The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  What Leech did not see from his station at the guns was that, try as he might, Captain Carden could not manoeuvre his ship to make his broadsides effective. The American ship was so skilfully handled that whichever way the British ship turned, the United States was always off the bow, from where successive broadsides shot the Macedonian to pieces. All Leech could see, from his position, was the mounting devastation: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 below 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 . . . 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.16

  Minute after minute the fighting continued, and all Leech could see were increasing casualties and the ship being destroyed:The battle went on. Our men kept cheering with all their might. I cheered with them, though I confess I scarcely knew for what. Certainly there was nothing very inspiriting in the aspect of things where I was stationed. So terrible had been the work of destruction round us, it was termed the slaughter-house. Not only had we had several boys and men killed or wounded, but several of the guns were disabled. The one I belonged to had a piece of the muzzle knocked out; and when the ship rolled, it struck a beam of the upper deck with such force as to become jammed and fixed in that position . . .The schoolmaster received a death wound. The brave boatswain, who came from the sick bay to the din of battle, was fastening a stopper on a back-stay which had been shot away, when his head was smashed to pieces by a cannon-ball; another man, going to complete the unfinished task, was also struck down . . . Even a poor goat, kept by the officers for her milk, did not escape the general carnage; her hind legs were shot off, and poor Nan was thrown overboard.17

  After over an hour of close-range conflict, the firing abruptly stopped, and Leech learned that the United States had pulled away to carry out repairs. The Macedonian was an unmanageable wreck, and by the time the American ship returned, Captain Carden decided to surrender. Leech now had time to reflect on his own reactions:I have often been asked what were my feelings during this fight. I felt pretty much as I suppose every one does at such a time. That men are without thought when they stand amid the dying and the dead, is too absurd an idea to be entertained a moment. We all appeared cheerful, but I know that many a serious thought ran through my mind: still, what could we do but keep up a semblance, at least, of animation? To run from our quarters would have been certain death from the hands of our own officers; to give way to gloom, or to show fear, would do no good, and might brand us with the name of cowards, and ensure certain defeat. Our only true philosophy, therefore, was to make the best of our situation, by fighting bravely and cheerfully.18

  Now that the fighting had ceased and the ship had surrendered, the initiative passed to the Americans. Leech went below to help the wounded:Pursuing my way to the ward-room, I necessarily passed through the steerage, which was strewed with the wounded: it was a sad spectacle, made more appalling by the moans and cries which rent the air. Some were groaning, others were swearing most bitterly, a few were praying, while those last arrived were begging most piteously to have their wounds dressed next. The surgeon and his mate were smeared with blood from head to foot: they looked more like butchers than doctors . . . I now set to work to render all the aid in my power to the sufferers. Our carpenter, named Reed, had his leg cut off. I helped to carry him to the after ward-room; but he soon breathed out his life there, and then I assisted in throwing his mangled remains overboard. We got out the cots as fast as possible; for most of them were stretched out on the gory deck. One poor fellow who lay with a broken thigh, begged me to give him water. I gave him some. He looked unutterable gratitude, drank, and died. It was with exceeding difficulty I moved through the steerage, it was so covered with mangled men, and so slippery with streams of blood. There was a poor boy there crying as if his heart would break. He had been servant to the bold boatswain, whose head was dashed to pieces. Poor boy! he felt that he had lost a friend.19

  As he moved around the wounded and helped throw the dead overboard, Leech also noted the different reactions of the seamen after the fighting had ceased:Some who had lost their messmates appeared to care nothing about it, while others were grieving with all the tenderness of women. Of these, was the survivor of two seamen, who had formerly been soldiers in the same regiment; he bemoaned the loss of his comrade with expressions of profoundest grief. There were, also, two boatswain’s mates, named Adams and Brown, who had been messmates for several years in the same ship. Brown was killed, or so wounded that he died soon after the battle. It was really a touching spectacle to see the rough, hardy features of the brave old sailor streaming with tears, as he picked out the dead body of his friend from among the wounded, and gently carried it to the ship’s side, saying to the inanimate form he bore, ‘Oh Bill, we have sailed together in a number of ships, we have been in many gales and some battles, but this is the worse day I have seen! We must now part!’ Here he dropped the body into the deep, and then, a fresh torrent of tears streaming over his weather-beaten face, he added, ‘I can do no more for you. Farewell! God be with you!’20

  The Americans took charge of the ship, moving most of the crew over to the United States, but Leech was left to look after the wounded. Soon he was helping clear the debris:We took hold and cleansed the ship, using hot vinegar to take out the scent of the blood that had dyed the white of our planks with crimson. We also took hold and aided in fitting our disabled frigate for her voyage. This being accomplished, both ships sailed in company towards the American coast. I soon felt myself perfectly at home with the American seamen; so much so, that I chose to mess with them. My shipmates also participated in similar feelings in both ships. All idea that we had been trying to shoot out each other’s brains so shortly before, seemed forgotten. We eat together, drank together, joked, sung, laughed, told yarns; in short, a perfect union of ideas, feelings, and purpose seemed to exist among all hands.21

