The crucial feature in the approaching action was that the Essex was armed almost entirely with carronades, and her principal enemy with long guns. The carronade, now a wholly obsolete arm, was a short cannon, made extremely light in proportion to the weight of the ball thrown by it. The comparative lightness of metal in each piece allowed a greater number to be carried, but at the same time so weakened the gun as to compel the use of a small charge of powder, in consequence of which the ball moved slowly and had but short range. In compensation, within its range, it broke up the hull of an enemy's ship more completely than the smaller but swifter ball from a long gun of the same weight; for the same reason that a stone thrown by hand demolishes a pane of glass, while a pistol-bullet makes a small, clean hole. It was this smashing effect at close quarters which gave the carronade favor in the eyes of one generation of seamen; but by 1812 it was generally recognized that, unless a vessel wasable to choose her own position, the short range of carronades might leave her helpless, and, even when she had the greater speed, an enemy with long guns might cripple her as she approached. Porter had begged to change his carronades for long guns when he joined the Essex. The request was refused, and the ship in this action had forty thirty-two-pounder carronades and six long twelve-pounders. The Phœbe had twenty-six long eighteen-pounders, one long twelve, and one long nine, besides eight carronades. The Essex being crippled and at anchor, Captain Hillyar, faithful, and most properly, to his principle of surrendering no advantage, chose his position beyond effective carronade range. The battle was therefore fought between the six long twelves of the Essex and the broadside of the Phœbe, consisting of thirteen long eighteens, one twelve, and one nine. Taking no account of the Cherub, the disparity of force is sufficiently obvious.
Although, from the assurances Hillyar had made to him in conversation, Porter had hoped that the neutrality of the port might be regarded, the manner in which the enemy's vessels approached his new anchorage gave serious reason to fear an attack. The ship was again got ready for action, and a spring put on the cable to enable the guns to be turned on the enemy in any position he might take. The desperateness of the situation was, however, manifest to all. "I well remember," wrote Farragut at a later day, "the feelings of awe produced in me by the approach of the hostile ships; even to my young mind it was perceptible in the faces of those around me, as clearly as possible, that our case was hopeless. It was equally apparent that all were ready to die attheir guns rather than surrender; and such I believe to have been the determination of the crew, almost to a man." A crippled ship, armed with carronades, was indeed in a hopeless plight. At six minutes before four in the afternoon the attack began. The Essex riding to an anchor with a southerly wind, the Cherub took position on her starboard bow, or southwest from her; the Phœbe north, under her stern. Both British ships began fighting under sail, not being yet ready to anchor. The spring on the Essex's cable being shot away, she was unable to turn her broadside as was wished; but the Americans ran out of the stern-ports three of their long guns, which were so well served as to cut away some of the most important of the Phœbe's ropes and sails, and Hillyar for a moment feared his ship would be drifted out of action. The Cherub also was forced to leave her first position and join the Phœbe. The latter's damages being repaired, she regained her ground and anchored; both she and her consort placing themselves on the starboard quarter of the Essex, a position on which the American guns, neither from the stern nor the broadside, could be brought to bear unless by the springs on the cables. These, unfortunately, were three times shot away as soon as they had been placed. The first lieutenant of the Phœbe, a frank and gallant young Englishman, whose manly bearing had greatly attracted the officers of the Essex, is said to have remarked to his captain that it was no better than murder to go on killing men from such a position of safety, and to have urged him to close and make a more equal fight of it. Hillyar, so the story goes, replied that his reputation was established, and that as his orderswere peremptory to capture the Essex, he was determined to take no risks. He might have added—probably did—that it was open to the Americans to save their lives by surrendering. The same view of the situation now impelled Porter, finding himself unable to give blow for blow, to try and close with his wary enemy. Only one light sail was left to him in condition for setting—the flying-jib. With it, the cable having been cut, the head of the Essex was turned toward the enemy; and, fanned along by the other sails hanging loose from the yards, she slowly approached her foes till her carronades at last could reach. The wary Englishman then slipped his cable and stood away till again out of range, when he resumed the action, choosing always his own position, which he was well able to do from the comparatively manageable condition of his ship. Finding it impossible to get into action, Porter next attempted to run the Essex aground, where the crew could escape and the vessel be destroyed. She was headed for the beach and approached within musket-shot of it, when a flaw of wind from the land cruelly turned her away.
