The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War

by James L. Haley

  Commodore Decatur’s plan capitalizes on the strengths we have—that is, the superior construction of our ships and the craftiness and initiative of our officers, to dispatch all our vessels to individual operations, for combat when it is advantageous, capturing merchant prizes at every opportunity, and also amenable to operate in concert when two or more ships find themselves in proximity, or when news of a West Indies convoy putting to sea is received in time to organize a force.

  With all matters under consideration, I would place my endorsement upon the Decatur plan of deployment, if it can take place quickly, with a mind to capture British vessels at the very commencement of hostilities, and accompanied, as I have recommended, with an active recruitment of privateers.

  I have, sir, the honor to be yr. obedient servant,

  Bliven Putnam

  Master Comdt., USN

  Isaac Hull, Capt., USN

  Cmdg. U.S. Frigate

  Constitution

  Annapolis, Maryland

  Saml. Barron, Commodore

  Washington Navy Yard

  Bliven’s errand to deliver his report was accomplished quickly. He made two copies in a fair hand, packed enough clothes and a couple of books for the journey, and arranged himself in the coach. The Constitution now was moored in Annapolis, fully supplied and ready for sea, except for want of a crew, which left her not entirely a ghost ship, but which did leave Isaac Hull glaring with covetousness at the Adams, a hundred yards distant, unseaworthy but with nearly a full complement of seamen. If war came, he settled it in his mind that he would raid her like a hungry man would break into a bakery, take the men he needed, and leave the Adams to look after her own needs.

  Hull received him cordially but only briefly, accepted both copies with the assurance that he would see that Barron received his, and excused himself to return to the myriad details of preparing his ship for sea. It was their parting that contained the important news, that Bliven would receive his orders to return to active service within a few weeks, but exactly what his assignment would be was still to be determined.

  His family received the news as he anticipated: his father stoic, his mother glum, Clarity quiet and contemplative. The morning after telling them, he ascended to his bedroom study as had become his habit, and found displayed on his desk one of the most elegant curiosities he had ever beheld. It was a dressing box, just greater than a foot and a half in width, about ten inches in depth and perhaps eight inches high, the whole of deeply colored mahogany, edged in brass. There was a lid that did not cut straight across but had a lock higher on the back and hinged on the front, but lower down. He turned the key and opened the lid, revealing the padded slanting leather surface of a portable writing desk. He removed it, and beheld such an array of comb, brush, scissors, razor, snips, and some implements that he puzzled over what they must be.

  “Do you like it?” He jumped a little at the sound of Clarity’s voice, as he had not heard her come up the stairs.

  “Why, it is the finest dressing box I have ever seen.”

  “No, dearest, indeed it is more than a dressing box. It is a captain’s box. Look.” She edged Bliven aside, and removed the first layer of grooming aids to reveal a puzzle of trays and compartments packed with implements to explore later. These trays she also removed until she had burrowed to the bottom of the box, where she slid aside tiny slats of wood to reveal the tops of screws. “It fastens to the table top that you place it on, do you see? Then it won’t slide off when you are in rough seas.”

  “Good heavens, that is very fine.” Bliven studied it closely, noting a small brass plate in the bottom that read GIBBS & LEWIS, 137 BOND STREET, LONDON. As a midshipman he had known Preble to possess a similar dressing box, but it never occurred to him why it never moved from the commodore’s bureau until Preble took it with him when he left the ship. It was screwed down.

  “It is marvelous,” he added. “Was it your father’s?”

  “No, dearest, I ordered it for you. I thought since you are going to be a captain I should help you look the part. See there? They have thought of everything.” She had begun replacing the velvet-lined trays in the reverse order that she had removed them. “Every conceivable grooming commodity and implement, and it will be as useful to you at home as when you are at sea.”

  Bliven also noted that the implements appeared to be silver, with ivory handles, and he was not certain how he felt about owning something so extraordinary. He circled behind and wrapped his arms around her. “What is this, are you exiling me from our hidey-hole?”

