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The Naval War of 1812

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Besides conflicting with the American reports, the British statements
contradict one another. The official published report gives but two
midshipmen as killed; while one of the volumes of the "Naval Chronicle"
(vol. xxix, p. 452) contains a letter from one of the _Java's_
lieutenants, in which he states that there were five. Finally,
Commodore Bainbridge found on board the _Constitution_, after the
prisoners had left, a letter from Lieutenant H. D. Cornick, dated
Jan. 1, 1813, and addressed to Lieutenant Peter V. Wood, 22d Regiment,
foot, in which he states that 65 of their men were killed. James
("Naval Occurrences") gets around this by stating that it was
probably a forgery; but, aside from the improbability of Commodore
Bainbridge being a forger, this could not be so, for nothing would
have been easier than for the British lieutenant to have denied
having written it, which he never did. On the other hand, it would
be very likely that in the heat of the action, Commodore Bainbridge
and the _Java's_ own officers should overestimate the latter's loss.
[Footnote: For an account of the shameless corruption then existing
in the Naval Administration of Great Britain, see Lord Dundonald's
"Autobiography of a seaman." The letters of the commanders were
often garbled, as is mentioned by Brenton. Among numerous cases
that he gives, may be mentioned the cutting out of the _Chevrette_,
where he distinctly says, "our loss was much greater than was ever
acknowledged." (Vol. i, p. 505, edition of 1837.)]

Taking all these facts into consideration, we find 446 men on board
the _Java_ by her own muster-list; 378 of these were paroled by
Commodore Bainbridge at San Salvador; 24 men were acknowledged by
the enemy to be killed or mortally wounded; 20 were absent in a
prize, leaving 24 unaccounted for, who were undoubtedly slain.

The British loss was thus 48 men killed and mortally wounded, and
102 wounded severely and slightly. The _Java_ was better handled
and more desperately defended than the _Macedonian_ or even the
_Guerrière_. and the odds against her were much smaller; so she
caused her opponent greater loss, though her gunnery was no better
than theirs.

Lieutenant Parker, prize-master of the _Java_, removed all the
prisoners and baggage to the _Constitution_, and reported the prize
to be in a very disabled state; owing partly to this, but more to
the long distance from home and the great danger there was of
recapture, Commodore Bainbridge destroyed her on the 31st, and
then made sail for San Salvador. "Our gallant enemy," reports
Lieutenant Chads, "has treated us most generously"; and
Lieutenant-General Hislop presented the Commodore with a very
handsome sword as a token of gratitude for the kindness with which
he had treated the prisoners.

Partly in consequence of his frigate's injuries, but especially
because of her decayed condition, Commodore Bainbridge sailed from
San Salvador on Jan. 6, 1813, reaching Boston Feb. 27th, after his
four months' cruise. At San Salvador he left the _Hornet_ still
blockading the _Bonne Citoyenne_.

In order "to see ourselves as others see us," I shall again quote
from Admiral Jurien de la Gravière, [Footnote "Guerres Maritimes,"
ii, 284 (Paris, 1881).] as his opinions are certainly well worthy
of attention both as to these first three battles, and as to the
lessons they teach. "When the American Congress declared war on
England in 1812," he says, "it seemed as if this unequal conflict
would crush her navy in the act of being born; instead, it but
fertilized the germ. It is only since that epoch that the United
States has taken rank among maritime powers. Some combats of frigates,
corvettes, and brigs, insignificant without doubt as regards
material results, sufficed to break the charm which protected the
standard of St. George, and taught Europe what she could have
already learned from some of our combats, if the louder noise of our
defeats had not drowned the glory, that the only invincibles on the
sea are good seamen and good artillerists.