The engagement had lasted nearly two hours when this disappointment was encountered. As a last resort, Porter now ordered a hawser to be made fast to an anchor which was still left. This was let go in the hope that, the Essex being held by it where she was, the enemy might drift out of action and be unable to return when the wind fell with the approaching sunset. The hawser, however, parted, and with it the last hope of escape. Great numbers of the crew had already been killed and wounded by the relentless pounding the ship had received fromher enemies, for whom, toward the end, the affair became little more than safe target practice, with a smooth sea. As yet no voice had been raised in favor of submission; but now entreaty was made to Porter to spare the lives of the remnant that was left, by ceasing a resistance which had become not only hopeless but passive, and which, however prolonged, could end only in the surrender of the ship. The latter had already been on fire several times, and was now alarmingly so, the flames rushing up the hatchways and being reported to be near the magazine. Porter then gave permission for such of the crew as wished, to swim ashore; the colors being still flying, they were not yet prisoners of war. He next called his officers together to inform him as to the condition of the ship in the different parts where they served, but one only of the lieutenants was able to answer the summons. After consultation with him, satisfied that nothing more remained to be done, the order was given at twenty minutes past six to lower the flag of the Essex, after an action which had lasted two hours and a half. She had gone into battle with two hundred and fifty-five men. Of these, fifty-eight were killed, sixty-six wounded, and thirty-one missing. The last item is unusually large for a naval action, and was probably due to the attempt to escape to shore by swimming.
Farragut lacked still three months of being thirteen years old when he passed through this tremendous ordeal of slaughter, the most prolonged and the bloodiest of his distinguished career. At his tender years and in his subordinate position there could be, of course, no demand upon the professional ability or the moral courage which grapples with responsibility, of which he gave such high proof in his later life. In the Essex fight his was but to do and dare, perhaps it may rather be said to do and bear; for no heavier strain can be laid upon the physical courage than is required by passive endurance of a deadly attack without the power of reply. In the celebrated charge of the Six Hundred at Balaklava the magnificent display of courage was at least aided by the opportunity allowed for vehement action; the extreme nervous tension excited by such deadly danger found an outlet in the mad impetus of the forward rush. Farragut has himself recorded a singular instance in the Essex fight, which illustrates the sufficiently well-known fact that in the excitement of approaching action the sense of danger is subdued, even in a man who has not the strong nerves that endure the passive expectation of death. "On one occasion Midshipman Isaacs came up to the captain and reported that a quarter-gunner named Roach had deserted his post. The only reply of the captain, addressed to me, was: 'Do your duty, sir!' I seized a pistol and went in pursuit of the fellow, but did not find him. It appeared subsequently that when the ship was reported to be on fire he had contrived to get into the only boat that could be kept afloat, and escaped, with six others, to the shore. The most remarkable part of this affair was that Roach had always been a leading man in the ship, and on the occasion previously mentioned, when the Phœbe seemed about to run into us in the harbor of Valparaiso and the boarders were called away, I distinctly remember this man standing in an exposed position on the cat-head, with sleeves rolled up and cutlass in hand, ready to board, his countenance expressing eagerness for the fight; which goes to prove that personal courage is a very peculiar virtue."
