OLD KENNEDY, THE QUARTER-MASTER.(Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie.)No. III.
(Perry’s Victory on Lake Erie.)
“But,” says I, “Kennedy—I think you said your draft was bound for the lakes—which did you go to, Ontario, or Erie?” “I was on both, sir,” says he, “afore the war was over; and we got as much accustomed to poking our flying jib-boom into the trees on them shores, as if the sticks was first cousins—which, seeing as how the ships was built in the woods, wouldn’t be much of a wonder. Part of that ere draft staid down on Ontario, with the old commodore, as was watching Sir James, and part was sent up to Erie. I went up to Erie and joined the Lawrence, Commodore Oliver H. Perry—and I hopes that old Bill Kennedy needn’t be called a braggart, if he says he did his part in showing off as handsome a fight on that same fresh-water pond, as has ever been done by an equal force on blue water. Our gallant young commodore, made as tight a fight of it as it has ever been my luck to be engaged in; and seeing as how half of his men wasdown with fever and ager, and not one in a dozen knew the difference between the smell of gunpowder and oil of turpentine, blow me! but I think it was about as well done.
“You see our squadron was lying in a bay, as they calls Put-in-Bay—and when the enemy first hove in sight, it was in the morning, about seven o’clock. I knows that that was the time, because I had just been made Quarter-Master, by Captain Perry, and was the first as seen them through my glass. They was in the nor’-west, bearing down: as soon as we made them out to be the enemy’s fleet, up went the signal to get under way; our ship, the Lawrence, in course taking the lead. Well, as we was working slowly to windward to clear some small islands—one of ’em was Snake Island—I hearn Captain Perry come up to the master, and ask him in a low voice, whether he thought he should be able to work out to windward in time to get the weather-gage of the enemy; but the master said as how the wind was sou’-west, and light, and he didn’t think he could. ‘Then,’ said the commodore, aloud, ‘wear ship, sir, and go to leeward, for I am determined to fight them to-day,’—but just then, the wind came round to the south’ard and east’erd, and we retained the weather-gage, and slowly bore down upon the enemy. They did all they could to get the wind, but not succeeding, hove into line, heading westward, and gallantly waited for us as we came down.
“There lay their squadron, all light sails taken in, just like a boxer, with his sleeves rolled up, and handkercher tied about his loins, ready to make a regular stand-up fight, and there wasn’t a braver man, nor better sailor, in the British navy, nor that same Barclay, whose broad pennant floated in the van of that squadron.
“Pretty soon, up runs our motto-flag, the dying words of our hero Lawrence—‘Don’t give up the ship,’ and floats proudly from our main, and then the general order was passed down the line by trumpet, ‘Each ship, lay your enemy alongside’—and if you ever seen a flock of wild geese flying south’erd in the fall of the year, you’ll have some idee of us, as we went down into action. The men was full of spirit, and panting for a fight, and even them as was so sick, as to be hardly able to stand, insisted upon taking their places at the guns. I recollects one in particular—he was a carpenter’s mate, a steady man, from Newport—he crawls up when we beat to quarters, and seats himself upon the head of one of the pumps, with the sounding-rod in his hand, looking as yellow as if he had just been dragged out of a North Carolina cypress swamp: but one of the officers comes up to him as he was sitting there, and says—‘You are too sick to be here, my man,—there’s no use of your being exposed for nothing—you had better go below.’ ‘If you please, sir,’ says the poor fellow, ‘if I can do nothing else, I can savethe time of a better man, and sit here and sound the pump.’ Well, sir, as we bore down, the English occasionally tried our distance by a shot, and when we was within about a mile of ’em, one comes ricochetting across the water, bounds over the bulwarks, and takes that man’s head as clean off his shoulders, as if it had been done with his own broad-axe. I have hearn say, that ‘every bullet has its billet,’ and that is sartin, that it’s no use to dodge a shot, for if you are destined to fall by a shot, you will sartin fall by that same shot; and I bears in mind, that an English sailor, one of our prisoners, told me that in a ship of their’n a feller, as skulked in the cable-tier, during an action with the French, was found dead with a spent forty-two resting on his neck. The ball had come in at the starn-port—struck one of the beams for’ard, and tumbled right in upon him, breaking his neck, as he lay snugly coiled away in the cable-tier. No, no—misfortins and cannon shot is very much alike—there’s no dodging—every man must stand up to his work, and take his chance—if they miss, he is ready when they pipes to grog—if they hit, the purser’s book is squared, and no more charges is scored agin him.
