1812: The Navy's War

by George Daughan

  In the midst of these momentous events, three delegates, Harrison Gray Otis, William Sullivan, and Thomas Perkins, arrived in Washington from Boston to press the Hartford Convention’s demand that the states be allowed to use federal tax money to pay for their defense. Governor Strong had appointed them. They arrived on February 13, the day before news of peace became public. The delegates already knew about New Orleans and were anticipating a frosty reception, but the unexpected peace turned their mission into a pathetic joke. They called upon the secretaries of War and the Treasury and were introduced to the president, but Madison treated them coldly. Otis was greatly annoyed. He wrote to his wife, calling the president “a mean and contemptible little blackguard.” After the way Massachusetts Federalists had treated Madison, it is hard to understand why Otis expected any other kind of reception.

  FOR THE AMERICAN navy the war did not end with the signing of the treaty at Ghent. Warships were already at sea and did not receive word of peace, and neither did their British counterparts. While the celebration was going on in Washington, the Constitution was still at sea. Captain Charles Stewart had slipped out of Boston on December 17, 1814. The blockading squadron, composed of three frigates and a brig of war, were not on guard. The frigates had departed for repairs at the Royal Navy Dockyards at Halifax, and the brig was in Provincetown. Stewart had a clear field. When he was well out into the Atlantic, he painted the Constitution’s sides black with a distinctive thick yellow stripe across her gun ports, making her appear British, and he flew the Union Jack.

  On Christmas Eve he captured the brig Nelson. Days and then weeks passed uneventfully, however. On February 10, he was ten miles off Cape Finisterre, on the northwest coast of Spain. By that time, he knew for certain that a peace treaty had been signed. He did not know if it had been ratified, but he could assume that it had. Nonetheless, he continued the hunt. On February 16, he captured a small British merchantman and sent her to New York as a prize.

  Four days later, Stewart was sailing a hundred eighty miles west-southwest of Madeira when lookouts spotted a stranger two points off the larboard bow. Stewart immediately hauled up and gave chase. Forty-five minutes later, a second ship appeared ahead. It was soon apparent they were both enemy warships. In fact, they were the British men-of-war Cyane (Captain Gordon Falcon) and Levant (Captain George Douglas). The Cyane was a small frigate with a battery of thirty thirty-two-pound carronades, two eighteen-pound carronades, and two long nines. Her companion, the Levant, was a sloop of war carrying eighteen thirty-two-pound carronades and two long nines.

  Signals from the British ships quickly identified the Constitution as an enemy. Falcon and Douglas were ten miles apart, and they closed ranks to fight the larger frigate together, rather than separating and trying to outrun her. By four o’clock the Cyane was ten miles to leeward of the Constitution. Stewart “bore up after her, and set lower topmast, topgallant, and royal studding sails.”

  In thirty minutes the Constitution’s main royal mast carried away, but Stewart had a crew clear the wreckage and prepare a replacement, while he kept on after the enemy. At five o’clock he opened fire with two larboard bow guns but with little effect. By 5:30 the two enemy ships had come together. They hauled up their courses and prepared for battle. At first they tried to obtain the weather gauge, but failing that, they formed a line a half cable’s length from each other (a hundred yards).

  At six o’clock all the ships raised their flags and commenced firing at about three hundred yards. Stewart concentrated on the Cyane. Both enemy ships fired on the Constitution. The exchange lasted for fifteen minutes, when the Constitution’s heavy twenty-four-pounders began to tell, and the Cyane’s fire slackened. Great columns of smoke now surrounded the Constitution, and Stewart ceased firing. In three minutes the smoke cleared, and he saw that the Constitution was abreast of the much smaller Levant. Stewart poured a punishing broadside into her, as the Cyane came up on the Constitution’s larboard quarter.

