As rapidly as possible the blockade was raised, and ships were hurried to sea with the harvests of three seasons for cargo; but some weeks still passed before all the operations of war were closed. The news of peace reached the British squadron below Mobile in time to prevent further advance on that place; but on the ocean a long time elapsed before fighting wholly ceased.
Some of the worst disasters as well as the greatest triumphs of the war occurred after the treaty of peace had been signed. The battle of New Orleans was followed by the loss of Fort Bowyer. At about the same time a British force occupied Cumberland Island on the southern edge of the Georgia coast, and January 13 attacked the fort at the entrance of the St. Mary’s, and having captured it without loss, ascended the river the next day to the town of St. Mary’s, which they seized, together with its merchandise and valuable ships in the river. Cockburn established his headquarters on Cumberland Island January 22, and threw the whole State of Georgia into agitation, while he waited the arrival of a brigade with which an attack was to be made on Savannah.
The worst disaster of the naval war occurred January 15, when the frigate “President”—one of the three American forty-fours, under Stephen Decatur, the favorite ocean hero of the American service—suffered defeat and capture within fifty miles of Sandy Hook. No naval battle of the war was more disputed in its merits, although its occurrence in the darkest moments of national depression was almost immediately forgotten in the elation of the peace a few days later.
Secretary Jones retired from the Navy Department Dec. 19, 1814, yielding the direction to B. W. Crowninshield of Massachusetts, but leaving a squadron ready for sea at New York under orders for distant service. The “Peacock” and “Hornet,” commanded by Warrington and Biddle, were to sail with a store-ship on a long cruise in Indian waters, where they were expected to ravage British shipping from the Cape of Good Hope to the China seas. With them Decatur was to go in the “President,” and at the beginning of the new year he waited only an opportunity to slip to sea past the blockading squadron. January 14 a strong westerly wind drove the British fleet out of sight. The “President” set sail, but in crossing the bar at night grounded, and continued for an hour or more to strike heavily, until the tide and strong wind forced her across. Decatur then ran along the Long Island coast some fifty miles, when he changed his course to the southeast, hoping that he had evaded the blockading squadron. This course was precisely that which Captain Hayes, commanding the squadron, expected;[79] and an hour before daylight the four British ships, standing to the northward and eastward, sighted the “President,” standing to the southward and eastward, not more than two miles on the weather-bow of the “Majestic,”—the fifty-six-gun razee commanded by Captain Hayes.
The British ships promptly made chase. Captain Hayes’s squadron, besides the “Majestic,” consisted of the “Endymion,” a fifty-gun frigate, with the “Pomone” and “Tenedos,” frigates like the “Guerriere,” “Macedonian,” and “Java,” armed with eighteen-pound guns. Only from the “Endymion” had Decatur much to fear, for the “Majestic” was slow and the other ships were weak; but the “Endymion” was a fast sailer, and especially adapted to meet the American frigates. The “Endymion,” according to British authority, was about one hundred and fifty-nine feet in length on the lower deck, and nearly forty-three feet in extreme breadth; the “President,” on the same authority, was about one hundred and seventy-three feet in length, and forty-four feet in breadth. The “Endymion” carried twenty-six long twenty-four-pounders on the main deck; the “President” carried thirty. The “Endymion” mounted twenty-two thirty-two pound carronades on the spar deck; the “President” mounted twenty. The “Endymion” had also a long brass eighteen-pounder as a bow-chaser; the “President” a long twenty-four-pounder as a bow-chaser, and another as a stern-chaser. The “Endymion” was short-handed after her losses in action with the “Prince de Neufchatel,” and carried only three hundred and forty-six men; the “President” carried four hundred and fifty. The “Endymion” was the weaker ship, probably in the proportion of four to five; but for her immediate purpose she possessed a decisive advantage in superior speed, especially in light winds.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, the “Endymion” had gained so much on the “President” as to begin exchanging shots between the stern and bow-chasers.[80] Soon after five o’clock, as the wind fell, the “Endymion” crept up on the “President’s” starboard quarter, and “commenced close action.”[81] After bearing the enemy’s fire for half an hour without reply, Decatur was obliged to alter his course and accept battle, or suffer himself to be crippled.[82] The battle lasted two hours and a half, until eight o’clock, when firing ceased; but at half-past nine, according to the “Pomone’s” log, the “Endymion” fired two guns, which the “President” returned with one.[83] According to Decatur’s account the “Endymion” lay for half an hour under his stern, without firing, while the “President” was trying to escape. In truth the “Endymion” had no need to fire; she was busy bending new sails, while Decatur’s ship, according to his official report, was crippled, and in the want of wind could not escape.
In a letter written by Decatur to his wife immediately after the battle, he gave an account of what followed, as he understood it.[84]
“The ‘Endymion,’” he began, ... “was the leading ship of the enemy. She got close under my quarters and was cutting my rigging without my being able to bring a gun to bear upon her. To suffer this was making my capture certain, and that too without injury to the enemy. I therefore bore up for the ‘Endymion’ and engaged her for two hours, when we silenced and beat her off. At this time the rest of the ships had got within two miles of us. We made all the sail we could from them, but it was in vain. In three hours the ‘Pomone’ and ‘Tenedos’ were alongside, and the ‘Majestic’ and ‘Endymion’ close to us. All that was now left for me to do was to receive the fire of the nearest ship and surrender.”
The “Pomone’s” account of the surrender completed the story:[85]—
“At eleven, being within gunshot of the ‘President’ who was still steering to the eastward under a press of sail, with royal, top-gallant, topmast, and lower studding-sails set, finding how much we outsailed her our studding-sails were taken in, and immediately afterward we luffed to port and fired our starboard broadside. The enemy then also luffed to port, bringing his larboard broadside to bear, which was momentarily expected, as a few minutes previous to our closing her she hoisted a light abaft, which in night actions constitutes the ensign. Our second broadside was fired, and the ‘President’ still luffing up as if intent to lay us on board, we hauled close to port, bracing the yards up, and setting the mainsail; the broadside was again to be fired into his bows, raking, when she hauled down the light, and we hailed demanding if she had surrendered. The reply was in the affirmative, and the firing immediately ceased. The ‘Tenedos,’ who was not more than three miles off, soon afterward came up, and assisted the ‘Pomone’ in securing the prize and removing the prisoners. At three quarters past twelve the ‘Endymion’ came up, and the ‘Majestic’ at three in the morning.”