Chapter III: Tales of the Yankee Corvettes

A LITTLE LOP-SIDED FRIGATE REBUILT INTO A SUPERIOR
SLOOP-OF-WAR--OVERLAND (ALMOST) TO ESCAPE THE BLOCKADE--HER LUCK
AS A CRUISER--A MARVELLOUS RACE WITH A BRITISH FRIGATE OVER A
COURSE FOUR HUNDRED MILES LONG--SAVED BY A SQUALL--CORNERED IN
THE PENOBSCOT--THE GALLANT FIGHT OF THE YANKEE CREW AGAINST
OVERWHELMING NUMBERS--BUILDING A NEW NAVY--THE SHORT-LIVED
PORTSMOUTH CORVETTE _FROLIC_--ONE BROADSIDE WAS ENOUGH--CAPTURED
BY THE ENEMY--SWIFT AND DEADLY WORK OF THE CREW OF THE YANKEE
_PEACOCK_ WHEN THEY MET THE _EPERVIER_--DISTINCTLY A LUCKY
SHIP--FATE OF THE _SIREN_ AFTER THE COFFIN FLOATED.

Of the seventeen war-ships, big and little, that were named on the register of the American Navy when war was declared in 1812, the _Adams_, rated as a twenty-eight-gun frigate, lay at Washington. It had been determined to alter this ship into what was known as a corvette. Readers not trained to a life at sea not infrequently find themselves puzzled by the terms applied to the old style war-ships, and no term is quite so annoying as that of corvette, for the reason that it is used interchangeably with sloop-of-war. The dictionaries do not help one very much. In a “Vocabulaire des Termes de Marine” printed in 1783, a corvette is said to be “a general name for sloops-of-war and all vessels under twenty guns,” but it is manifest, from a consideration of the size and force of the _Adams_ and other American vessels called corvettes, that American officers applied the name only to the largest ships that had one deck of guns only, with neither a poop nor a forecastle.

_From the “Kedge Anchor.”_

* A Razee is a line-of-battle ship from which the upper deck has been cut, leaving her with two decks of guns.]

A most remarkable ship was the _Adams_, for, when let to a contractor to build, he sublet one side of her to another man who had the instincts of a thief and of a traitor. The sub-contractor, to increase his profits, scamped his timbers and his work. The _Adams_ was a creditable ship on one side and a fraud on the other. It is a pity that the name of the scoundrel has not been perpetuated in the accounts of naval matters that have hitherto appeared. When altered at Washington it was necessary, of course, to follow the old lines and she was still lopsided, although lengthened until she could carry twenty-eight guns on the one deck. Her armament in her new fashion included a long twelve for a bow-chaser and thirteen medium-length eighteen-pounders (called Columbiads, sometimes) on each side. It was a pretty good armament for that day, in fact much superior to the ordinary sloop-of-war armament that was made up of two long twelves and twenty of the wretched short thirty-twos.

_From a photograph owned by Mr. C. B. Hall._]

Captain Charles Morris, who, as the first lieutenant of the _Constitution_, had first gained fame in her race with the British fleet, was placed in command of the rebuilt _Adams_, and Lieutenant Wadsworth, who was second on the _Constitution_ in her great race, was made first on the _Adams_. There was a strong blockading squadron in the Chesapeake, but on the night of January 18, 1812, “which came on cloudy, boisterous, and with frequent snow squalls,” he headed away for sea. There was a strong northwest wind blowing, and there was not a beacon-light in the bay. Worse still, while the ship was driving along at twelve knots an hour, the two men who were engaged as pilots became confused, and at 11 o’clock at night a light was seen dead ahead which showed that she was flying straight at the land. Instantly her helm was shoved down and she came about on the other tack, but a few minutes later she was thumping over a bar, no one knew where, the heavy swells lifting her clear only to drop her again on the sand. However, over she went, and when it was found she did not leak, Morris decided to send her on her way once more, and at 1 o’clock passed two British ships at Lynnhaven and got out to sea.

Running across to the coast of Africa the _Adams_ cruised from Cape Mount to Cape Palmas, then visited the vicinity of the Canaries and the Cape de Verde Islands. “A few small prizes, laden with palm oil and ivory” were taken. On March 25th the _Woodbridge_, a large Indiaman, was overhauled. It was thick weather at the time, and while Captain Morris was taking possession the weather suddenly cleared, when it was seen that a fleet of vessels were jogging along to windward under convoy of two big men-of-war. It took Morris a full day to get clear of the men-of-war.

