Fight of the Essex and the Alert.
From an old wood-cut.
Until August 13th the Essex had no adventure. On that day, while cruising along under reefed top-sails, a ship was seen to windward that appeared to be a man-of-war. At this, drags were put over the stern of the Essex to hold her back, and then a few men were sent aloft to shake out the reefs, and the sails were then spread to the breeze exactly as a merchant-crew would have done it. The stranger was entirely deceived by this, and she came bowling down toward the Essex, which was now flying the British flag. The stranger having fired a gun, the Essex hove to until she had passed under her stern to leeward. Having now the weather-gage, the Essex suddenly filled away her main-sails, cut away the drags, hauled down the British flag, ran up the Stars and Stripes, and, throwing open her ports, ran out the muzzles of her guns.
At the sight of these doings the Englishmen gave three cheers, and, without waiting to get where their guns would bear effectively, they blazed away with grape and canister.
The Essex waited for a minute or two until her guns would bear, and then gave the stranger a broadside, “tompions and all,” as Midshipman Farragut wrote at the time. The effect on the stranger was stunning. Her crew were actually stunned into inaction, and all of them but three officers were severely reprimanded at the court-martial of the captain, and several of the lower officers were dishonorably dismissed from the service on a charge of cowardice. They tried to veer off and run away, but “she was in the lion’s reach,” to again quote the youngster, and within eight minutes the Essex was alongside, when the stranger fired a musket and then struck her flag.
The American officer who boarded her found that she was the corvette Alert, Captain Thomas L. P. Laugharne, carrying eighteen short thirty-twos and two long twelves, a very inferior force to that of the Essex. And yet the result of this brief contest was of the greatest significance. The British histories say the fight lasted fifteen minutes. Doubtless this means from the time the Alert’s crew cheered so vigorously until they hauled down their flag. Farragut says that it was eight minutes from the first broadside of the Essex until the flag came down, and this is not disputed. In eight minutes the Essex had shot the Alert so full of holes that when the American boat’s crew reached the beaten ship the water was seven feet deep in her hold in spite of the utmost efforts of her crew to check the leaks! Not a man was killed on the Alert, and only three were wounded. The gunners of the Essex aimed low—they shot to sink the enemy, and they wellnigh succeeded. No one was hurt on the Essex.
For several days after this the Essex, having repaired the Alert, cruised with her in tow, and then an incident occurred, the story of which brings out very clearly another characteristic of the American crews; that is to say, the care with which the green crews were trained from the day they came on board.
The number of prisoners on the Essex very greatly exceeded her crew after the capture of the Alert, for the Alert’s crew were added to the soldiers and men from the transport, while the Essex had put out two prize crews. Knowing this, the prisoners formed a plan to take the ship, the coxswain of the Alert’s gig being the leader in the conspiracy. Young Farragut happened to discover the plot on the night it was to be executed. He was lying in his hammock and saw the coxswain with a pistol in hand on the deck where the hammock was swinging. The coxswain was looking around to see if all was in order for his men to rise, and going to Farragut’s hammock, looked earnestly at the boy, who had the wit to feign sleep. But the moment the coxswain was gone, Farragut ran into the cabin and told Captain Porter, who sprang from his berth, and running out of his cabin began to shout:
“Fire! Fire!”
A more distressful cry than that is never heard at sea. To the prisoners it brought utter confusion. To the crew of the Essex it meant only that they were to hasten to fire-quarters for a night-drill—something to which they had been trained ever since leaving New York. Captain Porter had even built fires that sent up volumes of smoke through the hatches in order to make the crew face what seemed to be a real fire, and so had steadied their nerves. Now they promptly but coolly went to their quarters. It was then a simple matter to turn them on the mutineers.