled, seeking his attacker, and the action saved him from another stroke of the cutlass. He parried with the pistol and kicked out with his left foot. The blow doubled the sailor over and Clements followed his kick with a stroke to the back of the man’s head with the barrel of his spent pistol. Suddenly the deafening thunder of the cannonading was gone; the silence gradually became complete to the deafened seamen as even the clash of steel and wood ended as the men realized that the battle was over. The mistake with the flags had been corrected. Now the Blue Ensign of the Royal Navy flew above the American flag.
A Fine Tops'l Breeze: Volume Two in the War of 1812 Trilogy Page 17