In the frigate Constitution, as in other wartime frigates of her day, alertness was a key to success. It was necessary to sight another vessel as soon as, or before, she sighted you. If she were larger, the captain would have a head start in escaping, and if she were equal or smaller, the captain would certainly want to speak her. If she were friendly, he would want to exchange news. If, on the other hand, she were not, she might make a valuable prize.
A strange ship was usually first sighted while she was hull down, and only the number of her masts and her approximate course could be determined. Such information was valuable, but the upper spars of any ship—war vessel or merchantman—were much the same. At this stage there was nothing to be excited about. But if she changed course to intercept, and especially if her approach showed her to be a warship, then all hands had to be on their toes. She was eagerly scanned for her ensign and for peculiarities of rig which might show her nationality. If she proved to be an enemy, the frigate was immediately cleared for action.
In clearing the ship for action, one of the most essential preparations was to throw overboard all unnecessary wooden articles. This was done to reduce the danger from flying splinters, for the majority of casualties were caused by such projectiles. They were not small fragments, but great jagged pieces of wood several feet long that could very neatly cut a man in two. The boats were usually lowered and either towed astern in line, set adrift, or, as in the Constitution, lowered below decks through an oversized main hatch. Chicken coops, deck lockers, gratings, all were thrown over the side or taken below. In removing combustible material from below decks, the seamen’s hammocks, neatly bundled, were stowed on top of the bulwarks, where they served as an added protection against musket balls. And they could also be used to stop shot holes. Some of the partitions dividing the officer’s quarters were knocked down to give more space below decks and to allow freer passage to the powder monkeys, moving between the magazine and the guns. The elimination of partitions on the berth deck enlarged the cockpit where the wounded were cared for.
In the Constitution, the cockpit served as quarters for the midshipmen. It was a space on the next-to-the-lowest deck, way aft, adjacent to the magazine. It was lighted by whale-oil or candle lanterns and was less than five feet high.
Gun ports were opened, the guns manned and loaded; the decks were sanded, and the tops of the lower masts were manned with marines. These tops were often sizable platforms. In the Constitution, the maintop was 21 feet wide by 16 feet long. Six or seven marines could be stationed there to pick off enemy officers or helmsmen by musket fire.
The carpenter and his mates saw that all pumps were rigged, that the leathern fire hose and buckets of water were available for firefighting, and that materials were available to plug shot holes in the hull. A common method of treating a shot hole below the waterline was to place a heavy rope mat over the outside of the hole. This mat resembled a close- meshed net with short pieces of unravelled rope woven onto its face. When placed over a shot-shattered plank, the outside pressure of the water would force the mat into the hole, stopping the gush of water sufficiently so that repairs could be completed from inside the ship by spiking planks on top of sheet lead over the leak. It was necessary to haul such a mat below the waterline in order to cover the hole.
To be prepared for this eventuality, some war vessels went into action with a heavy line already rigged from one side of the ship, around under the keel, to the other side.
Most ships went into action under reduced sail. Although this limited speed and maneuverability, it was a wise safety precaution, lessening the strain on masts and rigging which would surely be damaged in the fight.
The captain, his sailing master, and the first lieutenant were stationed on the quarter deck aft. The sailing master had charge of making sail, handling the ship, and navigating according to the captain’s orders. The first lieutenant corresponded to the executive officer of a modern war vessel. He was second in command, and his rank was indicated by wearing one epaulet only, which must have given him a slightly undressed look. His duties involved almost everything except the actual sailing of the ship.
From the deck of the Constitution, it was difficult to sight another vessel, though she might be quite near, for the protecting bulwarks were higher than a man’s head even before the hammocks were stowed on top. The Constitution was equipped with two folding gratings on the inside face of both port and starboard bulwarks. In order to have a clear view of what was happening, the captain and sailing master either stood on these gratings or climbed part way up the mizzen shrouds (making an unmistakable target to marine sharpshooters in an enemy’s tops).
A number of ruses were used to fool the enemy. The most common was to fly the flag of some other country, but this, on several occasions, led to tragedy. If the suspected enemy turned out to be one’s own countryman who was flying an enemy flag, then the two ships might exchange fire before the mistake was discovered—although warships were always expected to hoist their true colors before action started. When a ship wanted to make it evident that she was flying her true colors, she would often fly her ensign at the top of each mast.
A common trick used in fog or at night was for the captain—on being hailed—to declare his unseen ship to be much larger and more heavily armed than she actually was. And in the darkness, who could tell?
In one instance, when the two opponents were within speaking distance of each other, the U. S. captain gave loud orders for a change of course. His helmsman had been advised beforehand that this order was not to be obeyed, but the Britisher heard, trimmed, his sails, and changed course, only to find himself out-manuevered.