Returning across the Atlantic the _Adams_ ran into Savannah on May 1st--the day on which the British _Epervier_, prize to the Yankee _Peacock_, got in--and remained there till the 8th, when she sailed for the Gulf Stream in search of the Jamaica fleet. He found it with a ship-of-the-line, two frigates, and three brigs in charge. At the sight of the _Adams_ the fleet closed in like a flock of ducks, and although the Yankee dogged them for two days he got nothing--not even a chase from the war-ships. So he sailed to the banks of Newfoundland, where he found only ice and fogs, and so went on to the coast of Ireland, in sight of which he arrived on July 3d. A few prizes were made here, but on July 15th “she stumbled across the eighteen-pounder thirty-six-gun frigate _Tigris_” The _Tigris_ was no mean sailer, and in the chase that followed the _Adams_ threw overboard all the guns taken from the ships she had captured, her heaviest anchors, and finally some of her own guns. Then the wind died out entirely, and that was good-luck for the _Adams_, for her captain repeated the tactics employed on the _Constitution_ off the Jersey beach by towing his ship so far away from the _Tigris_ that a lucky slant of wind carried her clear out of sight.

A still more remarkable chase followed this one. It began on July 19th, when two frigates found the _Adams_. The one was fat and slow, the other as lean and eager as a hound. A half a gale of wind was blowing. Every thread of canvas was spread, and for forty hours the frigate and the sloop stretched away across the stormy sea with every sail as round and firm as the breast of a giant runner; with the weather rigging singing taut; with every man on deck alert, and with each captain pacing to and fro without rest, looking at every turn from the sea to the clouds and from them to his sails and then away to the enemy; with the cutwater sawing through the solid blue as she rose to the swell, and burying itself in smother and foam that tumbled and roared away for half her length ahead as she boiled in the trough of the sea, and the sissing foam swept aft to mingle with the swirling wake. And that for forty hours with the frigate just out of gunshot! They covered four hundred miles with never a loss or a gain on either side, and then under the shades of night the gale hardened into a squall that hid the _Adams_ out of sight, when she up helm and swung away so far on another course that when light came the hound had wholly lost the scent.

On returning westward the crew of the _Adams_ were attacked by the scurvy. Several died and a considerable number were made unfit for duty, so Captain Morris headed for Portland, Maine. Off the Maine coast, while driving along at ten knots an hour through a fog at 4 o’clock on the morning of August 17th, the _Adams_ found land--rock, to speak accurately. She ran up on a ledge until her bow was six feet out of water, and when the sun came to clear the fog the crew found themselves only one hundred yards from a cliff near Mount Desert. The next tide floated the ship and she continued her course. A little later the British brig _Rifleman_ was seen and chased, but the strain of the press of canvas made the _Adams_ leak at the rate of nine feet of water into her hold per hour, so Captain Morris gave it up and ran into the Penobscot.

As it happened, the _Rifleman_ was able to carry the news of the arrival of the _Adams_ to a British fleet, “consisting of two line-of-battle ships, three frigates, three sloops, and ten troop transports” which were lying in wait to descend on Machias. Captain Morris moored his ship at Hampden, twenty-seven miles up the river, where he intended to heave her down and repair the leaking bottom. When the British fleet came after him he made such preparations as were possible to fight. Of his original crew of two hundred and twenty, seventy had died or had been disabled by the scurvy. The others, including one hundred and thirty seamen and officers and twenty marines, many of them sick, were mustered on shore for the fight. Nine of the lighter guns of the _Adams_ were set up as a battery on the bluff overlooking the wharf, and these were put in charge of Lieutenant Wadsworth. Morris himself took charge of the wharf. The crew were joined by thirty (some say forty) experienced soldiers, and by a force of militia variously estimated at from three hundred to six hundred men. Whatever their number, they proved utterly worthless, for they had never been under fire. Anyway, they were but half armed, and the guns they had were the inferior fowling-pieces of that day.

On September 3d came the enemy. There was a land force of six hundred experienced troops, eighty marines, and eighty seamen. There was a force afloat in boats and barges well-armed that raised the whole command to 1,500 men. The crew of the _Adams_, stationed on the wharf, checked the flotilla, in spite of overwhelming numbers, but the American militia fled without firing a gun when the British land forces approached them. Captain Morris was left with only his crew and the thirty regulars to face a force eight times as great. Yet he burned the ship and made a successful retreat without losing a man save those too ill with scurvy to march away. The conduct of the Yankee militia was disgraceful, as it usually was throughout that war; but what shall be said of the failure of the 1,500 experienced men in the British force who were unable to hinder the retreat of the Yankee crew?

