The Shining Sea (5 page)

President Madison soon found out that he was wrong about the need for a potent navy, however. As with most conflicts, once the War of 1812 began, nothing went as the president had planned, except for the privateers. They put to sea in significant numbers only days after Congress declared war. But Napoleon's push into Russia did not have the immediate success Madison expected. Tsar Alexander's badly outnumbered army successfully avoided the early showdown that Bonaparte wanted. Instead, the Tsar conducted a masterful retreat, coupled with a scorched-earth policy that drew the French deeper into Russia during a blisteringly hot summer that deprived Napoleon of desperately needed supplies, and consumed his troops in significant numbers. And the Canadian invasion, which was also supposed to be easy and quick, turned into a disaster. On August 15 an American army under General William Hull suffered a major defeat at Detroit.

The president had planned a simultaneous, three-pronged invasion of Canada. The first thrust was to come from Detroit, across the Detroit River to Amherstburg in Lower Canada. The second was to be a dash across the Niagara River. The third was an attack on Montreal. Nothing was working out, however. Not only did General Hull fail, but the other invasions never took place when they were supposed to, and each eventually ended in total failure.

When Madison heard of General Hull's ignominious surrender at Detroit, he was aghast. His war strategy was falling apart, and 1812 was an election year. The president now faced electoral defeat, as well as a war that was spinning out of control.

His fortunes were miraculously reversed, however, when he received help from an unexpected quarter—the United States Navy. On August 19, while Porter and the
Essex
were making their way toward the Delaware Capes, Captain Isaac Hull (General Hull's nephew) won a convincing victory over a British frigate—a feat that was never supposed to happen and that amazed the world. Sailing in the 44-gun heavy frigate USS
Constitution
in latitude 41° 42' N and longitude 55° 48' W, Hull fought and crushed the 38-gun frigate HMS
Guerriere
, one of the Royal Navy's premier warships, commanded by a capable skipper, Captain James Dacres, in half an hour.

The totally unexpected victory had a profound impact on both countries. Britain was shocked. The Royal Navy's aura of invincibility was of supreme importance. The
Constitution
's easy triumph threatened to destroy it. Britain's contempt for the American navy made the wound cut even deeper.

Isaac Hull's triumph was so popular throughout the United States—even in areas like New England, where the Federalists were strong and the war unpopular—that it resuscitated Madison's electoral hopes, and caused him to completely change his mind about the navy. His belief that the British would make quick work of America's warships had been proven wrong, and he began searching for ways to employ them more effectively. He also recognized for the first time the urgent need to expand the fleet.

The president had help from the navy's senior officers. Before war was declared on June 18, Commodores John Rodgers and Stephen Decatur Jr., the senior captains in command, had given the president their views on how to use the navy. They had provided him with markedly different proposals, but Madison—not considering the navy important at the time—had set them aside. Now he was ready to develop a real strategy for the fleet, and he looked again at the thinking of the two commanders.

Rodgers had written on June 3 that the country's few men-of-war should be grouped together and sent to sea. He expected that the available British warships at Halifax would immediately go after them, drawing the Royal Navy away from the east coast, preventing it from blockading major ports, and allowing the large American merchant fleet then at sea to return home. Rodgers suggested that after the merchant ships were safely in port,
the navy could be sent to harass Britain's commerce along the approaches to the English Channel and the coasts of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. He pointed out that Britain had most of her naval force overseas fighting Napoleon and servicing a far-flung empire. She was, paradoxically, most vulnerable in her home waters.

Stephen Decatur, the navy's most celebrated captain, had a different view. He wrote on June 8 that American warships ought to patrol alone or in pairs, attacking the enemy—both warships and merchantmen—over as wide an area as possible, making it impossible for the enemy to destroy the entire American fleet in a single encounter.

After the victory of “Old Ironsides” on August 19, Madison revisited the recommendations of Rodgers and Decatur. Only days later (before Porter and the
Essex
reached the Delaware Capes) the president decided that commerce raiding would be the navy's core mission. At the same time he adopted Decatur's recommendation and divided the blue-water fleet into three small squadrons of three warships each, led by Commodores Rodgers, Decatur, and William Bainbridge, a close friend of David Porter. The three commodores received orders to deploy their squadrons wherever they thought best. Porter and the
Essex
were assigned to Bainbridge, who planned to attack British commerce around their major base at St. Helena Island in the South Atlantic.
It was a course recommended by his friend William Jones of Philadelphia, who would soon become secretary of the navy. Bainbridge's three-ship squadron would be composed of the
Constitution
, the
Essex
, and the sloop of war
Hornet
, under Master Commandant James Lawrence. When the president settled on his new strategy at the end of August, the
Constitution
and the
Hornet
were in Boston and would leave from there. The
Essex
, which was on her way to Chester, would have to rendezvous with them later.

Once Porter reached the Delaware River he was informed of his new assignment, and he set to work getting ready. Bainbridge notified him of potential meeting places—Porto Praia in the Cape Verde Islands (350 miles off the western extremity of Africa); the island of Fernando de Noronha (220 miles off the northeast coast of Brazil); Cape Frio near Rio de Janeiro; the island of St. Sebastian (200 miles south of Rio);
St. Catherine's Island (500 miles south of Rio); and St. Helena, 600 miles northwest of the Cape of Good Hope.