"The English covered the ocean with their cruisers when this
unknown navy, composed of six frigates and a few small craft
hitherto hardly numbered, dared to establish its cruisers at the
mouth of the Channel, in the very centre of the British power. But
already the _Constitution_ had captured the _Guerrière_ and _Java_,
the _United States_ had made a prize of the _Macedonian_, the _Wasp_
of the _Frolic_, and the _Hornet_ of the _Peacock_. The honor of
the new flag was established. England, humiliated, tried to
attribute her multiplied reverses to the unusual size of the
vessels which Congress had had constructed in 1799, and which did
the fighting in 1812. She wished to refuse them the name of frigates,
and called them, not without some appearance of reason, disguised
line-of-battle ships. Since then all maritime powers have copied
these gigantic models, as the result of the war of 1812 obliged
England herself to change her naval material; but if they had
employed, instead of frigates, cut-down 74's (vaisseaux rasés),
it would still be difficult to explain the prodigious success of
the Americans. * * *

"In an engagement which terminated in less than half an hour, the
English frigate _Guerrière_, completely dismasted, had fifteen men
killed, sixty-three wounded, and more than thirty shot below the
water-line. She sank twelve hours after the combat. The
_Constitution_, on the contrary, had but seven men killed and seven
wounded, and did not lose a mast. As soon as she had replaced a few
cut ropes and changed a few sails, she was in condition, even by
the testimony of the British historian, to take another _Guerrière_.
The _United States_ took an hour and a half to capture the
_Macedonian_, and the same difference made itself felt in the damage
suffered by the two ships. The _Macedonian_ had her masts shattered,
two of her main-deck and all her spar-deck guns disabled; more than
a hundred shot had penetrated the hull, and over a third of the
crew had suffered by the hostile fire. The American frigate, on the
contrary, had to regret but five men killed and seven wounded; her
guns had been fired each sixty-six times to the _Macedonian's_
thirty-six. The combat of the _Constitution_ and the _Java_ lasted
two hours, and was the most bloody of these three engagements. The
_Java_ only struck when she had been razed like a sheer hulk; she
had twenty-two men killed and one hundred and two wounded.

* * * * *

"This war should be studied with unceasing diligence; the pride of
two peoples to whom naval affairs are so generally familiar has
cleared all the details and laid bare all the episodes, and through
the sneers which the victors should have spared, merely out of care
for their own glory, at every step can be seen that great truth, that
there is only success for those who know how to prepare it.

* * * * *

"It belongs to us to judge impartially these marine events, too
much exalted perhaps by a national vanity one is tempted to excuse.
The Americans showed, in the War of 1812, a great deal of skill
and resolution. But if, as they have asserted, the chances had
always been perfectly equal between them and their adversaries, if
they had only owed their triumphs to the intrepidity of Hull,
Decatur, and Bainbridge, there would be for us but little interest
in recalling the struggle. We need not seek lessons in courage
outside of our own history. On the contrary, what is to be well
considered is that the ships of the United States constantly fought
with chances in their favor, and it is on this that the American
government should found its true title to glory. * * * The Americans
in 1812 had secured to themselves the advantage of a better
organization [than the English]."

The fight between the _Constitution_ and the _Java_ illustrates
best the proposition, "that there is only success for those who
know how to prepare it." Here the odds in men and metal were only
about as 10 to 9 in favor of the victors, and it is safe to say
that they might have been reversed without vitally affecting the
result. In the fight Lambert handled his ship as skilfully as
Bainbridge did his; and the _Java's_ men proved by their indomitable
courage that they were excellent material. The _Java's_ crew was
new shipped for the voyage, and had been at sea but six weeks; in
the _Constitution's_ first fight her crew had been aboard of her
but _five_ weeks. So the chances should have been nearly equal,
and the difference in fighting capacity that was shown by the
enormous disparity in the loss, and still more in the damage
inflicted, was due to the fact that the officers of one ship had,
and the officers of the other had not, trained their raw crews.
The _Constitution's_ men were not "picked," but simply average
American sailors, as the _Java's_ were average British sailors.
The essential difference was in the training.

