Among other reminiscences by Farragut, we find that when Lieutenant Ingram visited the Essex, under a flag of truce, he was shown all over her, and made a very good impression by his frank and manly bearing. He said the happiest moment of his life would be to take her to England should she be captured in equal combat. Porter replied that, should such an event occur, he knew no British officer to whom he would more readily yield the honor. Poor Ingram was killed by a splinter, and the American officers who survived attended his funeral, in Valparaiso.
“During the action,” says Admiral Farragut, in his later years, “I was, like ‘Paddy in the Catharpins,’ a man on occasions. I performed the duties of Captain’s aid, quarter-gunner, powder-boy, and, in fact, did everything that was required of me. I shall never forget the horrible impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. He was a boatswain’s mate, and was fearfully mutilated. It staggered and sickened me at first, but they soon began to fall around me so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect upon my nerves. I can remember well, while I was standing near the Captain, just abaft the main-mast, a shot came through the water-ways and glanced upward, killing four men who were standing by the side of a gun, taking the last one in the head, and scattering his brains over both of us. But this awful sight did not affect me half as much as the death of the first poor fellow. I neither thought of nor noticed anything but the working of the guns.”
During the action Midshipman Farragut was knocked down a ladder by the body of a heavy man, who was killed. Farragut was only bruised.
The Admiral also tells an amusing story of a fight he had, on board the English frigate, after the action, when they were taken on board, prisoners. He saw an English midshipman who had captured a pet pig, called Murphy, belonging to him, and he stoutly claimed it. The English midshipman refused to surrender it, but his older messmates told Farragut that if he licked the English midshipman he should have his pig. A ring was formed, and, encouraged by shouts, of “Go it! my little Yankee! if you can thrash Shorty you shall have your pig!” he went in and licked the Englishman handsomely.
BATTLE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN. SEPTEMBER 11TH, A. D. 1814.
The battle of Lake Champlain, or Plattsburg, as it is often called, was one of the most important, in its results, of all fought during the war with Great Britain which began in 1812.
At the same time that the naval battle was fought, the Americans, under General Macomb, obtained a decided victory over the British land forces, which had advanced, on the west side of Lake Champlain, as far as Plattsburg.
Although Lake Champlain had been the scene of so many important events in the previous wars on this continent, two years of the “War of 1812” elapsed before anything of importance occurred there. Nor would it have then been the scene of any stirring event, if English military men had been capable of learning anything from previous operations there.