  Relations were also civilised among the officers, although Carden was saddened by having to surrender his ship, and Leech recorded that ‘when Captain Carden offered his sword to the commodore [Decatur], remarking, as he did so, “I am an undone man. I am the first British naval officer that has struck his flag to an American;” the noble commodore either refused to receive the sword, or immediately returned it, smiling as he said, “You are mistaken, sir; your Guerriere has been taken by us, and the flag of a frigate was struck before yours.” This somewhat revived the spirits of the old captain; but no doubt, he still felt his soul stung with shame and mortification at the loss of his ship.’22

  The run of disasters for the British Navy was not to end before the year was out. On 29 December the British frigate Java met the Constitution off the coast of Brazil. The Java was carrying passengers, including the newly appointed governor-general of Bombay and his staff and over one hundred officers and men bound for the East Indies. It was to be a worse slaughter than the capture of the Macedonian. After over two hours of bitter battle the Java was completely dismasted, the captain, Henry Lambert, was mortally wounded and the ship was an unmanageable wreck. The first lieutenant, Henry Chads, took control and w
as helped with advice from senior naval officers among the passengers, but nothing was able to stop the ship being gradually knocked to pieces. Chads himself was wounded, and the eventual casualty figures reflected the unequal destruction: forty-eight killed and one hundred and two wounded in the Java, and just twelve killed and twenty-two wounded on board the Constitution. While held prisoner, an anonymous lieutenant from the Java wrote home to a friend: ‘It is particularly to be remarked, that in no action [in] this war has so great a slaughter happened to that particular class of officers, the midshipmen, as occurred in this, there being no less than five killed, and four wounded.’23

  Once again British seamanship had been matched by the Americans whose gunnery proved superior, and once again the strength of the American ships was thought to be the cause, as the Java lieutenant related:From the manner in which this action was fought, and the unequalled injury the Java sustained beyond the Constitution, it appears evident that the American had advantages which do not belong to our frigates. It must strike every impartial observer, in noticing how rapidly the Java’s masts were carried away, one after the other; but it remains no longer a mystery, when it is known the Constitution’s masts are equal to our seventy-four’s - and it was noticed by the officers of the Java, after the action, that the Java’s shot had passed through two of them; but so little did the Americans regard it, that when at St. Salvador, after the action, they did not attempt to fish [temporarily repair] the masts for security, before going to sea.24

  The Java had been reduced to an unmanageable hulk, and being too far from an American port to make it worthwhile attempting to take the wreck home as a prize, the passengers and crew were taken off, and the Java was blown up.

  Through the first half of 1813 the Americans won further victories in actions between smaller ships, to the continued consternation of the British. On 24 February the brig-sloop Peacock under Captain William Peake was lost off Guyana’s Demerara River to the American ship-sloop Hornet under Captain James Lawrence. The action lasted only twenty-five minutes, and among the nine dead was Captain Peake, with another twenty-eight wounded. The senior lieutenant surrendered, but with 6 feet of water in the hold, the ship could not be saved, as Lawrence described: ‘Such shot-holes as could be got at were then plugged; guns thrown overboard, and every possible exertion used to keep her afloat until the prisoners could be removed, by pumping and bailing, but without effect, as she unfortunately sunk in 5½ fathoms of water, carrying down 13 of her crew, and 3 of my brave fellows.’25

  The Hornet headed straight home, reaching Martha’s Vineyard three weeks later. In early March Lawrence was promoted to the frigate Chesapeake, which was fitting out in Boston. At New York the captured officers expressed their gratitude to Captain Lawrence for their kind treatment in a public letter: ‘So much was done to alleviate the uncomfortable and distressing situation in which we were placed when received on board the ship you command, that we can not better express our feelings than by saying we ceased to consider ourselves prisoners; and every thing that friendship could dictate was adopted by you and the officers of the Hornet to remedy the inconvenience we otherwise should have experienced from the unavoidable loss of the whole of our property and clothes by the sudden sinking of the Peacock.’26

  The British defeat was blamed on the failure to exercise the crews in the use of guns, a recurring complaint at this time. Even where the crews were exercised regularly, quite often this was done without actually firing the guns, so as not to waste gunpowder and shot. Only the year before, Sir Howard Douglas of the army was working in a combined operation in Spain with Sir Home Popham’s squadron and was ‘scandalised at the bad gunnery, which made him tremble for the laurels of the navy’.27 In fact, the Peacock ‘had long been the admiration of her numerous visitors, for the tasteful arrangement of her deck; and had obtained, in consequence, the name of the yacht. The breechings of the carronades were lined with white canvass; the shot-lockers shifted from their usual places; and nothing could exceed, in brilliancy, the polish upon the traversing-bars and elevating screws’28 - too much time had been spent on unnecessary polishing, at the expense of training.