_From the “Kedge Anchor.”_]

As has been noted, when the War of 1812 began, the authorities at Washington were determined to keep their ships in port. That a Yankee ship could meet a British ship of equal force or even of somewhat inferior force and keep her flag afloat seemed impossible. The idea of building anything except for harbor defence was too ridiculous for any consideration. But after the first six months of the war had demonstrated that the capacity and courage of the American personnel was unsurpassed, the ring of broadaxe and hammer, the rasp of saws, and the easy crunch of augers began to make melody for patriotic ears in the yards of the Yankee builders. The frames of ships-of-the-line, and of frigates and of corvettes, as the big sloops were called, rose steadily above the keel-blocks. The names that were given to these new ships showed that the naval authorities of the nation were disposed to flaunt red flags in the face of Johnnie Bull; they were determined to keep alive the memory of American victories by perpetuating the names of the defeated British ships. One frigate was named _Guerrière_ and another _Java_, while the new sloops were named _Peacock_, _Frolic_, etc. Not many of the new ships were destined to see service against the British, for the reason that the war ended before they were fully ready. Still, three of the sloops got away to sea, and this chapter shall tell of the fate of one of them and give a part of the brilliant record made by another.

The first that got to sea was the _Frolic_. She was built at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, famous for its fine ships in the days of wood. Under Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge she sailed from the home port in February and some time later fell in with a Carthagenian privateer that was cruising for Yankee merchantmen off the southern coast. The privateer refused to surrender, when called on to do so, and Bainbridge fired one broadside at her, and that one blast sank her so quickly that nearly one hundred of her crew were drowned. As the _Frolic_ carried only ten short thirty-twos in a broadside, it is certain that every shot struck the privateer below the water-line as she rolled to the swell. The fact is especially worth mentioning for the reason that it shows the great advantage of training the crew of a war-ship to shoot accurately.

The career of the _Frolic_, however, was brief. On April 20, 1814, when off the extreme south point of Florida, she fell in with the British thirty-six-gun frigate _Orpheus_, Captain Pigot, and the twelve-gun schooner _Shelburne_, Lieutenant Hope. The enemy were to leeward, but both of them were swifter than the _Frolic_. For more than twelve hours she struggled to windward, cutting away her anchors and throwing over her guns, but all in vain, for the _Orpheus_ closed on her. The _Frolic_ had carried twenty short thirty-twos and two long twelves, while the _Orpheus_ carried sixteen short thirty-twos and twenty-eight long eighteens. Nevertheless, James, in commenting on the surrender of the _Frolic_, says:

“We should not have hesitated to call a French, or even a British, captain, who had acted as Master-Commandant Joseph Bainbridge, of the United States Navy, did in this instance, a ----.”

Another of the new corvettes with irritating names was the _Peacock_. She was built in New York City, and sailed under Master-Commandant Lewis Warrington, on March 12, 1814, bound south. Her cruise was without incident until April 28th, when, at 7 o’clock in the morning, a number of vessels were seen to windward. The _Peacock_ was at this time not far from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was learned later that the fleet sighted included two merchantmen under convoy of the British brig sloop _Epervier_, Captain R. W. Wales, of eighteen guns. They were bound from Havana for the Bermudas, and the _Epervier_ carried $120,000 in coin.

Because of the result of the battle that followed it is worth mentioning the fact that the _Peacock_ class of Yankee sloops were designed with especial reference to the _Epervier_ class of brigs, just as the _Terrible_ class of cruisers were designed in Great Britain with a certain Yankee protected cruiser in mind, in these last years of the nineteenth century.

_From an engraving by Gimbrede of the painting by Jarvis._]

The _Peacock_ having made chase, the wind suddenly shifted to the southward, when the merchantmen made all sail to run away and the _Epervier_ hauled close to the wind on the port tack, and stood toward the _Peacock_ quite willing for the fight.

The _Peacock_ now had the best of the wind, and when, soon after 10 o’clock, the two ships were approaching each other end on, and had arrived within gunshot, she was headed off wind a bit in order to bring her starboard battery to bear on the _Epervier_ and rake her. But Captain Wales, of the _Epervier_, was not to be caught by any such move as that. Putting up his helm, he eased off to meet the Yankee, and then shoving down his helm, he rounded to on the _Peacock’s_ bow and delivered his starboard broadside, two shots from which struck the foreyard of the _Peacock_, entirely disabling that very important spar. The British captain had clearly outmanœuvred the Yankee up to this time, which was not far from 10.20 A.M.

