“The guns in my cabin, are they ready?” demanded Hull.
Midshipman Walker cupped his hands beside his mouth and shouted down the ladder, “Are you ready?”
Bliven heard the question relayed to another, unseen, midshipman at the bottom of the ladder, who shouted through the wardroom into the cabin.
“Guns are pointed and ready, Captain.”
“At my command, Mr. Walker—fire!”
There came deafening simultaneous explosions, and they felt the quarterdeck lift beneath them—not from sea swell nor the shock of the concussion, the deck was dislodged, the planks separating just enough that jets of smoke erupted from between them. Hull was thrown from his feet and landed hard on his right hip, pushing himself up to a sitting position. “My God,” he was saying, “my God, a gun has blown up!”
Bliven was standing at the very stern of the starboard side and was thrown against the taffrail but saw the muzzle blasts shoot out fifty feet before dispersing. “No, sir, I don’t think so!” He waited a couple of seconds before responding further, looking for splashes but seeing none, and thought they might have hit her. He saw Hull struggling to his feet and rushed to help him. “The discharges appeared quite normal. Here, are you hurt?”
“No, no, thank you.” He spun around to little Walker. “Cease your firing! Cease fire!” They heard the urgent, squeaky voices relaying the order. “What in bloody hell?”
“Sir, come see, look.” Bliven helped him take his first couple of steps before Hull found his balance again; they leaned over the taffrail and peered down. “It is the stern rake, I think, it is too severe. The way the guns sit in their carriages, they cannot protrude enough beyond the windows to discharge safely. Much of the blast remained in the cabin.”
“Oh!” Hull groaned. He shook his head violently to clear his brain. “I see. Well, it seemed like a good idea, what? Ha! Have the carpenter inspect the deck planking and secure it if any of it pulled loose.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll go below at once.” Bliven excused himself by Midshipman Walker, slightly amused at what a little boy he yet was but what a career he might make for himself, in time, as he himself was doing. He clattered down the ladder.
“Have you orders for us, sir?” In the commotion the gun crews of the eighteen that had been pulled aft, and a section of taffrail cut out to point it, felt forgotten. “We are ready.”
Hull’s head was still spinning. “I thank you for your eagerness, boys, but no, they are beyond your range. We will not waste the shot, just stand ready.”
In the captain’s cabin thick with powder smoke Bliven found the carpenter already inspecting for damage. “What do you make of it?” he asked.
“No real damage in here,” he replied. “It will just stink for a good while. I will inspect the decking when I can.”
Topside, Bliven relayed it to Hull. “Captain, the carpenter says he can find no serious damage. Your cabin will smell like smoke for a while.”
“Ha! Just what I need. When I can finally get some sleep I will dream of brimstone and the devil.”
“Deck! Deck there!”
“What do you see?”
“Frigates on the lee quarter have resumed towing!”
“Well, good,” muttered Hull. “At least they have run out of wind, too.” At a thousand yards distant, it was none too soon.
Again the lookout called down. “One of them, her boats are turning her.” Bliven and Hull looked through their glasses in time to see the frigate come broadside to them and her entire side erupt in a flaming salvo whose staccato boom-boom-boom reached them several seconds later, about the time they saw the splashes several hundred yards short.
Hull smiled derisively. “Well, that was kind of him to show us his maximum range.”
“Sir,” said Bliven, “the men in the boats must be about to collapse. May I recommend we get some fresh men out?”
“Yes, yes, see to it. And take a walk down the gun deck. The men have been at their stations for the better part of two days. Make sure they are all right.”
“Yes, sir.”
He napped only fitfully again that night; he never imagined that war could be fought so slowly, that their game of cat-and-mouse could be sustained for so long, with their destruction all but assured if they failed for a moment in their elusiveness.
First light of the third day revealed the remarkable sight of four frigates chasing one, all of them sweeping and kedging, their full-set sails hanging limp as wet bedsheets. The ship of the line, the brig, and the schooner had fallen off. Bliven came on deck apprehensive, but found Hull ebullient. “We shall have a wind, Mr. Putnam, the wind is rising with the sun. Do you feel it?”
“Indeed, sir, yes.”
“This changes the game!” All the ships were pulling in their boats and setting more canvas.
“The small frigate there.” Bliven pointed. “She is within range, why does she not fire?”
“A ship that size?” answered Hull. “She probably only mounts twelve-pounders. It is probably his aversion to suicide that makes him hold his fire.”
Of greater concern at that moment was the frigate that had gotten ahead of them and was tacking, forcing Constitution to tack also or be crossed. But surely, doggedly, hour by hour, Hull gained the advantage, slowly pulling ahead until by late afternoon the closest British vessel was two and a half miles distant.
“Captain Hull?”
“Mr. Putnam.”
“May I say, sir, that watching you handle this vessel has been an education that could never be got in any classroom?”
“Thank you, Mr. Putnam, but you haven’t seen anything yet. Do you regard those clouds over there?”
“Aye, sir.”