During the six weeks the _Java_ was at sea her men had fired but
six broadsides, of blank cartridges; during the first five weeks
the _Constitution_ cruised, her crew were incessantly practised
at firing with blank cartridges and also at a target. [Footnote:
In looking through the logs of the _Constitution_, _Hornet_, etc.,
we continually find such entries as "beat to quarters, exercised
the men at the great guns," "exercised with musketry," "exercised
the boarders," "exercised the great guns, blank cartridges, and
afterward firing at mark."] The Java's crew had only been exercised
occasionally, even in pointing the guns, and when the captain of
a gun was killed the effectiveness of the piece was temporarily
ruined, and, moreover, the men did not work together. The
_Constitution's_ crew were exercised till they worked like machines,
and yet with enough individuality to render it impossible to
cripple a gun by killing one man. The unpractised British sailors
fired at random; the trained Americans took aim. The British
marines had not been taught any thing approximating to skirmishing
or sharp-shooting; the Americans had. The British sailors had not
even been trained enough in the ordinary duties of seamen; while
the Americans in five weeks had been rendered almost perfect. The
former were at a loss what to do in an emergency at all out of
their own line of work; they were helpless when the wreck fell over
their guns, when the Americans would have cut it away in a jiffy.
As we learn from Commodore Morris' "Autobiography," each Yankee
sailor could, at need, do a little carpentering or sail-mending,
and so was more self-reliant. The crew had been trained to act as
if guided by one mind, yet each man retained his own individuality.
The petty officers were better paid than in Great Britain, and so
were of a better class of men, thoroughly self-respecting; the
Americans soon got their subordinates in order, while the British
did not. To sum up: one ship's crew had been trained practically
and thoroughly, while the other crew was not much better off than
the day it sailed; and, as far as it goes, this is a good test of
the efficiency of the two navies.

The U.S. brig _Vixen_, 12, Lieutenant George U. Read, had been
cruising off the southern coast; on Nov. 22d she fell in with the
_Southampton_, 32, Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo, and was captured
after a short but severe trial of speed. Both vessels were wrecked
soon afterward.

The _Essex_, 32, Captain David Porter, left the Delaware on Oct.
28th, two days after Commodore Bainbridge had left Boston. She
expected to make a very long cruise and so carried with her an
unusual quantity of stores and sixty more men than ordinarily, so
that her muster-roll contained 319 names. Being deep in the water
she reached San Jago after Bainbridge had left. Nothing was met with
until after the Essex had crossed the equator in longitude 30° W.
on Dec. 11th. On the afternoon of the next day a sail was made out
to windward, and chased. At nine in the evening it was overtaken,
and struck after receiving a volley of musketry which killed one
man. The prize proved to be the British packet _Nocton_, of 10
guns and 31 men, with $55,000 in specie aboard. The latter was
taken out, and the _Nocton_ sent home with Lieutenant Finch and
a prize crew of 17 men, but was recaptured by a British frigate.

The next appointed rendezvous was the Island of Fernando de Noronha,
where Captain Porter found a letter from Commodore Bainbridge,
informing him that the other vessels were off Cape Frio. Thither
cruised Porter, but his compatriots had left. On the 29th he
captured an English merchant vessel; and he was still cruising
when the year closed.

The year 1812, on the ocean, ended as gloriously as it had begun.
In four victorious fights the disparity in loss had been so great
as to sink the disparity of force into insignificance. Our successes
had been unaccompanied by any important reverse. Nor was it alone
by the victories, but by the cruises, that the year was noteworthy.
The Yankee men-of-war sailed almost in sight of the British coast
and right in the tract of the merchant fleets and their armed
protectors. Our vessels had shown themselves immensely superior
to their foes.

