From the painting by Birch, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
At that Captain Hull began to shorten sail on the Constitution. The breeze was steady and fresh, and the water fairly smooth. It was just the kind of weather he would have chosen for such a battle. All the light sails, including the top-gallant sails, were furled, the courses were hauled up to the yards, and the royal-yards were sent down. Then the top-sails were double-reefed, and as the men came down from the top-sail-yards the drums beat to quarters. Not many of the crew had ever been in battle, but “from the smallest boy in the ship to the oldest seaman not a look of fear was seen.”
The enemy’s first shots fell short, but the second round passed over the deck of the Constitution, though without doing any damage. A deal of what a yachtsman would call jockeying for position followed. The enemy squared away before the wind, and wore around until her port (left side) battery would bear, and then, as the Constitution was coming down the wind and following close after her, she wore back till her starboard (right side) battery would bear. As she turned from side to side she fired on the Constitution. The Constitution replied with an occasional shot from a bow-gun. The enemy was twisting about to avoid being raked by the Constitution, and was firing to cripple the enemy’s rigging. But all that the twisting amounted to was to keep the Guerrière at “long balls”—out of range of the shorter guns of the Constitution. To end that kind of work Captain Hull spread his maintopgallant sail and foresail. Impelled by these, the Constitution began to forge within close range, and the projectiles from the Guerrière began to come on board. One big shot through the forward bulwarks knocked no end of splinters across the deck, and some of them pierced several of a gun’s crew hard by. The men were eager to return the fire, but Captain Hull paced the quarter-deck, saying nothing. A rousing cheer from the British crew came over the water as they saw that they had hulled the Constitution. Lieutenant Morris walked aft, and said to Captain Hull:
“The enemy has opened fire and killed two of our men. Shall we return it?”
Action between the Constitution and the Guerrière.—II.
From the painting by Birch, at the Naval Academy, Annapolis.
“Not yet, sir,” replied Captain Hull. The captain was waiting for a shorter range. Twice more Lieutenant Morris, to ease the minds of the impatient gunners, walked aft to ask permission to fire, and each time received the same answer. The Guerrière had meantime steered away before the wind; the clipper stem of the Yankee was overreaching the Englishman’s quarter only a few yards away from it; our guns were brought to bear, and then stooping till “he split his knee-breeches from waistband to buckle,” Captain Hull straightened up again to his full height and shouted in a voice heard all over the ship:
“Now, boys; pour it into them!”
With a yell they obeyed. The broadside was as a single explosion. The crash of the iron balls through the splintering timbers of the Guerrière came back as an echo, and as she rolled with the swell the blood of the dead and wounded gushed from her scuppers. The Yankee gunners had aimed as if feeling still the claws of the British cat in their backs.