  “Mercy, no!” She held on to his arms. “But in future years, when I am confined while with child and perhaps not feeling well, you will have this sanctum where you will still be in command.” She smiled wryly. “Or at least believe that you are.”

  5

  Chasing Men, Chasing Ships

  It was in the afternoon of June 3 that Bliven was checking on affairs at Captain Bull’s Tavern, when that morning’s number of the Hartford newspaper caught his eye. It was the shortest word, WAR, that snagged him like a fishhook, and he snatched it up. PRESIDENT SEEKS WAR. Madison had finally delivered his message to the Congress seeking a declaration of war against Great Britain and, as the article expounded, the subject was expected to be hotly debated in those halls.

  He knew, almost to a certainty, before he strode with purpose into the postal office, that his orders would be waiting for him there. He accepted the folded and sealed paper grimly, paying the twelve cents to the postmaster, not opening it until he was well outside and beyond any well-intended questions. “Report immediately,” it read, “to Captain Hull on the Constitution, at Annapolis.”

  In a way, this was merciful. No long vigil for his mother to endure. No long, clumsy searches for the right words of comfort or encouragement. Yet it was clear from the moment he entered the house and he saw her, working doggedly at the table; it was the presence of molasses, and raisins, and chopped apples, that betrayed the matter. She was making a plum pudding, and he understood she knew all. It had become a running witticism between them. When he returned from the Mediterranean, he described in full the horrors of shipboard plum duff, nothing but grease and flour and raisins, with a little salt. The next day she prepared a rich, succulent, real plum pudding, the kind that the Puritans had once banned for being sinful in its luxury. That was his welcome home. Then when he shipped out for the West Indies she made another, to remind him of what he would be missing, and let him take it with him. It was kind, but pointed, as indeed she was when cornered into voicing any opinion about politics and especially war.

  “You know?” was all he could say.

  She did not look up. “We learned about the newspaper. The rest I guessed. You must leave on the morrow?”

  “I fear so, yes.”

  “Is your ship ready?”

  “No, I am to report to Captain Hull in the Constitution. Where is Clarity?”

  “Mrs. Beecher is ill. She went up to see if she was in need of anything.” Bliven knew the house, on a lane just off the green, but had thus far managed to avoid calling there. It was a large old house and severe, with small windows and small dormers, as though whoever dwelt there feared to admit the joy of sunlight. It was enough to listen to Beecher in church, he thought, without calling on the lion in his den.

  Benjamin entered from the hall, leaning heavily on his sticks. “I was resting and heard you come in.” He eased himself onto his cushioned parson’s bench. “So, there is to be a war?”

  “Almost certainly, yes.”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I fear it will not at all be what they expect it will. May I ask you one question?”

  “What is it, Father?”

  “Do you still have that great, wide-bladed, terrifying dagger that you brought back from Africa?”

  “My jambia? Yes.”

  “Are you taking it with you? I mean to say, has it no
w become some charm of good luck to you?”

  “No, not particularly.”

  “Can you do me the favor to leave it here? I wish to be able to look upon it when you are in my mind.”

  “Well, yes, of course.” Bliven excused himself and mounted the stairs to his study. He kept the dagger now in the broad lower compartment of old Marsh’s writing desk, for it was too large for the cubbyholes above it. He liked to admire it from time to time, the brilliant steel of its blade, the iridescent handle, which he had since learned was carved from the horn of a rhinoceros—a creature that he’d had to discover in a bestiary from the Marsh library.

  “Here we are.” Bliven handed the jambia to his father, who withdrew it from its tooled leather sheath and turned it over in his hands. “Ha. From an Arab chieftain to our Connecticut mantelpiece.” He grew wistful. “It was never my fate to travel very far from home, you know.” He handed it back.