The reason of these striking and unexpected successes was that our
navy in 1812 was the exact reverse of what our navy is now, in 1882.
I am not alluding to the personnel, which still remains excellent;
but, whereas we now have a large number of worthless vessels,
standing very low down in their respective classes, we then
possessed a few vessels, each unsurpassed by any foreign ship of
her class. To bring up our navy to the condition in which it stood
in 1812 it would not be _necessary_ (although in reality both very
wise and in the end very economical) to spend any more money than
at present; only instead of using it to patch up a hundred antiquated
hulks, it should be employed in building half a dozen ships on the
most effective model. If in 1812 our ships had borne the same relation
to the British ships that they do now, not all the courage and skill
of our sailors would have won us a single success. As it was, we
could only cope with the lower rates, and had no vessels to oppose
to the great "liners"; but to-day there is hardly any foreign ship,
no matter how low its rate, that is not superior to the corresponding
American ones. It is too much to hope that our political shortsightedness
will ever enable us to have a navy that is first-class in point of
size; but there certainly seems no reason why what ships we have
should not be of the very best quality. The effect of a victory is
two-fold, moral and material. Had we been as roughly handled on water
as we were on land during the first year of the war, such a succession
of disasters would have had a most demoralizing effect on the nation
at large. As it was, our victorious seafights, while they did not
inflict any material damage upon the colossal sea-might of England,
had the most important results in the feelings they produced at home
and even abroad. Of course they were magnified absurdly by most of
our writers at the time; but they do not need to be magnified, for
as they are any American can look back upon them with the keenest
national pride. For a hundred and thirty years England had had no
equal on the sea; and now she suddenly found one in the untried navy
of an almost unknown power.

BRITISH VESSELS CAPTURED OR DESTROYED IN 1812.

Name. Guns. Tonnage. Remarks.
_Guerrière_ 49 1,340
_Macedonian_ 49 1,325
_Java_ 49 1,340
_Frolic_ 19 477 Recaptured.
_Alert_ 20 323
_____ _______
186 4,807
19 477 Deducting Frolic.
_____ _______
167 4,330

AMERICAN VESSELS CAPTURED OR DESTROYED.

Name. Guns. Tonnage.
_Wasp_ 18 450
_Nautilus_ 14 185
_Vixen_ 14 185
_____ _______
46 820

VESSELS BUILT IN 1812.

Name. Rig. Guns. Tonnage. Where Built. Cost.
_Nonsuch_ Schooner 14 148 Charleston $15,000
_Carolina_ Schooner 14 230 " 8,743
_Louisiana_ Ship 16 341 New Orleans 15,500

PRIZES MADE. [Footnote: These can only be approximately given;
the records are often incomplete or contradictory, especially
as regards the small craft. Most accounts do not give by any
means the full number.]

Ship. No. of Prizes.

_President_ 1
_United States_ 2
_Constitution_ 9
_Congress_ 2
_Chesapeake_ 1
_Essex_ 11
_Wasp_ 2
_Hornet_ 1
_Argus_ 6
_Small Craft_ 5
__
46




Chapter IV


1812

ON THE LAKES

_PRELIMINARY.--The combatants starting nearly on an
equality--Difficulties of creating a naval force--Difficulty of
comparing the force of the rival squadrons--Meagreness of the
published accounts--Unreliability of James--ONTARIO--Extraordinary
nature of the American squadron--Canadian squadron forming only a
kind of water militia--Sackett's Harbor feebly attacked by Commodore
Earle--Commodore Chauncy bombards York--ERIE--Lieutenant Elliott
captures the_ Detroit _and_ Caledonia--_Unsuccessful expedition of
Lieutenant Angus._

At the time we are treating of, the State of Maine was so sparsely
settled, and covered with such a dense growth of forest, that it
was practically impossible for either of the contending parties to
advance an army through its territory. A continuation of the same
wooded and mountainous district protected the northern parts of
Vermont and New Hampshire, while in New York the Adirondack region
was an impenetrable wilderness. It thus came about that the
northern boundary was formed, for military purposes, by Lake
Huron, Lake Erie, the Niagara, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence,
and, after an interval, by Lake Champlain. The road into the States
by the latter ran close along shore, and without a naval force the
invader would be wholly unable to protect his flanks, and would
probably have his communications cut. This lake, however, was
almost wholly within the United States, and did not become of
importance till toward the end of the war. Upon it were two
American gun-boats, regularly officered and manned, and for such
smooth water sufficiently effective vessels.

