The Shining Sea (42 page)

Farragut received orders to bring gun primers up from below. While he was on the wardroom ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an 18-pound shot and fell back directly onto him. They tumbled down the hatchway together. At the bottom Farragut's head struck the hard deck while the other man, who weighed over two hundred pounds, came down on the little midshipman's hips. Had the dead man landed on Farragut's stomach, he would have killed him. “I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck.” When Porter saw him covered with blood, he asked if he were wounded.

“I believe not, sir.”

“Then, where are the primers?”

Suddenly realizing that he had completely forgotten why he had gone below, Farragut recovered his wits and went back for the primers. When he returned he saw Porter sprawled out on deck, apparently wounded. He asked if he were injured.

“I believe not, my son, but I felt a blow on the top of my head.”

Farragut assumed a cannonball had whizzed by close enough to the captain's head to knock him down and damage his hat, but not his head. Porter got back on his feet right away and resumed command.

Not long afterward, Farragut saw a cannonball coming straight for him while he was standing at the wheel next to Quartermaster Francis Bland. Farragut screamed a warning, but the ball tore off Bland's right leg and Farragut's coattail. Recovering, Farragut dragged Bland below, hoping he could be saved, and then rushed back to the quarterdeck.

The
Essex
's condition had now deteriorated to the point where the remaining, loyal-to-the-end crewmembers pleaded with Porter to surrender and save the wounded. He responded by going below to check the amount of powder remaining in the magazine, and then sent for the officers of divisions to discuss hauling down the flag. Sadly, only Stephen Decatur McKnight answered the call; the others were either dead or severely wounded. Lieutenant Wilmer was dead, and Acting Lieutenant John G. Cowell was mortally wounded with a leg shot off.

The
Phoebe
and
Cherub
, in the meantime, kept pouring in shot. The stricken
Essex
was still unable to respond. Her cockpit, steerage, wardroom, and berth deck were all packed with wounded. “I saw no hope of saving her,” Porter lamented, and, after sending Farragut to make certain the signal book and other important papers had been thrown overboard, he “gave the painful order to strike the colors.” It was twenty minutes after six.

In spite of the American flag having come down,
Phoebe
and
Cherub
kept firing. Porter angrily discharged a gun in the opposite direction to indicate surrender, but still the shelling continued. Ten more minutes elapsed before the guns fell silent. Before they did, Farragut, Isaacs, and others worked hard throwing pistols and other small arms overboard to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

CHAPTER

20

T
HE
B
UTCHER
'
S
B
ILL

P
ORTER AND
F
ARRAGUT, ALTHOUGH REMAINING EXPOSED
during the entire action, miraculously escaped serious injury. Others were not so lucky. The butcher's bill aboard the
Essex
was horrific. Of the 255 men at the start of the battle, fifty-eight were killed outright or died later of their wounds; thirty-nine were seriously injured, another twenty-seven were slightly hurt; and thirty-one were unaccounted for—a total of 155 either dead, wounded, or missing. Some of the latter drowned while attempting to swim ashore.

After the surrender, Farragut went below, and he was sickened. The mangled bodies of his dead shipmates were terrible enough to witness, but the dying, who were groaning and expiring with the most patriotic sentiments on their lips, over
whelmed him, and he became faint. He managed to hold together, however, and as soon as he gathered himself, he hastened to assist the surgeon, Dr. Richard Hoffman, and his assistant, Dr. Alexander Montgomery, as well as the chaplain, Mr. Adams, in staunching and dressing the wounds of his comrades. Among them was his close friend, Lieutenant John Cowell. “O Davy,” Cowell cried, when he saw Farragut, “I fear it is all up with me.” He had lost his leg just above the knee. Doctor Hoffman told Farragut that Cowell “might have
been saved if he had consented to the amputation of the limb an hour earlier, but when it was proposed to drop another patient and attend to him, he replied, ‘No, Doctor, none of that; fair play is a jewel. One man's life is as dear as another's. I would not cheat any poor fellow out of his turn.' Thus died one of the best officers and bravest men among us,” Farragut lamented.

The dying men—ordinary jack tars—made an indelible impression on Farragut. He heard them “uttering sentiments with their last breath, worthy of a Washington.” All around him, he heard, “‘Don't give up the ship Logan!'—a sobriquet for Porter—‘Hurrah for Liberty!' and similar expressions.”

Many men bled to death from want of tourniquets. Francis Bland, the old quartermaster whom Farragut had taken below bleeding from an open wound, had succumbed before he could be attended to. When the battle was over, Farragut searched for him to see how he was faring, and was shaken when he saw the lifeless body.

A young Scot named Bissley had a leg shot off close to the groin and applied his handkerchief as a pathetic tourniquet. “I left my own country and adopted the United States to fight for her,” he declared. “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 goodbye!” He then leaned on the sill of a port and slid over the side into the water.

A young black slave named Ruff, owned by Lieutenant Wilmer, was so disconcerted by the news that the lieutenant had been shot and tumbled overboard, that Ruff leaped into the sea and drowned.

Porter said of his crew, “More bravery, skill, patriotism, and zeal were never displayed on any occasion.”