  “I never knew you wanted to.” Bliven set the dagger upon the mantel beneath their muskets, pulling it a third of the way out of the scabbard so the steel would reflect the lamplight.

  “Oh, it was a youthful folly, I suppose.”

  “Yet you allowed me to go out and find the world.”

  “Yes. Well, I imagine you inherited the desire from me. Better to have inherited that than to have inherited my legs.”

  “Ha! If I have inherited your character, I shall be happy. I have spoken to Freddy; he has agreed to do everything necessary in tending to the farm. You can rely on him. And I would remind you there is no need to fear for my safety at any near time.”

  “What?” His mother had finished mixing the pudding and came around the table, sitting on the parson’s bench beside her husband.

  “Nothing in the Navy is certain,” he began, “but at present, before I go to Charleston, I am to go to New York and participate in a recruiting drive. At least, that is the present plan. I have no idea how long I will be there.”

  “Well.” She relaxed visibly. “That is good hearing.” She rose, patting him on the shoulder as she passed by. “But you’re still getting your plum pudding. Come help me.” After she poured the pudding mix into its cloth he tied it tightly with a cord whose other end he made fast to an iron hook, and then lowered the heavy bundle into a boiling kettle at the edge of the fireplace.

  They heard the front door open and close, and Clarity entered the keeping room, exchanging a quick kiss with Bliven. “Hello, dearest.”

  “How is poor Mrs. Beecher?” asked Dorothea.

  Clarity tried the coffeepot, and finding it not empty poured herself half a cup. “Weak,” she answered. “She is not at all well. Her last child”—she shook her head—“was almost too much for her. They had to engage a wet nurse for her entire infancy, and now that she is weaned, Mrs. Beecher tries to be cheerful, but I fear she is spent, and I fear she knows it. And all the talk was of the newspaper. Will it be war, dearest?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  She noticed the post lying on the table. “Are those your orders?”

  “Yes, they came today.”

  “Don’t worry, my dear,” said Dorothea. “He’s not headed for battle, but to New York to be a recruiter.”

  “At least,” said Bliven, “that was the last plan I heard. I will know more definitely after I report.”

  Clarity assimilated all the fragments and announced, “Well, good. So we won’t need to make a big emotional scene.”

  When next he entered their room, she quietly followed him and closed the door behind her. A yard from him she folded her hands in front of her. “I know when we married I said I could pay this price. I am trying to be as strong as your mother. But do not leave this house thinking it is easy for me.” She sobbed once but stifled it, and only when he drew her to him did she allow her emotions to cleanse themselves.

  Bliven had not seen Annapolis, for it lay many miles removed from the Baltimore–Washington road. Baltimore lay at the head of the Patapsco River estuary, and Annapolis at the mouth of the Severn. Both lay far up the indefensible Chesapeake, and while Baltimore itself might be adequately defended by the combination of Fort McHenry and a picket of gunboats, it must surely be judged of signal importance not to let any of their ships become bottled up in the Chesapeake once the war started.

  Annapolis itself he found a tidy white town of fewer than two thousand people—surprisingly small for a place that had once served as the temporary capital of the United States. It would have become greater, had not Baltimore with its deeper harbor been declared the port of entry. Bliven found the Navy Yard little to speak of, but the captain’s gig of the Constitution he found tied up at the quay, ready to row him out to the great frigate which lay at anchor farther out in the tide than the smaller Adams, which reposed halfway across to the southern shore of the Severn.

  In old Marsh’s bestiary Bliven had read of African lizards that can change their color depending upon what surface they stand on, and that was much on his mind as the gig made fast to the Constitution’s convenience ladder. As he stepped up to its lowest plank he felt himself a farmer, still wary of what he was letting himself in for, and by the time twenty feet higher he stepped onto the frigate’s pine weather deck, kept fresh and yellow with regular holystoning, he had gone far to transform once more into a naval officer. He could not recall the name of those African lizards, but he suspected that he was not unrelated.

