COMMODORE STEPHEN DECATUR
Painting by Thomas Sully, 1811. In the Comptroller's Office, owned by the City of New York.
"CONSTITUTION" AND "GUERRIÈRE"
An old print, illustrating the moment in the action at which the mainmast of the Guerrière, shattered by the terrific fire of the American frigate, fell overside, transforming the former vessel into a floating wreck and terminating the action. The picture represents accurately the surprisingly slight damage done the Constitution; note the broken spanker gaff and the shot holes in her topsails.
CHAPTER VI
MATCHLESS FRIGATES AND THEIR DUELS
It was soon made clear that the impressive victory over the Guerrière was neither a lucky accident nor the result of prowess peculiar to the Constitution and her crew. Ship for ship, the American navy was better than the British. This is a truth which was demonstrated with sensational emphasis by one engagement after another. During the first eight months of the war there were five such duels, and in every instance the enemy was compelled to strike his colors. In tavern and banquet hall revelers were still drinking the health of Captain Isaac Hull when the thrilling word came that the Wasp, an eighteen-gun ship or sloop, as the type was called in naval parlance, had beaten the Frolic in a rare fight. The antagonists were so evenly matched in every respect that there was no room for excuses, and on both sides were displayed such stubborn hardihood and a seamanship so dauntless as to make an Anglo-Saxon proud that these foemen were bred of a common stock.
The Wasp had sailed from the Delaware on the 13th of October, heading southeast to look for British merchantmen in the West India track. Her commander was Captain Jacob Jones, a name revived in modern days by a destroyer of the Queenstown fleet in the arduous warfare against the German submarines. Shattered by a torpedo, the Jacob Jones sank in seven minutes, and sixty-four of the officers and crew perished, doing their duty to the last, disciplined, unafraid, so proving themselves worthy of the American naval service and of the memory of the unflinching captain of 1812.