Another trick used to lure an enemy closer was to lower a drag over the stern to slow the ship down, then bend on all sail as though running away. The full sail would be evident, and so would the ship’s poor speed. The unsuspecting pursuer would come barging down, only to find—when the drag was cut away— that the escaper was a smart sailor who had cleverly drawn him into cannon range. Dummy guns cut from spare spars were also used. Sometimes they were mounted on buckets for wheels to make them plainly movable. This was a trick most often practiced by privateers.
The best ruse of all and the one requiring the finest seamanship—sailing astern—was used by the Constitution in her battle with the Cyane and the Levant. This is a maneuver unknown today, because, with our fore-and-aft rigs, the sail—even if put aback—is completely on one side of the mast and would twist the vessel so she would not steer astern. A squarerigger actually could be made to sail astern by bracing the yards—which pivot on their centers—to catch the wind aback. When the Constitution was engaging the Levant with the Cyane coming up astern, the Constitution's Captain Charles Stewart fired his broadside when the Levant was nearly abeam. It was a night action, and the darkness plus the blanket of black-powder smoke immediately cut each ship from sight. Captain George Douglass of the Levant expected the two ships to be in relatively the same position when the smoke cleared, and consequently he held his course. But Stewart backed his yards so that the wind pushed him astern. When' the smoke cleared, the Cyane found the Constitution passing under her stern to deliver two broadsides. It was the turning point of the battle.
With two ships sparring for position at the start of an action, the windward berth was usually preferred, since this position gave the ship the chance to bear down on an opponent or beat to windward if escape was desired. Also, the leeward vessel, heeled under a press of wind, exposed more of her hull below the waterline. This position was not always chosen, however, particularly in a heavy sea. Under such conditions, the windward vessel was heeled sufficiently to put her lower deck guns under and out of action, while the leeward ship was able to use her windward guns.
It is difficult to visualize the close range at which a naval battle of 1812 was fought. The larger of the smooth-bore guns were rarely effective over a mile away, and the shorter carronades, which composed the upper deck battery of the frigate Constitution, were of even shorter range. The intense part of such a battle was usually fought with the vessels a pistol shot apart—perhaps 50 yards-—so close that there was danger of one ship fouling the other, particularly if a captain wished to board his opponent. One episode from the War of 1812 well illustrates this. An American brig was fighting an English sloop-of-war and, during the action, a shot jammed in the barrel of a gun on the American ship. The gunner worked from the outside of the brig to clear the shot and while so doing was belabored with a broomstick by the skipper’s wife on the English vessel. She so effectively battered him that he was stunned and dragged aboard the enemy ship. In the Constitution's action with the Guerriere, the latter’s jibboom fouled the starboard rigging of the Constitution's mizzenmast.
The handling of a ship’s cannon in 1812 is so foreign to today’s artillery that it is worth explaining. The guns were, of course, cast iron, smoothbore, and muzzle-loading. First, the gun had to be hauled back from where it was secured with its muzzle resting against the side of the ship. In this loading position, the muzzle of the gun was only about two feet inboard of the vessel’s hull, and it was in this confined space that the loader had to handle his long-handled tools. The handles of these rammers, often six feet long, extended out through the open port, and the loader was exposed to musket fire through the port.
First came the powder. After the Revolutionary War, it was the practice to have the powder charge sewed up in woolen bags to reduce the fire risk of spilled powder. It is probable that the Constitution used such cartridge. The powder was held in place by wadding—cloth, paper, or even straw— rammed home.
Then the shot was loaded. Handling a 24- pound shot in a rolling ship and getting it into the elevated muzzle without dropping it required skill. The shot itself was cast iron, unmachined, and sometimes quite out of round. The shot was rolled down the barrel with the hope that it would not fall out as the ship rolled. It was followed by more wadding. The shot was not intended to be a snug fit, as are the projectiles in a rifled gun. The clearance between shot and bore was called “windage” and could be as much as one- eighth of an inch.
Finally, the gun was run out through the port by tackles on each side. Aiming was sometimes accomplished by waiting for the enemy to sail within the sights of the gun. The back end of the gun was raised or lowered by a handspike, which was a short wooden crowbar shod with iron. On guns of this period, the heavy wooden sides of the gun carriage were cut in a series of steps. These steps acted as fulcrums on which to rest the handspikes used to raise the guns; a heavy wooden wedge called a quoin was jammed under the back end of the gun to hold it in place. Side movement of the back end of the carriage (to swivel the gun) was achieved by using the same handspikes which were jabbed into the deck to provide a fulcrum to lever the gun around. On men-of-war, like the Constitution, the wooden deck around the guns was badly chewed up from this jabbing.