  While better training and practice would help in battles between individual ships, a more effective solution to the threat from the American Navy was blockade. Just a week before the Peacock sank, Captain Philip Bowes Broke60 of the Shannon frigate had written: ‘We yesterday spoke [to] a licenced American, who told us Sir John Warren was severely blockading Chesapeake, and had nearly cut off Constellation. This is the beginning of naval war to the Americans, and many a commercial town will feel the distress: I hope it may bring them to their senses. All their frigates are in harbour, but little Essex.’29

  The blockade had started from a low level in 1812, but by February 1813 more British ships were available and the blockade covered the Atlantic coast from the Delaware to the Chesapeake. The coast of New England was spared the blockade at this stage, for the region’s merchants were still happy to supply grain for Wellington’s troops in the Peninsula, which was carried in licensed American merchantmen under the protection of the British Navy. It was also hoped that such a selective blockade would increase the dissension between the north-eastern states, which had opposed the war, and the rest of America. Already some American frigates were so securely trapped in port that they would take no further part in the war, and other American frigates were forced to wait weeks or months before they had a chance of slipping away. Towards the end of March the blockade was extended further south and as far north as New York, and gradually the stranglehold was completed. In 1814 even New England would be included, completing the blockade of the entire Atlantic coast of the American states.

  As the war dragged on, many Americans were becoming increasingly disillusioned, particularly as the blockade of the ports began to bite, and it was not long before they were forced to clutch at every available means to keep some ships at sea, as one British newspaper reported:The Americans, in order to do greater injury to our navy, have brought in a bill, ordering the use of torpedos and sub-marine engines to destroy British ships of war in American ports; and offering as a reward for such destruction, one half of the value of the vessel so destroyed. Our government possesses the means of retaliation for this designed mischief. The British ships of war had

  taken on board at Bermuda, bombs, howitzers, rockets, &c, to bombard some American ports. We shall be glad to see the war carried on in earnest, and to find British vengeance effectually chastise American presumption and aggression.30

  The Americans did their best to blow up the blockading warships, as William Stanhope Lovell, commander of the frigate Brune, recorded when a schooner laden with provisions was captured on 25 June 1813:Small vessels, called coasters, were laden in this manner:—the upper part of the hold consisted of an assortment of all kinds, and the under filled with casks of gunpowder; they were then placed directly in the way of our ships at anchor off their harbours, their crews taking a boat and making their escape on shore when they observed ours near them in chase. A vessel of this kind was taken by the boat of the Ramillies (74), off New London, commanded by that most intelligent and excellent officer, Sir Thomas Hardy, who, suspecting from the manner she was thrown in his way that all was not right, had her anchored two good cables’ length from his ship, and kept her there two or three hours before he would allow any person to go on board, thinking that by that time any mechanism invented for so diabolical a purpose would explode. After the above period poor Lieut. Geddes, whom I knew well, volunteered to go with the barge’s crew to examine the cargo very carefully; Sir Thomas Hardy still felt doubtful, but was at length induced by the repeated solicitations of Geddes to allow him to go, but with particular injunctions to be careful. It is supposed that in hoisting up a cask of flour or biscuits they pulled the line that was made fast from it to the barrel of powder, the explosion immediately took place, when a lieutenant, midshipman, and barge’s crew, sixteen in number, some of the best me
n in the ship, were blown to atoms.31

  Lovell added that ‘this fatal and melancholy catastrophe probably saved many of our gallant countrymen, as well as some of our men-of-war, by acting as a warning, and putting us on our guard against this most dastardly method of carrying on the war’.32

  The British public were becoming as disillusioned as the Americans, because after nearly a year of war, the Americans had still not been beaten in a single-ship action and people were wondering what had become of the once universally victorious British Navy. At Boston, where the Chesapeake continued to be fitted out, the harbour was blockaded by the frigate Shannon. Captain Broke had been with the Shannon nearly seven years, and he was unusually diligent about instilling discipline and constantly training his men in gunnery, using floating targets such as empty beef casks. He had a passion for gunnery, introducing many innovations and adaptations for the Shannon’s guns.

  By contrast, while many of the new crew of the Chesapeake were experienced naval seamen, very few of them were used to working together. There were some raw recruits, a handful were mutinous because of unpaid prize money and some of the officers were incapacitated through sickness. It was a crew, but not a team. Nevertheless, on Tuesday 1 June, Captain James Lawrence wrote to the Secretary of the Navy: ‘I have been detained for want of men. I am now getting under weigh . . . An English frigate is now in sight from my deck. I have sent a pilot boat out to reconnoitre, and should she be alone I am in hopes to give a good account of her before night. My crew appear to be in fine spirits, and, I trust, will do their duty.’33