“By seven this evening we will be in a raging squall. Those boys are going to shorten sail to ride out the storm. They will think we shall do the same, but we are going to ride it hard and get the hell out of here.”
His forecast was prescient, and as the first large raindrops thudded on the deck shortly after seven, Hull ordered the bosun to come under short sail. The light canvas was taken in, a second reef taken in the mizzen topsail, the mainsails clewed up. “Now watch!” Hull pointed to the nearest British ships.
Bliven raised his glass and saw them do exactly the same. “The storm will hit us first; they assume that we will ride it out, as they will.”
No sooner had he said this than the rain hit them like a wet wall, with great exultant blasts of wind. “Sheet her home!” roared Hull.
Fore and main topgallant yards jerked aloft and the sails filled, and canvas added by degrees. The hard rain lasted twenty minutes, shielding them from British scrutiny. The wind remained after the rain, shooting Constitution ahead at eleven knots on an easy bowline.
“Ha!” boomed Hull. “They will be confused for a while, then they will guess what we have done and chase us but will not catch us. Let us see what morning brings.”
Hull gave Bliven confidence to sleep a little deeper that night, less unnerved at war fought at the pace of angry snails. The hail from the lookout he heard at first light, washed his face to gain alertness and went up, where Morris had the deck. “What do you see?”
“British squadron six miles to the northeast, bearing east!”
“They’re giving it up.” If pure satisfaction give a voice timbre, Hull uttered it. “They are giving up.” Hull lifted his bicorne high in salute at the disappearing enemy squadron as their masts disappeared over the horizon. “Fare thee well, ye God damn sons of bitches,” he shouted across the ocean. “Rot in hell, the lot of ye! Ha!” He turned around. “Mr. Morris, lay us a course for Boston, if you please.”
They put into Boston on July 27, but Hull could learn next to nothing of affairs. Rodgers and his squadron had sailed from New York on June 21, within an hour of learning that war had been declared. Nothing had bee
n heard of them since. There were no orders for Hull or the Constitution, which should have been annoying, but Hull welcomed it as merely giving him the discretion to sail without orders, which he determined to do as soon as his stores were topped off.
“Have you orders for me?” Bliven asked the yard commandant.
“Ah, yes, you are supposed to have a ship being made ready for you in Charleston, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I am getting most anxious to get to it, as you may imagine.”
“Well, I am sorry, I have nothing for you. If Captain Hull finds you useful, you should go back out with him.”
Bliven considered this with no outward emotion. He desired his own command, but it would be in a small ship with an unproven crew. Here, he was sailing in perhaps the strongest, fastest frigate in the world. Nowhere in the American Navy could he have a better chance of returning home in one piece. He could raise a dust about going to Charleston, but for now he liked his chances better in the Constitution. “As you wish, sir.”
“You say you are Master Commandant Putnam?”
“I am.”
“It is fortunate that you are here. We have received a letter, enclosing a letter to you and asking us to direct it on to a station where it might find you.” He offered the small fold of sheets, sealed with wax.
Bliven looked down, recognized his mother’s hand, and was filled with foreboding. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”
There was no reason short of bad news for his mother to have written him so soon after his departing. He returned to the ship, where he could be distracted by activity in the event it told of disaster.
LITCHFIELD
24TH JUNE, 1812
My Own Dearly Beloved Son,
I must tell you straightaway that your father has taken ill, although it does not appear from this distance, some two days since his attack, that he is dangerously so.
If you are reading this letter, it must have been given you in a naval station, therefore you will have heard, perhaps long ago, what we learned two days since, that war is declared upon Great Britain.
Your father did first read it in the newspaper, and he celebrated that the decision was to the policy that he favored. But then, as he read how many in the Congress opposed the measure, he grew indignant. The poll, you may have read, was only 19 to 13 in the Senate, and 79 to 49 in the lower chamber of representatives.
Surely, leading our nation into war is a step so momentous, so fraught, and so irrevocable that it should require greater consensus than the barest majority. Indeed, your father read it to me twice over that not one member of the Congress from New England voted in favor, and he vented his temper most dangerously. When he exhausted his known invective to have called them knaves, scoundrels, and rogues, he was compelled to make an expedition into the jungle, and he enumerated apes, baboons, jackals, and diverse other unpleasant species.
What caused him most particular anguish was the talk racing all about of invading the Canadas and annexing their territory to our own. How, he said, will we propose to do this, when so many of the northern states that border on the Canadas are united in opposition to this war and doubtless will prevent their militia forces from participating, and can otherwise obstruct this design? And against its advocates, he likewise pronounced it the greatest tom foolery to argue, as they have, that the Canadians will welcome us as liberators and join our forces, when large sections of those colonies were settled by our own people who were driven out for not supporting our Revolution. What love have they for us? However great the valor of our Navy, your father apprehends a terrible disaster awaiting in the contest on land.