Captain Hillyar reported only four killed and seven wounded on the
Phoebe
, and one killed and three wounded on the
Cherub
. One of the dead was William Ingram, the
Phoebe
's gallant first lieutenant, who was struck in the head by a jagged splinter. He was much admired, not only on his own ship, but by the Americans as well, especially young Farragut who was much taken with his demeanor, compassion, and candor. Porter, Farragut, Downes, and all the surviving American officers and crew thought so highly of Ingram they attended his funeral at the governor's castle in Valparaiso.

S
OME MONTHS LATER, WHEN
P
ORTER WROTE TO THE SECRETARY
of the navy reflecting on the battle and its gruesome toll of American fighters, he had no criticism to offer of his strategy or tactics. “We have been unfortunate, but not disgraced,” he wrote. “The defense of the
Essex
has not been less honorable to her officers and crew, than the capture of an equal force; and I now consider my situation less unpleasant than that of Commodore Hillyar, who in violation of every principle of honor and generosity, and regardless of the rights of nations, attacked the
Essex
in her crippled state, within pistol shot of a neutral shore—when for six weeks I had daily offered him fair and honorable combat, on terms greatly to his advantage; the blood of the slain must be upon his head.” Porter added bitterly that “I must in justification of myself observe that with our six twelve-pounders only, we fought this action, our carronades being almost useless.”

Looking back many years later, Farragut had a different view than Porter's. “In the first place, I consider that our original and greatest mistake was in attempting to regain the anchorage”; he wrote, “as, being greatly superior to the enemy in sailing qualities, I think we should have borne up and run before the wind.” Farragut thought that if the
Phoebe
managed to catch the
Essex
, Porter could have taken her by boarding. If Hillyar outmaneuvered the
Essex
and avoided her grasp, the
Essex
could have taken her fire and passed on, replacing her topmast as she went and sailing beyond Hillyar's reach. The slow-sailing
Cherub
would not have entered into the action and would have been left far behind.

Farragut also thought that “when it was apparent to everyone that we had no chance of success under the circumstances, the ship should have been run ashore, throwing her broadside to the beach, to prevent raking, and fought as long as was consistent with humanity, and then set on fire.”

Farragut went on to criticize Porter for the way he put on the springs that got shot away. “Having determined on anchoring [instead of running ashore] we should have bent a spring on to the ring of the anchor, instead of to the cable, where it was exposed, and could be shot away as fast as put on.”

Farragut did not comment on whether Porter should have been in Valparaiso in the first place, probably because he knew in his heart that being
there was a colossal mistake. Porter had no business bringing the
Essex
and
Essex Junior
to any Chilean port. He knew that if he waited long enough, a superior British force was bound to trap him. He was endangering one of America's few frigates and the lives of dozens of good seamen, not for military reasons, but for personal glory. And he never tried to conceal his motives.
“I had done all the injury that could be done to the British commerce in the Pacific,” he wrote, “and still hoped to signalize my cruise by something more splendid before leaving that sea. I thought it not improbable that Commodore Hillyar . . . would seek me at Valparaiso. . . . I therefore determined to cruise about that place.”

A
T LENGTH, A BOARDING OFFICER ARRIVED FROM THE
P
HOEBE
, an imperious young man, with orders to take possession of the
Essex
. He asked Porter how he would account for the men he had allowed to jump overboard, and in the same breath demanded his sword. “That, sir, is reserved for your master,” Porter growled. The officer then escorted Porter to the
Phoebe
, where Hillyar received him with “respect and delicacy,” Porter recalled.

Somewhat absentmindedly, Hillyar accepted Porter's sword, only to regret it later and return it. He wrote an apology, saying, “although I omitted, at the moment of presentation, from my mind being much engrossed in attending to professional duties, to offer its restoration, the hand that received will be most gladly extended to put it in possession of him who wore it so honorably in defending his country's cause.”

Much controversy arose over Hillyar's conduct of the battle, but David Farragut, reflecting on the matter years later, refused to join in the criticism:

It has been quite common to blame Captain Hillyar for his conduct in this affair; but, when we come to consider the characteristics of the two commanders, we may be inclined to judge more leniently, although Captain Porter's complaints in the matter will excite no surprise. Porter was about thirty-two years of age at the time, and the “pink of chivalry,” of an ardent and impetuous temperament; while Hillyar was a cool and calculating man, about fifty [actually forty-four] years old, and, as
he said to his First Lieutenant, “had gained his reputation by several single-ship combats, and only expected to retain it on the present occasion by an implicit obedience to his orders, viz., to capture the
Essex
with the least possible risk to his vessel and crew.”

It was said that William Ingram, the
Phoebe
's first lieutenant, was critical of Hillyar's tactics before he died. During the fighting Ingram begged Hillyar to relinquish his advantageous position, bear down on the
Essex,
and board her. Ingram maintained that it was deliberate murder to lie off at long range and fire when the
Essex
was obviously unable to respond.

Porter's criticism of Hillyar centered on the attack coming in neutral territory.
Theodore Roosevelt, in his study of the naval war of 1812, agreed:

The conduct of the two English captains in attacking Porter as soon as he was disabled, in neutral waters, while they had been very careful to abstain from breaking the neutrality while he was in good condition, does not look well; at the best it shows that Hillyar had only been withheld hitherto from the attack by timidity, and it looks all the worse when it is remembered that Hillyar owed his ship's previous escape entirely to Porter's forbearance on a former occasion when the British frigate was entirely at his mercy, and that the British captain had afterward expressly said that he would not break the neutrality.