  Stewart reacted quickly. He “braced aback . . . main and mizzen topsails, and backed astern under cover of the smoke” that had hung around. He pulled abreast of the Cyane, and both ships blazed away at each other for fifteen minutes, when the Cyane’s fire slackened once more. She had been badly cut up. Stewart then discovered the gallant Levant bearing up. He filled his topsails, shot ahead, and raked her by the stern twice with his larboard guns, severely damaging her. Meanwhile, the struggling Cyane had worn, and Stewart wore short round and raked her by the stern. The nearly crippled Cyane managed to then luff to on the Constitution’s starboard bow and fire a broadside into her from her larboard battery. But Stewart then ranged up on the Cyane’s larboard quarter within hail and was about to unleash a crushing broadside when she fired a gun to leeward, signaling surrender. It was ten minutes before seven o’clock. The action had lasted for fifty minutes.

  An hour later, Stewart went after the Levant, which was not running, despite the Constitution’s overwhelming superiority. In fact, to Stewart’s amazement, Captain Douglass was standing toward him. At ten minutes before nine the two ships ranged close alongside on opposite tacks and exchanged broadsides. Stewart wore immediately under Levant’s stern and raked her with a broadside. Only then did the plucky Douglass try to escape. Stewart chased him, firing his starboard bow chaser to good effect, cutting the Levant’s sails and rigging, which slowed her considerably. At ten o’clock Douglass fired a single gun to leeward indicating surrender. The Constitution had 3 killed and 12 wounded, while the two British ships had 35 killed and 42 wounded. Stewart took 313 prisoners.

  He brought his prizes to Porto Praya in the Cape Verde Islands, arriving on March 10. The next day, lookouts spied three British frigates approaching the roadstead. Stewart tried to escape with his prizes, and the frigates chased him. The Cyane, the dullest sailer, fell behind and disappeared into a providential fog, but the enemy frigates kept after the Constitution and the Levant. The Levant soon lost ground, and she was recaptured. Oddly, all three frigates went after her and let the Constitution escape. The Cyane struggled into New York on April 9. On April 28 Stewart finally received confirmation that the war was indeed over, and he steered for Boston.

  THE CONSTITUTION WAS not the only American fighting ship at large when the war ended. On January 23, 1815, five days after the President departed New York, the sloop of war Peacock, under Master Commandant Lewis Warrington, swept passed Sandy Hook in a strong northeasterly gale and sped out to sea in full view of the slower British sentinels. Right on Warrington’s tail were the sloop of war Hornet, under Master Commandant James Biddle, the 12-gun store-brig Tom Bowline, under Lieutenant B. V. Hoffman, and the private armed merchant brig Macedonian. The Peacock, Hornet, and Tom Bowline were under orders to rendezvous with Decatur and the President at the island of Tristan da Cunha in the remote South Atlantic, 1,750 miles west of the Cape of Good Hope, 2,088 miles east of South America, and 1,510 miles south of St. Helena. Decatur had planned to use the prevailing westerlies in those latitudes to sail east beyond the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, perhaps even visiting the East Indies. Warrington and Biddle had no idea the President had been captured.

  In a few days, the Hornet separated from the others and made her way to the South Atlantic. During the trip a neutral vessel told her the war had ended, but Biddle chose not to believe it. He pressed on to the place of rendezvous, arriving at Tristan da Cunha on March 23. Biddle was about to drop anchor at 10:30 in the morning when he spied a British warship of his same size, the Penguin , under Commander James Dickinson. Biddle went after her.

  When Dickinson saw the Hornet, he came up to her prepared for battle. The two ships were evenly matched. The Penguin carried eighteen thirty-two-pound carronades; one twelve-pound carronade; and two six-pound long guns. The Hornet had eighteen thirty-two-pound carronades and two twelve-pound long guns. A little over two hours later, the action commenced at around a hundred yards with murderous broadsides for about twenty-five minutes, during which
Dickinson was cut in half by a ball. The superior gunnery of the Hornet devastated the Penguin.

  Lieutenant McDonald, who had taken command on the Penguin, decided his only hope was to board. He bore up and ran his bowsprit into the Hornet’s mizzen shrouds on her starboard side, but when he tried to board, the Hornet’s marines and sailors fired their muskets with good effect and drove the boarders back to their crippled ship. A heavy sea was running, causing the Penguin to pull free of the Hornet, but when she did, her bowsprit tore away, carrying away the Hornet’s mizzen shrouds, stern davits, and spanker boom. It also brought down the Penguin’s foremast, and when McDonald saw Biddle preparing to fire another broadside, he surrendered. The fight lasted for twenty-two minutes.