Before firing, the gun was primed by pouring powder down the touch hole, using a finer and better burning powder than that provided for the propelling charge. If a cartridge were used, a pointed wire was jabbed down the touch hole (before priming) to puncture the cartridge and provide an unbroken powder train. Occasionally, a sight was used which consisted of a piece of pipe resting on top of the gun. More often, the gunner, or the gunner’s mate, who primed, sighted, and fired the piece merely sighted along the barrel.
The actual firing was effected with a slow-burning match applied to the loose powder at the touch hole. This slow match, which resembled a piece of rope with a core of slow- burning material, was usually held in a linstock, which was a pole having at one end a spike to jab into the deck and at the other a notched piece in which the slow match could be jammed and held.
All hands stood clear during firing. The gun recoiled violently against its breeching rope, and the withdrawing tackle was drawn taut to hold it there. Finally, the barrel was cleaned of burning grains of powder or smoldering cloth by a sponge. The sponge was much like a rammer except that its piston end was covered with sheepskin, wool side out, which had been wet. Ramming in a new charge of powder on a hot spark could be a nuisance, to put it mildly.
The gunner was usually equipped with a leather thumb pad to cover the touch hole after firing, thus reducing the spray of fire and consequent dangers. This was no mean feat, as the gun was leaping violently backwards.
Firing the gun made the barrel hot enough to evaporate the water from the sponge before the next charge was loaded. After about 40 shots, the barrel would be so hot that it was not safe to load. It might then take an hour to cool the gun.
There are references of double and even triple-shotted guns, a practice which must have greatly strained the barrel. It is no wonder that a cast iron gun sometimes burst.
Decks were usually sanded before an action to prevent the crew’s slipping on spilled blood. On some ships, the inside of the bulwarks was painted bright red so that spattered blood would not show.
Even with the most skillful sighting, it was necessary to delay firing until the roll of the ship brought her guns to bear. It is said that part of the accuracy of American gunners was due to their policy of firing when their guns were rolling upwards, while the British were likely to fire on the down-roll. Firing on the up-roll had the advantage, because if the firing were a trifle late, the shot, though missing the hull, would be apt to hit the enemy’s spars and rigging; Whereas, if fired on the down- roll, the delayed shot would hit the water and be checked.
The shot for larger guns, such as the Constitution's 24-pounders, was a solid cast iron ball about six inches in diameter. It was intended either to batter the enemy’s hull planking or to take out his masts.
There were other projectiles. Chain shot, consisting of lengths of chain, was particularly used to cut up the enemy’s rigging. Grape shot and canister (scraps of iron, including old bolts and nuts, loaded into a can) were used for sweeping the enemy’s decks. Captain Jonathan Haraday of the privateer General Pickering loaded one or more of his guns with crowbars. Red-hot shot was also used. The cannon ball was heated in the ship’s galley, or in stoves designed especially for the purpose. The shot was usually handled with tongs, or carried to the gun in a bucket of sand. Picture the insertion of this hot shot into the elevated mouth of a cannon, and picture the confusion that must have resulted when shot spilled onto the deck and rolled smoking and burning among the guns.
There was an art to wetting down the wadding over the powder so that it would not dampen the powder, and yet resist drying out long enough for the gun to be fired. Twenty- four pounds of red-hot shot held heat for a long time, and a hot shot lodged anywhere on a wooden ship started a blaze before it could be pried loose and picked up. A bucket of water thrown on such shot was not enough to cool it below burning temperature.
Boarding the enemy was a favorite tactic, especially if the vessel was to be captured in as undamaged a condition as possible. In boarding, the ships had to be touching. Usually they were lashed together, so that they could not drift apart before all the boarders had landed. To secure the vessels, men were stationed at the ends of the yard-arms with grapnels which they swung around their heads and let fly into the rigging of the other ship. The grapnels were then drawn taut and secured. Boarding was often costly in lives unless the enemy decks had previously been well cleared by a raking fire of canister or grape shot. Even when this was done, the first men to board must have had fairly anxious moments until their backers swarmed up behind them. Boarders were ordinarily armed with cutlasses, pikes, or pistols, and the action was a real cut-’em-down and drag-’em-out affair. To repel boarders, a ship might mount nettings overhanging her sides or call on certain designated men from each gun crew to swarm on deck in response to a warning rattle. Boarding was a fast affair; boarding and capture of the Chesapeake by the Shannon, for example, took only ten minutes.
Mention is sometimes made of men out on the ends of the yards hurling grenades down the open hatches of the enemy in the hope of exploding her magazine. It is hard to understand why the hatch covers should be off at such a time. They would be unhandy to stow, and merely raising one end would give a vent to the smoke on the gun deck.