  Nevertheless, it took a moment topside for the familiarities to fill him again, for him to acclimate himself. He remembered to salute and ask permission of the officer of the deck to come aboard. Much was the same, the masts and then topmasts more than two hundred feet tall, the forest of rigging. But much was different. The eighteen-pounders that he remembered lining the spar deck were gone, replaced with stubby, large-bore carronades, thirty-six-pounders, for close action. Briefly he wondered if they had been imported, or whether the United States now had gained the capacity to manufacture their own. The ship also carried more boats than he remembered, two longboats and two cutters, plus small craft to a total, as he glanced around, of eight.

  He descended the after ladder and entered the wardroom, finding the purser working at a desk outside the captain’s cabin, and handed him his orders. “Master Commandant Putnam reporting as ordered.”

  “Good. Very good.” The purser stood and offered his hand. “My name is Cooper, glad to have you aboard.”

  Bliven took it. “Thank you, Mr. Cooper.”

  “One moment.” Cooper announced him and returned at once, motioning for him to come into the cabin, where Bliven found it impossible not to see in his mind’s eye Edward Preble still sitting, grouchy, at his table. Hull rose, they traded salutes as the captain advanced, and they shook hands, but his greeting was not what Bliven expected. “Alvin?” he boomed. “The God damn Battle of Alvin? What in hell put you in mind to cite such a thing as a course of action? Come sit down.”

  Bliven finally understood what Hull was trying to say, and made himself comfortable in a chair. “Forgive me, sir, it is pronounced Alverrin, that o with the line through it.”

  “Call it Moses if you like! Where did you dig that up? Putnam, you cannot help but have been aware that your government some years past made a decision to divert its limited funds for naval construction to a great many gunboats, as opposed to a few large ships. You have not made us any friends on the naval committees, who by the way control our budget, by telling them they were wrong, and then for good measure showing them by means of an exquisite historical example just how they were wrong. Good God, man!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but they were wrong.”

  “Of course they were wrong, but that isn’t the point! Our job is to think up a way to win this war within the limits they set, even if they have made it harder for us. And another thing. You endorsed Decatur’s plan of deployment over Rodgers’s, for Barron to read. Were you not aware of
the bad blood between Decatur and Barron? Decatur sat on the court-martial that gave Barron five years suspension over the Leopard attack.”

  Bliven was flustering under the ambush. “So did Rodgers, as I understand.”

  “That is true,” Hull conceded.

  “So.” Bliven straightened himself in the chair. “No matter what I wrote, I was certain to make an enemy somewhere.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And ‘perhaps’ that is a reason why the assignment was given to me. A written report would issue, and, being written down, it would have the force of the matter having been studied at length, stating conclusions that one might think should seem obvious, and any unpleasant repercussions would fall upon me and not some higher officer who would have been a more appropriate author, say, a senior captain?”

  Hull narrowed his sloe eyes. “Take care, Commander.”

  “Captain Hull.” Bliven folded his hands in his lap. “I do not wish to shock you, but I actually do endeavor to be an honest man. I was raised to be this way.”

  “Oh, there is no doubt of that, Putnam.”

  “But because I try to be honest, do others regard me as a simpleton?” He paused for a reply but received none. “Captain, I am in the Navy to serve my country. And I am simple—simple enough to believe that in the coming times I may be useful. But let me assure you, I have no need of my own to be here seeking glory, or fame, as do some others, or fleeing some personal demon. I have a life ashore”—he heard his own voice rising in volume, and he spoke with a rapidity hitherto unknown to himself—“a wonderful and blessed life that half of me feels I betray every time I put on this uniform and leave it. Let me assure you most earnestly that if ever I am given to believe that my utility to the Navy lies in being the sport of cynical, scheming old bastards, I am capable, entirely and serenely capable, of resigning my commission, in a heartbeat, without a second’s regret.”