Of his own courage the boy, in this his first action, gave the most marked proof. He was constantly under the captain's eye, and conducted himself so entirely to the satisfaction of that gallant officer as to be mentioned particularly in the dispatches. "Midshipmen Isaacs, Farragut, and Ogden exerted themselves in the performance of their respective duties, and gave an earnest of their value to the service." "They are too young," Porter added, "to recommend for promotion"—a phrase which Farragut thought had an ill-effect on his career, but which certainly implied that his conduct merited a reward that his years did not justify. During the action he was employed in the most multifarious ways, realizing the saying that whatever is nobody else's business is a midshipman's business; or, to use his own quaint expression, "I was like 'Paddy in the catharpins'—a man on occasions. I performed the duties of captain's aid, quarter-gunner, powder-boy, and, in fact, did everything that was required of me. I shall never forget the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. He was a boatswain's mate and was fearfully mutilated. It staggered and sickened me at first; but they soon began to fall around me so fast that it all appeared like a dream and produced no effect upon my nerves. I can remember well, while I was standing near the captain just abaft of the mainmast, a shot came through the waterways and glanced upward, killing four men who were standing by the side of the gun, taking the last onein the head and scattering his brains over both of us. But this awful sight did not affect me half as much as the death of the first poor fellow. I neither thought of nor noticed anything but the working of the guns.... When my services were not required for other purposes, I generally assisted in working a gun; would run and bring powder from the boys and send them back for more, until the captain wanted me to carry a message; and this continued to employ me during the action."
Although included in the report of the slightly wounded, Farragut received no serious injury, but he was not without the narrow escapes which must have been undergone by all the survivors of so desperate an action. One has just been related; and he has himself recorded two other incidents which came near making an end of him. "An old quartermaster named Francis Bland was standing at the wheel when I saw a shot coming over the fore yard in such a direction that I thought it would strike him or me; so I told him to jump, at the same time pulling him toward me. At that instant the shot took off his right leg, and I afterward found that my coat-tail had been carried away. I helped the old fellow below, and inquired for him after the action, but he had died before he could be attended to." At another time "some gun-primers were wanted and I was sent after them. In going below, while I was on the ward-room ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an eighteen-pound shot and fell back on me; we tumbled down the hatch together. I struck on my head, and, fortunately, he fell on my hips. I say fortunately, for, as he was a man of at least two hundred pounds'weight, I would have been crushed to death if he had fallen directly across my body. I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush on deck. The captain, seeing me covered with blood, asked if I were wounded, to which I replied: 'I believe not, sir.' 'Then,' said he, 'where are the primers?' This brought me completely to my senses, and I ran below and carried the primers on deck. When I came up the second time I saw the captain fall, and in my turn ran up and asked if he were wounded. He answered me almost in the same words: 'I believe not, my son; but I felt a blow on the top of my head.' He must have been knocked down by the wind of a passing shot, as his hat was somewhat damaged." The bruises from this fall down the hatch were the only injuries Farragut received.
When the surrender was determined, Farragut, at the captain's order, dropped the signal book overboard, watching it as it sank in the water till out of sight; and then in company with another midshipman amused himself throwing overboard the pistols and other small arms, to keep them out of the enemy's hands. The following morning he went on board the Phœbe, where the mortification of defeat drew tears from his eyes; a state of dejection from which he was roused by seeing a pet pig belonging to the Essex in the custody of one of the Phœbe's midshipmen. Farragut at once set up a claim to the porker as being private property, and as such to be respected by all civilized nations. The claim was resisted by the new owner; but his messmates, always ready for a lark, insisted that so doubtful a question must be decided by trial of battle. A ring being formed,Farragut, after a short contest, succeeded in thrashing his opponent and regaining the pig, and with it a certain amount of complacency in that one Briton at least had felt the pangs of defeat. His grief mastered him again soon afterward, when asked by Captain Hillyar to breakfast with himself and Captain Porter. Hillyar, seeing his discomfiture, spoke to him with great kindness, saying: "Never mind, my little fellow, it will be your turn next perhaps"; to which, says Farragut, "I replied I hoped so, and left the cabin to hide my emotion."
