When the first gun was fired at 3.54 P.M., Porter had not yet been able to get a spring on his cable and could not bring a gun to bear on either ship. For five minutes the Essex lay as an idle target. But as the spring was made fast and the cable veered, the long twelves began to bark and it was then that the Cherub made haste to get clear of the fire from forward, and take a place near the Phœbe. They both delivered a raking fire which “continued about ten minutes, but produced no visible effect,” to quote Hillyar’s report to Commodore Brown of the Jamaica station. But if the British fire produced no “visible effect,” the fire of the guns of the Essex was so well directed that Hillyar “increased our distance by wearing,” and he confesses that “appearances were a little inauspicious.” In fact, at the end of half an hour both the British ships sailed out of range to repair damages alow and aloft. The Phœbe alone had seven holes at the water-line to plug and she had lost the use of her mainsail and jib, her fore, main, and mizzen stays were shot away, and her jib-boom was badly wounded. This much the British admit.
But it had been a losing fight on the Essex, nevertheless. The springs on the cable were shot away three times and could be renewed only after delays that prevented working the guns under full speed, and the heavy shot of the enemy’s long guns had been cutting down the crew. And then the enemy returned once more to the fight. Brave Lieutenant William Ingram, of the Phœbe, wanted to close in and carry the Essex by boarding. The two British ships had at this time more than two men to the one of the Essex, but Hillyar refused, quoting the orders he had received from his superiors as a reason, and saying he had “determined not to leave anything to chance.” He would not face Yankee cutlasses wielded in defence of the Essex. So the safest possible positions were chosen, and fire was again opened at 5.35 P.M. It was “a most galling fire, which we were powerless to return.” Even the Essex’s “stern guns could not be brought to bear.”
At this juncture, the wind having shifted, Captain Porter ordered his crew to slip the cable and make sail; and it was then found that the running gear had been so badly cut that only the flying jib could be spread.
Did the courage and hope of the brave American falter at this? Not at all. Spreading that one little triangle of canvas by halyard and sheet to the wind, he loosed the square sails, and with their unrestrained and ragged breadths flapping from the yards, the Essex wore around, and while the shot of the enemy filled the air above her deck with splinters, she bore down upon them until her short guns began to reach them, and the Cherub was driven out of range altogether, while Hillyar made haste to obey his orders about taking as little risk as possible—made haste to spread his canvas and sail away to a point where he would be clear of the deadly aim of the Yankee gunners. The Phœbe “was enabled by the better condition of her sails to choose her own distance, suitable for her long guns, and kept up a most destructive fire on our helpless ship.” So says Farragut.
Fight of the Essex with the Phœbe and Cherub.
From an engraving by Strickland of a drawing by Captain Porter.
But fearful as was the scene on the doomed Essex, the story of the deeds of her heroic crew stir the blood as few other stories of battle can do. “Dying men who had hardly ever attracted notice among the ship’s company, uttered sentiments worthy of a Washington. You might have heard in all directions: ‘Don’t give her up, Logan’—a sobriquet for Porter—‘Hurrah for Liberty!’ and similar expressions.”
A man named Bissley, a young Scotchman by birth, on losing a leg, said: “I hope I have this day proved myself worthy of the country of my adoption. I am no longer of any use to you or to her, so good-by!” And with that he plunged through a port. And John Ripley, who had suffered in like fashion, also went overboard deliberately. John Alvinson, having been struck by an eighteen-pound shot, cried: “Never mind, shipmates; I die in defence of free trade and sailors’ ri——” and so his spirit fled while the last word quivered on his lips. William Call lost his leg and was carried down to the berth-deck. As he lay there weltering in his blood awaiting his turn with the doctor, he saw Quarter-Gunner Roach—he who had so bravely headed the boarders—skulking, and “dragged his shattered stump all around the bag-house, pistol in hand, trying to get a shot at him.”
And there was Lieutenant J. G. Cowell. He had his leg shot off just above the knee and was carried below. The surgeon on seeing him at once left a common sailor to attend to him, but Cowell said: