At precisely 5.50 P.M. Windham pulled the lanyard of his gun and the battle was on. The other guns of the Shannon were fired in quick succession and the Chesapeake replied with a full broadside. The Chesapeake forged ahead slightly and was luffed still more. Her broadsides told with great effect, but the fire of the Shannon was more rapid and had such a terrible effect that “the men in the Shannon’s tops could hardly see the deck of the American frigate through the cloud of splinters, hammocks, and wreck that was flying across it.” As seen from above “the deck was covered with a mist of débris as the mist of spoondrift in a pelting gale.”
Warmed by the heat of battle, Broke was shouting “Kill the men! Kill the men!” His well-trained sharp-shooters heard and obeyed. Three quarter-masters were shot from the Chesapeake’s wheel in rapid succession, while Lawrence himself was struck in the leg by a musket-ball. But Lawrence merely rested his weight against the companionway and continued to direct the fight. First Lieutenant Ludlow was mortally wounded, and was carried below. The storm of grape and musket-balls was clearing the whole crew from the upper deck of the Chesapeake.
Meantime, having luffed up to deaden her headway, the wind caught the Chesapeake aback, and she began to drift astern with her lee quarter exposed to the broadside of the Shannon. The Shannon’s fire was raking her. The brails of her spanker were shot away and the wind caught and spread that sail and so swung her stern still nearer to the Shannon. A hand-grenade thrown from the Shannon landed in the Chesapeake’s lee quarter-deck arm-chest, where it exploded the ammunition stored there. The flames spread in a huge flash through the splinters and dust, clear to the forecastle, filling the air with a cloud of smoke. The rigging of the Chesapeake was badly cut. Her boatswain and sailing-master were dead. There was no one forward to see the orders of Captain Lawrence obeyed. The Chesapeake was drifting stern on into the Shannon, and ten minutes after the fight began the two ships fouled.
The Chesapeake and Shannon.—After the first two broadsides from the latter.
From an engraving at the Navy Department, Washington.
At that Lawrence called for boarders, but the bugler, who was a negro landsman, had hidden himself, frightened half to death. Still a few men answered the call, but they were to try to repel boarders rather than to board. A desperate hand-to-hand conflict followed at the rails of the two ships. Brawny Boatswain Stevens, who boasted that he had served under Rodney, lashed the ships together, though an American slashed off his left arm with a cutlass as he took the last turn, and thus inflicted a mortal wound.
Diagram of the CHESAPEAKE-SHANNON BATTLE.
But the end was at hand. Lieutenant Law, of the British marines, recognizing Lawrence, fired at him, and the ball pierced his abdomen. A few minutes after he had been carried below he noticed that the fire had slackened greatly. He at once “forgot the anguish of his wounds, and having no other officer near, ordered John Dip, the surgeon’s mate in attendance on him on deck to “Tell the men to fire faster, and not give up the ship; the colors shall wave while I live.”