After the action Porter and Hillyar entered into an arrangement by which the Essex Junior was disarmed and allowed to proceed to the United States as a cartel, under the charge of Lieutenant Downes, who had commanded her while a United States cruiser. All the survivors of the Essex except two, whose wounds did not permit, embarked in her and sailed from Valparaiso on the 27th of April for the United States, arriving on the 7th of July in New York. On the 5th, off the coast of Long Island, she was stopped by a British ship-of-war, whose captain questioned the right of Hillyar to give her the passports she carried, and indicated an intention of detaining her. Porter construed this violation of the stipulation between himself and his captor as releasing him from his obligations, and escaped to shore with a boat's crew. After a detention of nearly twenty-four hours the vessel was allowed to proceed; but was again overhauled by another British frigate as she approached Sandy Hook. There could be no serious question of detaining a ship that had been given a safeguard, under such circumstances and with such deliberation, by so experienced an officer as Hillyar.But it is instructive to Americans, who are accustomed to see in the war of 1812 only a brilliant series of naval victories, to note that within a few hours' sail of their principal port British cruisers were lying in perfect security, stopping whom they would.
The Essex, upon which Farragut made his maiden cruise, and whose interesting career ended in so sad a catastrophe, remained, of course, in the hands of the victors. The little frigate was patched up and taken to England, where she was bought into the British Navy, and was borne on its register until 1837, when she was sold. After that all trace of her history is lost.
The Essex Junior, being a prize to the Essex and allowed to pass under Hillyar's safeguard, was sold in New York for the benefit of the captors.
Note.—The spelling Chile (instead of Chili) used in this chapter is that adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names, appointed by President Harrison, September 4, 1890, to settle a uniform usage for the Executive Departments of the Government.
Note.—The spelling Chile (instead of Chili) used in this chapter is that adopted by the United States Board on Geographic Names, appointed by President Harrison, September 4, 1890, to settle a uniform usage for the Executive Departments of the Government.
In common with the other survivors of the Essex, Farragut landed in the United States as a paroled prisoner of war. Captain Porter took him at once to Chester and put him again to school, this time to an old gentleman named Neif, who had served in the guards of Napoleon. The method of instruction practiced by him seems to have been unsystematic and discursive; but Farragut, who was ever attentive to make the most of such opportunities as offered for self-improvement, derived profit here also, and said afterward that the time thus passed had been of service to him throughout his life. Until very lately there were residents of that neighborhood who could recall the young midshipman as he was at Neif's school; a lad short of stature and not very handsome in face, but who bore himself very erect because, as he often declared, he could not afford to lose a fraction of one of his scanty inches. There was, and still is, near the spot where he went to school a tavern called the Seven Stars, which has been a public house since the time of the Revolution, and which had sheltered Howe and Cornwallis as the British army advanced from the head of the Chesapeake toward Philadelphia, in 1777. Upon its porch Farragut spent much of his leisure time, and within its walls joined in the social gayeties of the neighboring families, who afterward recalled with pride and interest this association with the young sailor before whom lay such a brilliant but unforeseen future.
In November, 1814, Farragut was exchanged, and at once ordered to New York to join the brig Spark, which was intended to form one of a squadron of small vessels to cruise against British commerce under the command of Captain Porter. He was here for the first time separated from his guardian and thrown wholly upon his own force of character to guide his steps; and this beginning was made with a set of messmates with whom he was temporarily quartered on board the John Adams, among whom were several very wild young men. Farragut evidently felt the force of the temptation, for he speaks with warm thankfulness of the counter-influence of the first lieutenant, to which he attributed much of his deliverance from the dissipation by which he was surrounded. "When I have looked back with a feeling of horror to that period of my life," he wrote, "I have always remembered with gratitude Mr. Cocke's counsels and kind-hearted forbearance." It was indeed characteristic of the man that, while by no means insensible to the natural temptations of youth, he was ever more attracted to and influenced by the good than by the evil around him. During the following year, on his cruise to the Mediterranean, he was messmate with a midshipman named William Taylor, a young man of singularly fine character, which seems to have been the chief cause of the influence he exerted upon Farragut."He took me under his charge, counseled me kindly, and inspired me with sentiments of true manliness, which were the reverse of what I might have learned from the examples I saw in the steerage of the John Adams. Never having had any real love for dissipation, I easily got rid of the bad influences which had assailed me in that ship." He noted also that, of the twelve or thirteen midshipmen there associated with him, in less than two years all but one, his old messmate Ogden, of the Essex, had disappeared from the navy. The habit of strict attention to duty which he had contracted under the rule of the Essex also contributed, by keeping him occupied and attentive, to deter him from yielding to practices incompatible with its due discharge.