What was at that time the western part of the northern frontier
became the main theatre of military operations, and as it presented
largely a water front, a naval force was an indispensable adjunct,
the command of the lakes being of the utmost importance. As these
lakes were fitted for the manoeuvring of ships of the largest size,
the operations upon them were of the same nature as those on the
ocean, and properly belong to naval and not to military history.
But while on the ocean America started with too few ships to enable
her really to do any serious harm to her antagonist, on the inland
waters the two sides began very nearly on an equality. The chief
regular forces either belligerent possessed were on Lake Ontario.
Here the United States had a man-of-war brig, the _Oneida_, of 240
tons, carrying 16 24-pound carronades, manned by experienced seamen,
and commanded by Lieutenant M. T. Woolsey. Great Britain possessed
the _Royal George_, 22, _Prince Regent_, 16, _Earl of Moira_, 14,
_Gloucester_, 10, _Seneca_, 8, and _Simco_, 8, all under the command
of a Commodore Earle; but though this force was so much the more
powerful it was very inefficient, not being considered as belonging
to the regular navy, the sailors being undisciplined, and the officers
totally without experience, never having been really trained in
the British service. From these causes it resulted that the struggle
on the lakes was to be a work as much of creating as of using a navy.
On the seaboard success came to those who made best use of the ships
that had already been built; on the lakes the real contest lay in
the building. And building an inland navy was no easy task. The
country around the lakes, especially on the south side, was still
very sparsely settled, and all the American naval supplies had to
be brought from the seaboard cities through the valley of the Mohawk.
There was no canal or other means of communication, except very
poor roads intermittently relieved by transportation on the Mohawk
and on Oneida Lake, when they were navigable. Supplies were thus
brought up at an enormous cost, with tedious delays and great
difficulty; and bad weather put a stop to all travel. Very little
indeed, beyond timber, could be procured at the stations on the
lakes. Still a few scattered villages and small towns had grown up
on the shores, whose inhabitants were largely engaged in the carrying
trade. The vessels used for the purpose were generally small sloops
or schooners, swift and fairly good sailors, but very shallow and
not fitted for rough weather. The frontiersmen themselves, whether
Canadian or American, were bold, hardy seamen, and when properly
trained and led made excellent man-of-war's men; but on the American
side they were too few in number, and too untrained to be made use
of, and the seamen had to come from the coast. But the Canadian
shores had been settled longer, the inhabitants were more numerous,
and by means of the St. Lawrence the country was easy of access to
Great Britain; so that the seat of war, as regards getting naval
supplies, and even men, was nearer to Great Britain than to us. Our
enemies also possessed in addition to the squadron on Lake Ontario
another on Lake Erie, consisting of the _Queen Charlotte_, 17,
_Lady Prevost_, 13, _Hunter_, 10, _Caledonia_, 2, _Little Belt_, 2,
and _Chippeway_, 2. These two squadrons furnished training schools
for some five hundred Canadian seamen, whom a short course of
discipline under experienced officers sufficed to render as good
men as their British friends or American foes. Very few British
seamen ever reached Lake Erie (according to James, not over fifty);
but on Lake Ontario, and afterward on Lake Champlain, they formed
the bulk of the crews, "picked seamen, sent out by government
expressly for service on the Canada lakes." [Footnote: James, vi,
353.] As the contrary has sometimes been asserted it may be as well
to mention that Admiral Codrington states that no want of seamen
contributed to the British disasters on the lakes, as their
sea-ships at Quebec had men drafted from them for that service
till their crews were utterly depleted. [Footnote: Memoirs, i, 322,
referring especially to battle of Lake Champlain.] I am bound to
state that while I think that on the ocean our sailors showed
themselves superior to their opponents, especially in gun practice,
on the lakes the men of the rival fleets were as evenly matched,
in skill and courage, as could well be. The difference, when there
was any, appeared in the officers, and, above all, in the builders;
which was the more creditable to us, as in the beginning we were
handicapped by the fact that the British already had a considerable
number of war vessels, while we had but one.