“Crossing the T” was a very effective maneuver, as it is today. The Constitution was particularly adept at this maneuver, crossing the bow or stern of an enemy and sweeping the length of her deck with full broadside while the enemy could bring but a few guns to bear. Her speed in handling enabled her to cross the enemy’s bow before her opponent could change course to checkmate. Incredible as it seems, the Constitution's crew could reef her topsails in two minutes.
Dismasting the enemy was almost sure to cause her surrender, particularly if the foremast fell. Without her jibs, a ship must come up into the wind, unless she is running before it, and she would stop, hanging in irons, helpless. Also, the mast and gear trailing in the water would hamper her movement, or the fallen sail would blanket the men on deck. Most warships went into action with their yards slung in chains as an added precaution against their supporting slings and parrels carrying away.
The blanketing effect of the black-powder smoke was a problem which we do not think of today. It could wholly hide one ship from another. It provided another advantage to the vessel having the windward position where her cannon smoke would blanket her opponent and, sweeping through gun ports, blind the gunners, whose coughing would further hamper their actions.
The marines in the tops could be depended on to aim at the captain and his officers on the quarter deck—Nelson at Trafalgar was mortally wounded this way. Imagine the handicaps of these marines: if the vessel pitched or rolled, the movement of the mast was greatly magnified, and, in order to free both hands, a marine must have had to hook one arm around a shroud and hold on while he tried to reload and pour the right charge of powder down the muzzle. No wonder one account says that six out of the seven marines in a top were busy loading while the seventh, presumably the best shot, did the firing. It must have been a bit disconcerting to the men aloft to know that if a mast carried away, they were almost certain to be lost.
The noise in action must have hampered transmitting of orders. The first discharge of guns would be a broadside with all the big guns firing together. Thereafter the gunners would fire at will, and since there would be differences in speed of loading, the firing would be ragged, and a continuous uproar would result. When the vessels approached closer, the carronades on the upper deck would come into action to add to the racket. Without the brass speaking trumpets on board the Constitution, it would have been impossible at times to give orders either to the crewmen aloft or the gunners. As trumpets were not enough, ships boys were available to carry orders. How necessary they were was shown in one action where a cannon ball carried away the Constitution's steering wheel on her upper deck. Relieving tackles were rigged directly to the helm under the stern cabins. A sailor was stationed on a tackle on either side of the helm, and steering was accomplished by orders shouted below, or more likely by orders carried down by ships’ boys.
The wounded were treated in the cockpit, and it must have been a hellish place in action, unventilated and dark. Of course, anaesthetics were unknown, amputations common, and a patient was often purposely knocked unconscious to permit a limb to be cut off. There are still in existence bullets, some almost completely bitten through, which patients clamped between their teeth to stifle their screams. Deaths from amputations ran as high as 90 per cent. Speed in operating was of prime importance, and a surgeon who could sever a leg in 15 seconds was a real asset.
Damage to a broken mast was repaired by “fishing” it. Fishing consisted of mounting vertical splints, or spare spars—such as studding sail booms around the damaged section. A number of these strengtheners were used, often enough to completely encircle the mast, and they were lashed tight to the mast by many turns of cordage. In several actions, the Constitution withdrew from action after disabling the enemy to repair her own damaged spars and rigging. It is interesting to note that repairs could be made in three-quarters of an hour, although it took smart seamanship to secure a tackle to a parted shroud and draw it taut.
Clearing for action involved a lot of work, and there was even more to follow when it came time to unload the guns, replace the knocked-down partitions, and recover all the boats and gear thrown overboard. Unloading the guns was accomplished by removing the outer wad with another long-handled tool called a wormer. It had a sharp, pointed iron corkscrew at its end, which was screwed into the wadding to pull it out. The barrel of the gun was then tipped down and the shot was supposed to roll out. If it did not, the out-of- round shot could be eased out with a powder ladle or jarred out by raising the rear of the gun to slam the muzzle against the lower sill of the gun port. It was no work for boys. There was room at the back end of a cannon for only three men on each side to lift. A 24- pound gun weighed over five thousand pounds; the heavier back end must have been over 2,500 pounds. Lifting 400 pounds per man and doing it fast enough to really bang the muzzle hard against the sill was a man’s work. The inner wad was removed by the wormer. There seems to be no record of how the loose powder or the cartridge was removed without the fire risk of spilled powder; certainly the wormer would have punctured and torn the cloth powder bag.
Good luck played its part in America’s 1812 naval actions, and the frigate Constitution had more than her share. Twice she escaped from superior forces by a fortunate increase in the wind, but she was superbly handled, and her men were far more practiced both in sail handling and gunnery than were the British. It is true that in several actions her opponents had less weight of guns, but she took three English frigates in five months. Even the London Times, which had sneered at what they called our “Bastard Navy,” came out with an editorial headed: “Good God, can such things be?”