The conclusion of peace put an end to the proposed cruise of the Spark, and Farragut was next ordered, in March, 1815, to the Independence, a seventy-four-gun ship, or ship-of-the-line, as such were commonly called. She was the flag-ship of a numerous squadron, composed mostly of small vessels, destined to act against Algiers, with whom war had recently been declared. Upon arriving in the Mediterranean it was found that Commodore Decatur had already brought the Dey to terms, so that Farragut saw here no more fighting, and the squadron returned home by winter. The following spring he was ordered to the Washington, also a seventy-four, about to sail for Naples, bearing on board Mr. William Pinkney, our minister to that court. This cruise gave our young midshipman an experience of a kind he had not before had, and which in more ways than one was useful to him. The Washington was one of those exceptional vessels which illustrated in thehighest degree the kind and pitch of perfection to which, by unremitting severity and exaction, the appearance and drills of a ship-of-war could be brought. Her commander, Captain Creighton, had the reputation of being the greatest martinet in the navy; and being seconded by a singularly efficient and active set of officers, the ship was made to realize the extreme ideal of a naval officer of that day in smartness, order, and spotless cleanliness.[B]"But," says Farragut, "all this was accomplished at the sacrifice of the comfort of every one on board. My experience in the matter, instead of making me a proselyte to the doctrine of the old officers on this subject, determined me never to have 'a crack ship' if it was only to be attained by such means." His feeling on the matter was doubtless somewhat quickened by the personal discomfort which he, in common with all subordinates, underwent under such a system, although he was rather a favorite with the captain, whose aid he was; but it shows independence of character to have thought so clearly for himself at such an age, and to have ventured to differ from standards which were then, and for a long time afterward, implicitly accepted throughout the service. The tradition of those days, being mainly oral, has nearly disappeared; but fragments of it remain hereand there in the minds of those who, as youngsters thirty or forty years ago, were brought in contact with men, then already elderly, who had had personal experience of ships like the Washington. These stories, in their grotesque severities, have almost the air of an extravaganza. It must, however, be in justice remembered that they were the extravagances of a few among the men who had brought the United States Navy to the high efficiency in which it then was; and to whom, and not to either the people or the Government of that day, was due the glorious record of 1812. A few of them added to their military ardor and efficiency an undue amount of that spirit of the good housekeeper which makes a home unbearable. Farragut was aided to his wise conclusion by his previous experience in the Essex, where a high state of efficiency was gained without wanton sacrifice of comfort; for Porter, though a man of hasty temper, was ever considerate of his crew. But for the naval officers of that day Farragut throughout his life retained a profound admiration. Talking about them at his dinner-table in New Orleans fifty years later, but a few days before his famous passage of the Mobile forts, he said: "We have no better seamen in the service to-day than those gallant fellows Bainbridge, Decatur, Hull, Perry, Porter, and Charles Stewart; and," he added, "I must not forget to mention McDonough, and poor unlucky Lawrence, as splendid-looking a sailor as I ever saw. If I only had their chance and could lay the Hartford alongside of an English ship, I should like it better than fighting our own people." Some years later he again expressed the same feelings to the same friend, to whom the author is indebtedfor the communication of them. His own glorious career was then finished, and his life's work lay open to the mature reflection of his declining years, when he thus acknowledged his obligations to the heroes of his boyhood. "Isaac Hull," he said, "was as good a seaman as ever sailed a ship. If I have done the country any service afloat, it is in no small degree owing to the ambition and enthusiasm he created in me, when I was a youngster, by his fair fight with and capture of an English frigate. I always envied Hull that piece of good work." It is to be suspected that the Admiral always felt that something was lacking to the fullness of his cup, in that he had only been allowed to fight forts, and not ships like his own; and it is no small evidence of the generosity of his character that his enthusiasm was so aroused by the deeds of others. He spoke of the fight between the Kearsarge and the Alabama in as glowing terms as were aroused by his recollection of the Constitution and the Guerrière. "I had sooner have fought that fight," he wrote, "than any ever fought upon the ocean."