  The Penguin was so badly damaged she had to be scuttled. She had 14 killed and 28 wounded out of a crew of 132. The Hornet had 1 killed and 11 wounded, including Biddle, who was shot in the neck but soon recovered. The Hornet did not receive a single round shot in her hull or any material wound to her spars, and although her rigging and sails were cut up, Biddle quickly repaired them.

  Immediately after the battle, the Peacock and Tom Bowline appeared. Biddle transferred 118 prisoners to the store ship and then waited with Warrington for three weeks for Decatur. When he failed to appear, they sailed east on April 12 for the second place of rendezvous, running before the westerlies beyond the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, where on April 27 they sighted what they thought was a large East Indiaman. When they closed with her, however, they discovered she was a battleship, the 74-gun Cornwallis, and they fled, separating as they went. The Peacock was the fastest ship and soon disappeared, while the Cornwallis went after the slower Hornet. The big battleship turned out to be far more weatherly than Biddle had supposed, and she kept up with him, even gaining, as he sailed close-hauled trying to shake her. In desperation Biddle started lightening his ship, throwing overboard heavy spars, boats and ballast, anchors and cables, shot, and six guns. He thought when night came he’d sneak away, but the Cornwallis stayed right on his tail. At first light her big bow guns fired from long range and just missed touching the Hornet’s masts.

  As tenacious as ever, Biddle threw more gear over the side, including small arms, all his remaining guns except for one, all his shot, the rest of his spare spars, and whatever else he could think of. He kept just ahead, while the Cornwallis fired and scored three hits, but nothing fatal. The ships were now less than a mile apart in a smooth sea. Fortunately for Biddle, in the afternoon the wind hauled to the westward, enabling him to lengthen his lead to four miles. During the night he manage to sail at nine knots with a fresh wind.

  At daylight on April 30 he was twelve miles from the Cornwallis, and she gave up the chase. Her remarkably poor shooting saved the Hornet. Biddle now had to get his toothless ship home. On June 9 he reached the neutral port of San Salvador, where he finally allowed himself to be convinced that the war was over.

  All the while, Captain Warrington and the Peacock kept sailing to the East Indies, capturing four large prizes as she went, before finding out on June 30 in the Straits of Sundra that the war was long over.

  THE WAR DID not end immediately for American prisoners either. When the peace treaty was signed, 6,000 of them were still in Dartmoor Prison. The British and Americans had exchanged prisoners during the war, but Britain had accumulated far more than the United States, and these remained at Dartmoor. During the last year of the war the British had moved all their naval prisoners to Dartmoor. They were gathered from places like Chatham, Stapleton, Plymouth, and Portsmouth and from Halifax, Bermuda, the Cape of Good Hope, Jamaica, Barbados, New Providence, and Newfoundland. Many had been on Melville Island, a prison in Halifax Harbor that became known as Deadman’s Island because 195 prisoners had died there, most of them Americans. Men had also been kept in prison hulks in various ports, including St. Helena. These decrepit ships were often death traps full of disease.

  At the end of the war the colossally inefficient American government could not manage to bring the Dartmoor prisoners home. The prisoners were not fed or clothed properly, and the prison was rife with disease, particularly smallpox. In addition, there were 1,000 black prisoners who naturally refused to go to a port in the southern part of the United States.

  On April, 6, 1815, the American prisoners complained more forcefully than usual about food and other poor conditions at Dartmoor, and the rattled commandant, naval captain Thomas G. Shortland, ordered his troops to fire on them, killing seven and wounding fifty-four. Not wanting this tragedy to upset relations with America while Napoleon remained to be dealt with, Castlereagh organized a commission to look into the matter. It was composed of one American (Charles King, the son of Rufus King) and one Briton (Mr. Seymour Larpent). They concluded that the troops were poorly disciplined but that the incident was an accident. Castlereagh wrote to Chargé Baker in Washington and to Gallatin and Clay in London expressing “sincere regret on this unfortunate affair, and of [the government’s] . . . desire to make every suitable compensation to the families of the persons who suffered on this melancholy occasion.”