After a long exposition he was seized with coughing, until he could not draw breath and was taken with a kind of seizure. The doctor pronounced it another apoplexy. Your father did not speak the rest of that day, which alarmed us greatly, lest the attack have left him mute. He slept very soundly, and in the morning he asked for porridge, speaking slowly but distinctly. We also were encouraged that he seemed to know that he might not sustain a heavy meal, and thus his mind was likely intact. While I sat with him your angel wife made a wonderful pot of oats with cream and butter and raisins. She came to the bedside to feed him, but thanking her, he took the bowl himself, which rejoiced us greatly.
Our practice shall be to keep him quiet, to keep news from him except what shall give him comfort, and to let him repair by degrees. This, my son, is the first reason that I write you.
The second is I am certain that your father’s honest opinion of this war is as he has expressed it. He also knows my feelings against war in general, and I believe that he thinks that this is because I am a woman, and as men imagine, we have not the stomach for contest.
My son, let us keep this confidence between ourselves, but I do not yield to this notion for an instant. I need not tell you that I am not of Pennsylvania stock, my scruple against war is not religiously impelled as among the Quakers of that place. Rather, every thing I have seen of war is that it derives in its past from greed, or pride, or envy, or simple malice, or other of the Seven Deadly Sins—war from the party that seeks ill gain comes of evil. They that are placed in the position of either submitting to wrong or resisting it, must resort to reason in determining their path.
Therefore my dearly loved son, understand your mother rightly. Though I abhor war and killing, I know well that your part in this is carried on in the full day light of honor, that you fight to defend our country from again suffering what your father and I did in Boston many years ago.
Never doubt my pride in you, never doubt that you are the object of my daily prayer on bended knee, that you will come home safe to me—and, yes, that you will come home victorious.
Your loving mother,
Doro. Putnam
Bliven set the letter down, quiet in thought, before removing a sheet from his own writing kit and trimming it to match hers, and dipping his quill in the inkpot.
BOSTON
JULY 28TH, 1812
Dear Mother,
I have no doubt you were expecting your letter to reach me months hence, in some distant quarter of the globe, yet here it is, scarce a month gone and I as close as Boston. The command that awaits me in Charleston was so far from ready that I was sent out on the Constitution under Captain Hull, happily so, for he is a fine officer, to see what we might effect. We set a course for New York, he to join a squadron under Commodore Rodgers, I to recruit new men into the Navy, but instead we encountered a British squadron of five sail, then seven, and at one point, eleven. They chased us the better part of three days, and Capt. Hull led a most wonderful escape. You need not be anxious for me, for I tell you, if I had known that war could be fought at so slow a pace, I would have brought more books with me.
I am heartily glad to learn of Father’s recovery, and hope that you will take the lesson to be watchful for your own health as well.
You will see that I am returning your letter, not because anything within displeases me, but because I wish it kept safe. Should any ill thing befall me, I want the future to know that my mother would have been as courageous a sailor, or as wise a statesman, as any man in her day.
Your loving son,
Bliven Putnam
Master Cmdt., USN
P.S.—We set sail again within the day, as soon as we can replace provisions. There are no orders for me here, so I am going back out with Hull. The British gave us such a merry chase that we were compelled to pump out several thousand gallons of fresh water to lighten ship, although upon reaching this place we were only a little thirsty. BP
6
The Warrior
The Constitution lay in Boston for a week, not just replenishing stores but ascertaining that there was no damage to the stern plate, rebuilding the bulkhead between the captain’s cabin and the gun deck, and freshly painting Hull’s quarters, which still smelled of powder smoke. Hull paced his deck as lon
g as he could stand it, until the arrival of August, when he announced to the Yard that he was leaving before he could be blockaded, and waited upon no argument.
Stores were still stacked on the spar deck when Morris approached and saluted. “Captain, the master at arms reports that there is a missing man. It is the Irishman Davis who came aboard at Annapolis.”
Bliven’s attention sharpened to hear how Hull would answer. “Oh, I remember him, he had seventy-eight lashes coming to him for desertion, said he was British and wanted to be repatriated.”
“Shall we send a party ashore, sir?” asked Morris.
Hull considered it and shook his head slowly. “No.”
“An Irishman would not be hard to find in Boston, sir. He will give himself away every time he speaks.”
Hull thought on it further. The Navy took a dim view of desertion, and to not chase him down and flog him within an inch of his life—or flog him to death—might inspire others to attempt the same. “No,” said Hull at last. “I was perhaps wrong to take him. He said he had been pressed, but I was busy and angry. We’ll just let him go.” He thought for one more moment. “How many more English do we have in our crew?”
“About twenty, sir.”
“Were they all willing volunteers?”
“Yes, sir—as far as we know.”
“Naturalized citizens?”
“Mostly.”
“Well, spread the word among them, I have let Davis go because he was wrongly pressed. They, on the contrary, volunteered to join the Navy, and if any man among them have a mind to join him in desertion, he will bear Davis’s lashes in addition to his own. Make sure they understand.”
The Tempest--Commander Putnam and Mr. Madison's War Page 15