The Falls of Niagara interrupt navigation between Erie and Ontario;
so there were three independent centres of naval operations on the
northern frontier. The first was on Lake Champlain, where only the
Americans possessed any force, and, singularly enough, this was the
only place where the British showed more enterprise in ship-building
than we did. Next came Lake Ontario, where both sides made their
greatest efforts, but where the result was indecisive, though the
balance of success was slightly inclined toward us. Our naval
station was at Sackett's Harbor; that of our foes at Kingston. The
third field of operations was Lake Erie and the waters above it.
Here both sides showed equal daring and skill in the fighting, and
our advantage must be ascribed to the energy and success with which
we built and equipped vessels. Originally we had no force at all
on these waters, while several vessels were opposed to us. It is
a matter of wonder that the British and Canadian governments should
have been so supine as to permit their existing force to go badly
armed, and so unenterprising as to build but one additional ship,
when they could easily have preserved their superiority.

It is very difficult to give a full and fair account of the lake
campaigns. The inland navies were created especially for the war,
and, after it were allowed to decay, so that the records of the
tonnage, armament, and crews are hard to get at. Of course, where
everything had to be created, the services could not have the regular
character of those on the ocean. The vessels employed were of widely
different kinds, and this often renders it almost impossible to
correctly estimate the relative force of two opposing squadrons.
While the Americans were building their lake navy, they, as
makeshifts, made use of some ordinary merchant schooners, which
were purchased and fitted up with one or two long, heavy guns each.
These gun-vessels had no quarters, and suffered under all the other
disadvantages which make a merchant vessel inferior to a regularly
constructed man-of-war. The chief trouble was that in a heavy sea
they had a strong tendency to capsize, and were so unsteady that
the guns could not be aimed when any wind was blowing. Now, if a
few of these schooners, mounting long 32's, encountered a couple
of man-of-war brigs, armed with carronades, which side was strongest?
In smooth water the schooners had the advantage, and in rough
weather they were completely at the mercy of the brigs; so that it
would be very hard to get at the true worth of such a contest, as
each side would be tolerably sure to insist that the weather was
such as to give a great advantage to the other. In all the battles
and skirmishes on Champlain. Erie, and Huron, at least there was
no room left for doubt as to who were the victors. But on Lake
Ontario there was never any decisive struggle, and whenever an
encounter occurred, each commodore always claimed that his adversary
had "declined the combat" though "much superior in strength." It
is, of course, almost impossible to rind out which really did decline
the combat, for the official letters flatly contradict each other;
and it is often almost as difficult to discover where the superiority
in force lay, when the fleets differed so widely in character as
was the case in 1813. Then Commodore Chauncy's squadron consisted
largely of schooners; their long, heavy guns made his total foot
up in a very imposing manner, and similar gun-vessels did very
good work on Lake Erie; so Commodore Yeo, and more especially
Commodore Yeo's admirers, exalted these schooners to the skies,
and conveyed the impression that they were most formidable craft,
by means of which Chauncy ought to have won great victories. Yet
when Yeo captured two of them he refused to let them even cruise
with his fleet, and they were sent back to act as coast gun-boats
and transports, which certainly would not have been done had they
been fitted to render any effectual assistance. Again, one night
a squall came on and the two largest schooners went to the bottom,
which did not tend to increase the confidence felt in the others.
So there can be no doubt that in all but very smooth water the
schooners could almost be counted out of the fight. Then the question
arises in any given case, was the water smooth? And the testimony
is as conflicting as ever.

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