“But as I was saying, it wasn’t long before we begun to make our carronades tell, and then at it we went, hot and heavy, the Lawrence taking the lead, engaging the Detroit, and every vessel as she came up, obeying orders and laying her enemy alongside, in right goodarnest, except the Niagara. She hung back—damn her—with her jib brailed up, and her main-topsail to the mast—consequence was, the Charlotte, as was her opponent, avails herself of her distance—runs up close under the starn of the Detroit, and both ships pours in their combined fire into our ship the Lawrence. I hearn the master myself, and afterwards two or three of the other officers, go up to the Commodore during the action, and call his attention to the Niagara, and complain of her treacherous or cowardly conduct. Well, them two ships gin it to us hot and heavy, and in three minutes we was so enveloped in smoke, that we only aimed at the flashes of their guns, for we might as well have tried to trace a flock of ducks in the thickest fog on the coast of Labrador, as their spars or hulls. I was working at one of the for’ard guns, and as after she was loaded, the captain of the piece stood waiting with the trigger lanyard in his finger, ready to pull, one of the officers calls out, ‘I say, sir, why don’t you fire?’ ‘I want to make her tell, sir,’ says the gunner,—‘I am waiting for their flash,—there it is’—and as he pulled trigger, a cannon shot came through the port, and dashed him to pieces between us, covering me and the officer all over with his brains. Their fire was awful; the whole of the shot of the two heaviest ships in the squadron pouring into us nigh on two hours without stopping. Our brig became a complete slaughter-house—the guns dismounted—carriagesknocked to pieces—some of our ports knocked into one—hammock-netting shot clean away—iron stancheons twisted like wire—and a devilish deal more day-light than canvass in our bolt ropes—the wounded pouring down so fast into the cockpit, that the surgeons didn’t pretend to do more than apply tourniquets to stop the bleeding; and many of the men came back to the guns in that condition; while others was killed in the hands of the surgeons. One shot came through the cockpit, jist over the surgeon’s head, and killed midshipman Laub, who was coming up on deck, with a tourniquet at his shoulder, and another killed a seaman who had already lost both arms. Our guns was nearly all dismounted; and finally, there was but one that could be brought to bear; and so completely was the crew disabled, that the commodore had to work at it with his own hands. The men became almost furious with despair, as they found themselves made the target for the whole squadron; and the wounded complained bitterly of the conduct of the Niagara, as they lay dying on the decks, and in the cockpit. Two shots passed through the magazine—one knocked the lantern to pieces, and sent the lighted wick upon the floor; and if the gunner hadn’t have jumped on it with his feet, before it caught the loose powder—my eyes! but that ere ship and every thing on board would have gone into the air like a sheaf of sky-rockets, and them as was on board, never would have know’d which sidewhipped. Out of one hundred men that went into action, eighty-three were either killed or wounded, and every officer was killed or hurt except the Commodore. Our Lieutenant of marines, lieutenant Brooks—him as was called the Boston Apollo—the handsomest man in the sarvice, was cut nearly in two by a cannon shot, and died before the close of the action.
“It was nigh on all up with us. The men was real grit though, and even the wounded, cried, ‘Blow her up,’ rather than strike. Well, as things stood, there was an end of the Lawrence, so far as fighting went,—and our Commodore says, says he,—‘Lieutenant Yarnall, the American flag must not be pulled down over my head this day, while life remains in my body: I will go on board that ship and bring her myself into action—and I will leave it to you to pull down the Lawrence’s flag, if there is no help for it.’ So we got our barge alongside, by the blessing of Heaven, not so much injured but what she’d float, and off we pushed for the Niagara—the Commodore standing with his motto flag under his arm; but as soon as the enemy caught sight of us, they delivered a whole broadside directly at the boat—and then peppered away so briskly, that the water all around us bubbled like a duck-pond in a thunder shower. There Perry stood, erect and proud, in the starn sheets—his pistols strapped in his belt, and his sword in his hand—his eyes bent upon the Niagara,—as if he’d jump the distance,—neverheeding the shot flying around him like hail. The men begged him to sit down—they entreated him with tears in their eyes—but it was not until I dragged him down by main force,—the men declaring that they would lay upon their oars and be taken—that he consented.
“There’s them as says the Niagarawouldn’tcome down, and there’s them as says shecouldn’t—allIknows is, that when our gallant young Commodore took the quarter-deck, she walked down into the thickest of it quick enough—my eyes! how we did give it to ’em, blazing away from both sides at once. We ran in between the Detroit and Charlotte, our guns crammed to the muzzle, and delivered both of our broadsides into them at the same time—grape, cannister and all,—raking the others as we passed; and the Niagara lads showed it wasn’t no fault of their’n, that they hadn’t come earlier to their work. I never know’d guns sarved smarter, than they sarved their’n, till the end of the action—nor with better effect. We soon silenced the enemy, and run up the stars again on the Lawrence as she lay a complete wrack, shattered and cut up among them, for all the world like a dead whale surrounded by shirks. They struck one after another, much like you may have seen the flags of a fleet run down after the evening gun; and as the firing ceased, and the heavy smoke bank rolled off to leeward, shiver my timbers! but it was a sight for a Yankee tar to see the striped bunting slapping triumphantly in the breeze over the British jacks at their gaffs.
“If there’s any man, tho’, as says that their Commodore wasn’t a man every inch of him, aye! and as good a seaman, too, as ever walked a caulked plank, there’s one here, and his name’s Bill Kennedy, as will tell him, that he’s a know-nothing, and talks of a better man nor himself. Aye—aye—scrape the crown off his buttons, and he might mess with Decatur and Lawrence, and splice the main-brace with Stewart and Hull, and they be proud of his company. He was badly cut up, tho’, and I have hear’n tell, that when he got home to England, he wouldn’t go for to see the lady what he’d engaged to marry, but sent her word by a friend—I don’t know who that friend was—but suppose it was his first lieutenant, in course,—he sends her word that he wouldn’t hold her to her engagement—cause why, says he, ‘I’m all cut to pieces, and an’t the man I was, when she engaged for to be my wife.’ Well, what d’ye think the noble girl says, when she hearn this;—‘Tell him,’ says she, ‘as long as there’s enough of him left to hold his soul, I will be his.’—I say, Master Tom, that’s most up to the Virginny gals. Well—well—there never was but one, as would have said as much for Bill Kennedy, and she, poor Sue—she married curly-headed Bob, captain of the main-top in the Hornet,—in a pet, and was sorry when it was too late. She was a good girl, though—and I’ve lent her and her young ones a hand once’t or twice since in the breakers.”