American Men of Action

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

The battle was soon over, after that, for the British boarded, the Chesapeake's foreign crew threw down their arms, and the triumphant enemy hauled down the Chesapeake's flag. A few days later, the two ships sailed into the harbor of Halifax, Lawrence's body, wrapped in his ship's flag, lying in state on the quarter-deck. He was buried with military honors, first at Halifax, and then at New York, where Hull, Stewart and Bainbridge were among those who carried the pall. His cry, "Don't give up the ship!" was to be the motto of another battle, far to the west, where Great Britain experienced the greatest defeat of the war.

Before describing it, however, let us speak briefly of four other valiant men, whose deeds redounded to the honor of their country—Edward Preble, Charles Stewart, Johnston Blakeley, and Thomas Macdonough. It was said of Preble that he had the worst temper and the best heart in the world. At sixteen years of age he ran away to sea, and two years later, he actually saw a sea-serpent, a hundred and fifty feet in length and as big around as a barrel, and got close enough to fire at it. He saw service in the Revolution, and in 1803, was appointed to command the expedition against the Barbary corsairs, of which we have already spoken, and which resulted in bringing those pirates to their knees. The trials of that expedition ruined his health, and he survived it but a few years.

To Charles Stewart belongs the remarkable exploit of engaging and capturing two British ships at the same time. Enlisting in 1798, he was with Preble at Tripoli, and was given command of the Constitution, after Bainbridge's successful cruise in her, and started out in search of adventure on December 17, 1814. Two months later, off the Madeira Islands he sighted two British ships-of-war and at once gave chase. He overhauled them at nightfall, and, running between them, gave them broadside after broadside, until both struck their colors. They were the Cyane and the Levant. Stewart got back to New York the middle of May to find out that peace had been declared over a month before his encounter with the British ships.

He was received with enthusiasm, and "Old Ironsides" got the reputation of being invincible. Her career had, indeed, been remarkable. She had done splendid work before Tripoli, escaped twice from British squadrons and seven times run the blockade through strong British fleets; she had captured three frigates and a sloop-of-war, besides many merchantmen, and had taken more than eleven hundred prisoners. From all of these engagements she had emerged practically unscathed, and in none of them had she lost more than nine men. Stewart was the last survivor of the great captains of 1812, living until 1869, having been carried on the navy list for seventy-one years.

Johnston Blakeley was a South Carolinian, and won renown by a remarkable cruise in the Wasp. The Wasp was a stout and speedy sloop, carrying twenty-two guns and a crew of one hundred and seventy men, and in 1814 she sailed from the United States, and headed for the English Channel, to carry the war into the enemy's country, after the fashion of Paul Jones. The Channel, of course, was traversed constantly by English fleets and squadrons and single ships-of-war, and here the Wasp sailed up and down, capturing and destroying merchantmen, and, by the skill and vigilance of her crew and commander, escaping an encounter with any frigate or ship-of-the-line.

But one June morning, while chasing two merchantmen, she sighted the British brig Reindeer, and at once prepared for action. The Reindeer accepted the challenge, and after some broadsides had been exchanged, the ships fouled and the British boarded. A desperate struggle followed, in which the English commander was killed. Then the boarders were driven back, and the Americans boarded in their turn, and in a minute had the Reindeer in their possession. Her colors were hauled down, she was set afire, and the Wasp continued her cruise.

Late one September afternoon, British ships of war appeared all around her, and selecting one which seemed isolated from the others, Captain Blakeley decided to try to run alongside and sink her after nightfall. She was the eighteen-gun brig Avon, a bigger ship than the Wasp, but Blakeley ran alongside, discharged his broadsides, and soon had the Avon in a sinking condition. She struck her flag, but before Blakeley could secure his prize, two other British ships came up and he was forced to flee.

Soon afterwards, he encountered a convoy of ships bearing arms and munitions to Wellington's army, under the care of a great three-decker. Blakeley sailed boldly in, and, evading the three-decker's movements, actually cut out and captured one of the transports and made his escape. Then she sailed for home, and that was the last ever heard of the Wasp. She never again appeared, and her fate has never been determined. But when she sank, if sink she did, there went to the bottom one of the gallantest ships and bravest captains in the American navy.

All of the battles which we have thus far described were fought on salt water, but two great victories were won on inland waters, and of one of these Thomas Macdonough was the hero. He had entered the navy in 1800, at the age of seventeen, served before Tripoli, and accompanied Decatur on the expedition which burned the Philadelphia. At the outbreak of the second war with England, he was sent to Lake Champlain, and set about the building of a fleet to repel the expected British invasion from Canada. The British were also busy at the other end of the lake, and on September 9, 1814, Macdonough sailed his fleet of fourteen boats, ten of which were small gunboats, and the largest of which, the Saratoga, was merely a corvette, into Plattsburg Bay, and anchored there.

The abdication of Napoleon had enabled England to turn her undivided attention to America, and one great force was sent against New Orleans, while another was concentrated in Canada, for the purpose of invading New York by way of Lake Champlain. On this latter enterprise, a force of twelve thousand regulars started from Montreal early in August, while the British naval force on the lake was augmented to nineteen vessels. On September 11, this fleet got under way, and, certain of victory, sailed into Plattsburg Bay and attacked Macdonough. A terrific battle followed, in which the Saratoga had every gun on one side disabled and had to wear around under fire in order to use those on the other side. But three hours later, every British flag had been struck, and the land force, seeing their navy defeated, retreated hastily to Canada. So riddled were both squadrons that in neither of them did a mast remain upon which sail could be made.