Captain Warrington fired his starboard broadside as he passed the _Epervier_, and then ordered his men to load with bar-shot, bundles of scrap-iron (called langrage), etc., in order to cripple the British brig aloft, and reduce her to a sailing capacity as bad as his own. While the Yankees were doing this the _Epervier_ might have sailed away and left the crippled _Peacock_, but Captain Wales was not that kind of a man. On the contrary, he tacked about as rapidly as possible, in spite of the fact that he had to risk a raking fire from the Americans, and then bore down with his port battery to the _Peacock’s_ starboard.

At this the bar-shot and scrap-iron from the Yankee began to tell on the British head-gear. Jib after jib was cut away, while the sails of the foremast were torn to shreds. The pressure on the after-sails threw her stern down away from the wind and her bow up into it. Then her sails caught aback and the _Peacock_ ran across her stern and fired a few guns to rake her, though because of the headway of the _Peacock_ only a few were fired. A moment later the maintopmast of the British ship fell with a crash, and her main-boom was cut in two and fell on the wheel, so that she was for the time helpless.

_From a wood-cut in the “Naval Monument.”_]

At that Warrington hauled the _Peacock_ close under the port quarter of the _Epervier_ and opened a deadly fire of solid shot directed chiefly at the enemy’s water-line--the favorite target of the Yankee gunners. One easily pictures the scene at this time as the Yankee crews, stripped to the waist, in the warm summer air, worked like white devils in the sulphurous smoke over their guns. They waved their arms and cheered as they saw the shot knock the splinters low down on the black-painted hull of the half-obscured enemy that was now adrift, unable to turn either to port or starboard. But some of them aimed high enough to dismount every gun on the port side of the _Epervier_, which faced the Yankee.

Meantime, the _Epervier_ had been gathering stern way and was drifting on board the _Peacock_. Allen says Captain Wales thought to wear the _Epervier_ in order to run on board the _Peacock_, but this is absurd, because she was aback.

On seeing that the _Epervier_ was likely to fall aboard the _Peacock_, Captain Wales called his men aft, intending to make a last brave effort by boarding. But, as James says, “the British crew declined a measure so fraught with danger.” Allen says: “A large proportion of the crew evinced a great distaste for the measure.” So Captain Wales hauled down his flag at 11 o’clock. The action had lasted forty-five minutes.

Captain Wales showed conspicuous bravery and ability, and his chief officer, Lieutenant John Hackett, ably seconded him. In fact, Hackett had his left arm shattered and was dangerously wounded in the hip by a splinter, “but it was with difficulty that this gallant officer could be persuaded” to leave the deck.

That the crew should have flinched is not a matter of wonder. The British sailors had been accustomed to go at the Frenchmen “hammer and tongs,” and “whoop and hurrah.” It was a lark to meet a Latin-blood crew. But in 1812 they had a new kind of an enemy to face. It should be remembered that, after they had “seen the countenance” of this enemy for a few months, even the British Admiralty flinched, for James says, on page 402 of Volume VI., that “the Admiralty had issued an order that no eighteen-pounder frigate was voluntarily to engage one of the twenty-four-pounder frigates of America.”

This is a slight digression from the story of the _Peacock-Epervier_ fight, but it seems worth the making because it offers an explanation of the rancor and the deliberate falsehoods of the British writers when referring to British naval contests with Yankees. A knowledge of the whole truth about the prowess of American naval seamen had had a disturbing influence on the minds of the British sailors on more than one occasion, and the records of the sea-fights with the Yankees were deliberately falsified in order to preserve the self-confidence of British Jack.

As to the effect of the fire of the two ships, Allen admits that “the _Peacock_, in a short time, unrigged the _Epervier_, and cut her sails into ribands. Most of the lower rigging of the _Epervier_ was shot away, and her foremast was left so tottering that the calm state of the weather alone saved it from falling. Her hull was shot in every direction, and she had five feet of water in her hold.” In addition to this she had lost, as already told, her maintopmast and her main-boom, and her bowsprit was badly wounded. There were forty-five shot holes in her hull, of which twenty were within a foot of the water-line and dipped under at every roll to let the water spurt in. To realize the significance of the fact that she had five feet of water in her, it must be known that she measured only fourteen feet in depth of hold (the same depth as the _Peacock_).

_From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Birch._]

Allen says that she went into the fight with “a crew of one hundred and two men and sixteen boys.” They are especially careful to specify the number of boys when they are defeated. James is at the pains to announce that “two of her men were each seventy years of age!”