  Castlereagh’s conciliatory tone was in keeping with his new policy of establishing friendly relations with the United States. The Admiralty soon made ships available to transport the prisoners home. Of course, the blacks had to be careful where they were taken; they did not want to exchange one hell for another. They were the last to leave.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  A New Era

  AS WITH ALL wars, the most important question at the end of the War of 1812 was: Could the gains possibly justify the deaths and disfiguring of so many young men, the disruption of lives, the tearing apart of families, the sorrow of parents, wives, children, and friends, the robbing and slaughter of innocent civilians? Could anything compensate for the sacrifice of the baby-faced soldiers, dead before their time, their decaying bodies rotting in common graves? What purpose did it serve to kill so many? Where was the honor, the glory, the victory?

  When the terms of the peace treaty became known, it looked as if the young men and their families had sacrificed in vain. The combatants simply agreed to return to the status quo before the war started. The maritime disputes about free trade and sailors’ rights were not even mentioned. The war seemed to have settled nothing. John Quincy Adams famously declared the Treaty of Ghent to be only “an unlimited Armistice [rather] than a peace, . . . hardly less difficult to preserve than . . . to obtain.”

  The maritime rivalry of Great Britain and the United States, and the uncertainty of their borders in North America, provided fertile grounds for continued conflict. If war resumed in Europe, as Liverpool, Castlereagh, Bathurst, and Wellington thought likely, the old problems of neutral rights and impressment would inevitably come to the fore again, as would competition over who controlled Canada, Florida, the Caribbean, the Mississippi, the Louisiana Territory, and the Pacific coast. The potential points of friction were so numerous that a new and more terrible conflict appeared inevitable.

  Madison believed the danger would be significantly increased if the United States demobilized—as she had after the Revolution and the Quasi-War with France. Disarmament might tempt Britain to renew her aggressiveness on the high seas and expand her North American empire. Presidents Washington and Adams had also believed that military weakness invited European meddling. For years, Madison and his mentor Jefferson had rejected that view. Keeping the army and navy small and inexpensive was fundamental to their political philosophy. The war changed Madison’s mind, however. He now thought Washington and Adams had been right. A politically united country with a respectable army and navy was the best safeguard against a renewal of war with Britain or any other imperialist country.

  On February 18, 1815, Madison warned Congress not to dismantle the military establishment built up during the war. He wrote:The reduction of the public expenditures, the demands of a peace establishment will doubtless engage the immediate attention of Congress. There a
re, however, important considerations which forbid a sudden and general revocation of the measures that have been produced by the war. Experience has taught us that neither the pacific dispositions of the American people nor the pacific character of their political institutions can altogether exempt them from that strife which appears beyond the ordinary lot of nations to be incident to the actual period of the world, and the same faithful monitor demonstrates that a certain degree of preparation for war is not only indispensable to avert disasters at the outset, but affords also the best security for the continuance of peace. The wisdom of Congress will therefore, I am confident, provide for the maintenance of an adequate regular force; for the gradual advancement of the naval establishment; for improving all the means of harbor defense; for adding discipline to the distinguished bravery of the militia, and for cultivating the military art in its essential branches, under liberal patronage of the government.

  Madison was addressing a receptive audience. A significant portion of the Republican Party, and all Federalists, were committed to a strong navy, an adequate professional army, and the financial reforms necessary to support them. Albert Gallatin wrote, “the war has laid the foundations of permanent taxes and military establishments, which the Republicans had [in the past] deemed unfavorable to the happiness and free institutions of the country.”

  The 14th Congress, which convened on March 4, 1815—heavily influenced by British aggressiveness the previous year—heeded Madison’s advice. It approved a strong naval expansion program and a regular army of 10,000. The president had asked for a force twice that size, but he accepted the smaller one as adequate. Congress had no similar qualms about increasing the navy. It authorized an eight-year naval armament program that included nine 74-gun battleships, twelve 44-gun heavy frigates, three steam batteries, one smaller battleship, two smaller frigates, and two sloops of war to be built each year.