If none of these points of rendezvous worked out, and Porter was left on his own, he was directed to “act according to your best judgment for the good of the service on which we are engaged.” It was a mandate that gave Porter, if he failed to meet Bainbridge, wide latitude, a possibility that must have excited his fertile imagination.

CHAPTER

2

T
HE
M
AKING OF A
S
EA
W
ARRIOR

N
O ONE WAS BETTER TRAINED OR MORE MOTIVATED TO
fight the War of 1812 than Captain David Porter. His whole life had been a preparation for this great trial.

His father, David Porter Sr., was a redoubtable fighting sailor who had served in the American navy during the Revolutionary War. One of the elder Porter's more remarkable adventures occurred when he was a midshipman aboard the 32-gun Continental frigate
Raleigh,
whose skipper was the renowned John Barry. On September 26, 1778, off the coast of Maine, a powerful British squadron forced Barry to run the
Raleigh
ashore. He escaped with some of his men, but others were captured, including Porter, who was shipped off to New York Harbor in chains and thrown into the hellish prison ship
Jersey
. By a strange coincidence, Porter's brother Samuel was already there. He had been badly wounded in a sea fight, captured, and confined to the
Jersey
, where he received no care and was certain to die. His brother was there to comfort him in his last moments.

Porter spent all his prison time planning an escape. He was a gifted raconteur, and managed to ingratiate himself with the British tars who were his jailers. They must have hated the god-awful
Jersey
as much as he did. Eventually, he persuaded them to smuggle him off the ship in
an empty water cask; after which, he went right back to fighting—
mostly in privateers.
The elder Porter's sea stories caught the imagination of his son, who wanted nothing more than to follow in his father's footsteps. The third generation, David Jr.'s son, David Dixon Porter, would follow in those footsteps, too, into the naval service, becoming an admiral and a great hero during the Civil War.
In 1875, he would write of his father: “The boy, at an early age, manifested the restless energy which ever afterwards characterized him, in that respect resembling his father, whose daring spirit would stop at nothing when there was any enterprise afoot.”
Young Porter began his naval career in 1796 at the age of sixteen, sailing—over his mother's strong objections—as a deck hand on the
Eliza
, a merchantman his father commanded. The Porters shipped out of Baltimore and sailed to Hispaniola. At the port of Jérémie, they found plenty of trouble when an arrogant British captain from the privateer
Harriet
attempted to impress hands from their ship. British warships and privateers took American seamen off their vessels whenever they pleased, whether they were at war with the United States or not. The British usually had no trouble, and the
Harriet
's captain was not expecting any this time. He was in for a surprise, however. When his unsuspecting pressgang climbed aboard the
Eliza
, Captain Porter and his men, including his son, attacked them, putting up a spirited fight with inferior weapons. During the bloody mêlée, young David saw a comrade right next to him shot dead. The Porters and their men fought with a ferocity that shocked the attackers. Resistance was so strong, the British raiders retreated.

This was young Porter's first encounter with impressment, and it left a lasting impression. He had another set-to with the British on his next voyage when he was seventeen and first officer aboard a merchant brig bound from Baltimore to Santo Domingo. A no-nonsense press-gang from a frigate boarded his vessel and hauled him off with a number of other men. Porter was determined to avoid joining the Royal Navy, however, and when he saw a chance to escape, he jumped overboard, swimming to a nearby Danish brig bound for Europe. He joined her crew and worked his passage across the Atlantic to Copenhagen. After landing, he quickly found a vessel returning to America, signed on, and made his way home, after a tempestuous, mid-winter passage. On a third voyage to the West
Indies, another British pressgang captured him, dragged him aboard another warship, and roughed him up. He escaped one more time, however, and again worked his way back to the United States.

Given his family background and experience, it was not surprising that Porter joined the fledgling American navy forming under President Adams and Secretary of the Navy Benjamin Stoddert in 1798 to fight the Quasi-War with France. Porter obtained appointment as a midshipman, and on April 16 boarded the frigate
Constellation
as her sixth midshipman. The captain was Thomas Truxtun, a storied veteran of the privateer fleet during the Revolutionary War and a favorite of George Washington. Truxtun was a demanding skipper, and Porter sometimes rebelled, although not openly, against his strict discipline.

In fact, Porter could not have found a better teacher, as he later acknowledged from time to time. Truxtun believed that the infant American navy had to pay special attention to the training of its young officers and future leaders. He watched over his brood with a sharp eye, tending to their seamanship and character development. More importantly, he showed them by example how to manage a ship of war with maximum effect. Porter was in his natural element, and soon became a favorite of both Truxtun and First Lieutenant John Rodgers.

Porter did not get along with one particular officer, however. After suffering continual harassment from Lieutenant Simon Gross, Porter, in his characteristically impetuous way, punched him in the face during an argument and knocked him to the deck. The surprised lieutenant rose, called for the sergeant of the guard, and grabbed a cutlass. He was about to slice up Porter when Captain Truxtun appeared. The lieutenant froze, as Truxtun took charge. After hearing what had happened, Truxtun had Porter arrested and sent below. Normally, a captain would have then ordered a court martial, and Porter would have been dismissed from the service for striking a superior officer. But Truxtun, who knew the men on his ship well, was not going to let a bully like Gross destroy a young man's promising career. Instead of punishing Porter, Truxtun put him back on duty, and saw to it that Gross—a sadistic drunk—was run out of the service.