Captain Warrington reported that she had a crew of one hundred and twenty-eight--his list of prisoners numbered one hundred and twenty, including the wounded. It is agreed on both sides that she lost eight men killed and fifteen wounded, and that she had enough men at least to work all of her guns efficiently.

On the other hand, the _Peacock_ did not receive even one shot in her hull, and the only damage aloft worth mention was the disabling of the foreyard. In fifteen minutes from the time her crew began to repair the damages every cut rope had been rove anew, and half an hour later the foreyard was up in place, repaired fit to stand a gale, and the foresail was spread to the breeze. The broken foreyard was actually sent down on deck, fished, hoisted aloft again, and the sail spread in forty-five minutes. The injury to the crew was scarcely worth mentioning, for not one was killed, and only two were wounded, and they but slightly. Allen says she carried “a picked crew of one hundred and eighty-five seamen.” She had, in fact, including captain and powder-monkeys, one hundred and sixty-six.

In view of the fact that the British gunners were unable to hit the broadside of the ship when half a pistol shot away, a comparison of the armament of the two ships is as absurd as it was when the Yankee _Hornet_ shot the British _Peacock_ under water in fourteen minutes. However, it ought to be given to complete the record. The _Peacock_ in this battle had a broadside of ten guns that threw three hundred and fifteen pounds actual weight of metal at a round. The _Epervier_ had one gun less in her broadside and threw two hundred and seventy-four pounds of metal from it. The “relative force” of the two ships was as “twelve to ten;” the damage done to each was not quite as one hundred to nothing, because the _Peacock_ did get a bad cut in the foreyard and the _Epervier_ was not quite destroyed. Perhaps the reader will find amusement and even instruction in considering what the relative damage of the two ships really was.

After the British flag was hauled down the Yankee sailors made haste to repair the captured ship and by nightfall had her sails spread in a run for Savannah in company with the _Peacock_. En route to that port a British frigate chased the two, but the _Peacock_ drew her off and then outsailed her. The _Epervier_ was carried into Savannah on May 1st, and on the 4th, the _Peacock_ arrived. As the reader will remember the _Adams_ happened to be in port at this time. The _Epervier_ proved a very rich prize to the victorious crew, for in addition to the $120,000 in coin (James would reduce it to $118,000) the Government bought the prize for $55,000. The _Epervier_ was built in 1812.

It is worth telling that in breadth and depth the _Peacock_ and _Epervier_ were exactly alike--32 × 14 feet. The _Peacock_, however, was 118 feet long, while the _Epervier_ was 107. There are whole fleets of Yankee schooners in this day bigger than either--plenty that can carry more cargo than both put together--which are nevertheless called small coasters; of such a character has been the development of modern ship building.

The _Epervier_ was brought into port by Lieutenant John B. Nicholson. Congress voted a gold medal to Warrington and the usual silver medals and swords to the other officers. Nicholson was transferred to the _Siren_, of which something will be told presently. The _Peacock_ sailed on another cruise on June 4th. Crossing the Banks of Newfoundland she cruised on the coasts of Ireland for a time and then sailed to the Bay of Biscay and finally back via the Barbadoes to New York, where she arrived on October 29, 1814. In all she took fourteen merchantmen, most of them on the Irish coast. They were manned by one hundred and forty-eight men and they were valued at $1,493,000. She was distinctly a lucky ship.

An interesting little story showing somewhat of sailors’ superstitions is told of Lieutenant John B. Nicholson, who brought the _Epervier_ into port. He was transferred to the little sixteen-gun brig _Siren_, of which Lieutenant George Parker was commander, and she was sent to cruise on the coast of Africa. Off the Canaries Parker died, and after putting his body into a coffin it was put overboard with the usual funeral services. The coffin sank out of sight, but as soon as the brig filled away on her course the coffin came to the surface, where it floated like a cork.

Knowing that this event, though due entirely to the carpenter’s failure to properly weight the coffin, was regarded as an ill omen by the seamen, Lieutenant Nicholson, who was now captain by right of succession, called the men to the capstan and let them decide whether to continue the cruise, or return to port. They decided, with cheers, to cruise on.

For a time everything seemed to go well. An English frigate was dodged by hanging out false lights on a raft of casks. Two English merchantmen were taken and destroyed, but in the Senegal River another one escaped after the brig had given her a broadside, and about two months after leaving home the _Siren_ fell in with the British liner _Medway_. Anchors, cables, guns, and shot were thrown overboard, but she was taken after all. It was a disastrous cruise.