The Washington stopped a few days at Gibraltar, where the rest of the squadron were then at anchor; and then sailed with all of them in company to Naples. During the remainder of the year 1816 the ship cruised along the Barbary coast until the winter had fairly set in, when she with the other vessels repaired to Port Mahon. Although now so close to the spot where his race originated, Farragut's journal betrays no interest in the fact. He was still too young for the sentimental considerations to weigh much in his mind; and it was not till many years later, in the height of his glory as a naval commander, that he visited his father's birthplace, Ciudadela, the capital city of Minorca. In the following spring the squadron resumed its cruising and made quite a round of the Mediterranean west of Italy; the journal mentioning visits to Gibraltar, Malaga, Leghorn, Naples, Sicily, and the cities on the Barbary coast. Farragut made full and intelligent use of the opportunities thus afforded him for seeing the world; and his assiduous habit of observation did much to store his mind with information, which the circumstances of his early life had prevented his gaining in the ordinary ways of school and reading. He was fortunate also at this time in having the society of an intelligent and cultivated man, the chaplain of the Washington, Mr. Charles Folsom. The chaplain in those days was commonly the only schoolmaster the midshipmen had; and their opportunities of learning from him depended very much upon the pressure exercised by the captain to compel the attention of a set of boys. Mr. Folsom, however, was drawn to Farragut by the eager willingness of the latter to acquire, and by his sense of his deficiencies. The manly character which had resisted the temptations to low dissipation, and sought naturally the companionship of the better rather than the worse among his associates, also attracted him. The friendship thus formed became, through a series of incidents, the cause of an unusual opportunity for improvement being offered to Farragut. In the autumn of 1817 Mr. Folsom received the appointment of consul to Tunis, which had just been vacated. The summer cruising of the squadron was drawing to an end, and the winter quarters at Port Mahon about to be resumed. Therefore, while the Washington was lying in Gibraltar, Mr. Folsom wrote to the commander-in-chief, Commodore Chauncey, asking permission to take the young midshipman to spend the winter with him in Tunis, to pursue his education under his care. In the letter he spoke very earnestly of his pupil's zeal for improvement, of his close attention, and ready response to any effort on the part of his instructor. The letter is interesting also in its recognition of Farragut's still existing relations to Captain Porter, "to whose wishes this request can not be repugnant." The letter was dated October 14, 1817; and, the required permission being given, the two friends in the following month sailed from Gibraltar for Marseille as passengers in the sloop-of-war Erie. At Marseille a slight incident occurred which, while not quite creditable to our hero, may have interest as showing natural character. Spending the evening at the house of a Mr. Fitch, he was, much against his will, obliged to play whist, for which he had no fondness. "Not getting along very well with my hand, the party showed great impatience, and I thought were rather insulting in their remarks. One individual went so far as to dash his cards on the table in derision of my play, when I returned the compliment by throwing them at his head. I apologized to Mr. Fitch and retired, much mortified, but my temper had been sorely tried." The display of temper was scarcely more than the provocation justified; and it is noteworthy that during a period when dueling was so common Farragut, though quick to resent, appears never to have been involved in a serious personal difficulty.
Early in 1818 the Erie, carrying Mr. Folsom andhis pupil, arrived in Tunis, where the latter remained for nine months, pursuing his studies on the site of the ancient maritime empire of Carthage. He mentions particularly the subjects of mathematics, English literature, French, and Italian. For languages he had great natural aptitude, and in later life was able to converse in several. The monotony of study was varied by the society of the few but agreeable foreign families residing in Tunis, and by occasional excursions in the neighborhood; when the interest of the present was happily blended, under the guidance of such a man as Mr. Folsom, with thoughts upon the past grandeur and history of the Carthaginian empire and the Roman province which had successively flourished on that soil. In one of these excursions Farragut received a partial stroke of the sun, from the effects of which he suffered for many years.
The period of his stay in Tunis exceeded the original intention, but doubtless with the approval of the commodore. It was brought to a close in the fall of 1818 by an outbreak of the plague, which increased to such an alarming extent that Mr. Folsom felt compelled to send his charge away just when the approach of another winter of comparative idleness for the squadron would have justified a longer stay. But deaths in Tunis had risen to a hundred a day, and all the families were living in a state of complete isolation, the houses being barricaded against outsiders; therefore on the 9th of October Farragut departed in a Genoese brig for Leghorn. Thence, after a quarantine of forty days, he went to Pisa; and from there to Messina, where the squadron had assembled for the winter of 1818-'19.
The friendship between Farragut and Mr. Folsom did not end with this separation. The latter survived to the end of the civil war, and was thus privileged to follow the successful and great career of the admiral to whom, while yet an unformed boy, he had thoughtfully extended a helping hand. As late as 1865 letters passed between the two, showing that both cherished warm recollections of that early association; Mr. Folsom dating his, as though careful to make the coincidence, on the anniversary of the day when he parted with his pupil in the harbor of Tunis and returned alone to the plague-stricken city.
The officers of the United States squadron passed a gay winter in Messina in 1819. Farragut was not yet eighteen years of age, but his bodily development had kept pace with his mental, and he writes that he always held his own at this time in all athletic exercises. The succeeding spring and summer were again spent in routine cruising on board the Franklin, seventy-four, which had taken the place of the Washington. In the fall of 1819 the squadron was in Gibraltar; and there, "after much opposition," Farragut was appointed an acting lieutenant on board the brig Shark. This promotion, coming at so early an age, he afterward looked upon as one of the most important events of his life. "It caused me to feel that I was now associated with men, on an equality, and must act with more circumspection. When I became first lieutenant, my duties were still more important, for in truth I was really commander of the vessel, and yet I was not responsible (as such)—an anomalous position which has spoiled some of our best officers. I consider it a great advantage toobtain command young, having observed, as a general rule, that persons who come into authority late in life shrink from responsibility, and often break down under its weight." This last sentence, coming from a man of such extensive observation, and who bore in his day the responsibility of such weighty decisions, deserves most serious consideration now, when command rank is reached so very late in the United States Navy.
After a short year in the Shark Farragut was ordered to return to the United States, to pass the examination required of all midshipmen before they could be confirmed to the rank of lieutenant. No opportunity offering for passage in a ship-of-war, he embarked in a merchant vessel called the America. On the passage he found himself, with the ship, confronted by an apparent danger, which occasioned a display of the fearlessness and energy always latent in his character. Those were days when piracy was rife upon the seas in the neighborhood of the West Indies and of the Spanish Main. The system was an outgrowth of the privateering carried on by French and Spanish marauders, for they were little better, against both British and neutral commerce during the wars of the French Revolution and Empire; and it had received a fresh impulse from the quarrel then existing between Spain and her American colonies, which since 1810 had been in revolt against the mother country. Privateering, having booty as its sole motive, rapidly tends to indiscriminate robbery, if not held strictly responsible by the country using it; and the remote, extensive, and secluded shores of Cuba, Haïti, and the South American coast defied the careless supervision of the weak Spanish Government. When within a few days' sail of the United States, the America fell in with an armed brig showing the colors of the new Colombian republic; but a flag was little guarantee for the character of a vessel if other signs told against her. Farragut describes both captain and crew of the America as being so overwhelmed with fear that, though expecting no mercy, they entertained no idea of resistance. Under the circumstances he took command; and having, fortunately, as passengers two seamen from the squadron going home sick, these formed a nucleus around which rallied the courage of the others, paralyzed only through disuse. It was, however, the firmness of the lad of eighteen, supported by his position as an officer and acting upon the two men prepared to recognize him as such, that redeemed the others from imbecility to manhood. The incident had no results, the stranger proving to be a regularly commissioned cruiser, and treating them with civility. Farragut's thoughtful, not to say philosophical, turn of mind was shown in his recorded reflections upon the difference between the conduct of the man-of-war's men and the merchant seamen, which he justly attributed not to inherent difference of natural courage, but to the habit of arms and of contemplating danger under a particular form.
On the 20th of November, 1820, Farragut again landed in the United States, having been absent four years and a half. He felt himself a stranger, having left as a mere boy, and knowing no one but Commodore Porter and his family. His examination soon followed, and was passed; but apparently not quite to his own satisfaction. A period of comparative quiet followed, spent principally in Norfolk, Virginia,during which he formed the attachment which resulted in his first marriage. In May, 1822, he was again ordered to sea in the sloop-of-war John Adams, in which he made a short cruise in the Gulf of Mexico and to Vera Cruz, where the Spanish power in Mexico was then making its last stand in the well-known fortress, San Juan de Ulloa. The ship returned to the United States early in December, 1822, when Farragut found the Mosquito fleet, as it was called, fitting out against the pirates of the Caribbean Sea. Learning that it was to be commanded by his old captain, Commodore David Porter, he asked for and obtained orders to the Greyhound, one of the small vessels composing it, commanded by Lieutenant John Porter, a brother of the commodore.
Since the peace with Great Britain, Captain Porter had been a member of the Board of Navy Commissioners; a body of three officers appointed by an act of Congress passed early in 1815, whose duties were to administer the affairs of the navy under the supervision of the Secretary. Meanwhile the sufferings, not only of American property but of the persons of American citizens, from the prevalence of piracy in the Caribbean Sea, had become unendurable. Ordinary naval vessels were, from their size, unable to enforce a repression for which it was necessary to follow the freebooters and their petty craft into their lairs among the lagoons and creeks of the West India islands. The general outcry rousing the Government to the necessity of further exertion, Captain Porter offered his services to extirpate the nuisance; with the understanding that he was to have and fit out the kind of force he thought necessary for the service. He resigned his positionon the board on the 31st of December, 1822; but before that date he had bought and begun to equip eight Chesapeake schooners, of fifty to sixty tons burden, of which the Greyhound, Farragut's new vessel, was one. He also built five rowing barges, unusually large, pulling twenty oars. With these, supported by the ordinary man-of-war schooners, of which several were already in the service, and by the sloops-of-war, he expected to drive the pirates not merely off the sea, but out of their hiding-places.
The commodore put to sea with all his squadron on the 14th of February, 1823. A northeast gale was at once encountered, but the tiny vessels ran through it without any harm. For the next six months Farragut was actively employed in the operations of the little fleet, the Greyhound being one of the five which were sent through the Mona Passage, between Porto Rico and Haïti, and thence ransacked the southern shores of the latter island and of Cuba as far as Cape San Antonio, where Cuba ends. There were many encounters between the pirates and the squadron, sometimes afloat, sometimes ashore, in several of which our officer served, forcing his way with his party through marsh and chaparral and cactus—a service often perilous, always painful and exhausting. His health fortunately held out through it; nor did he take the yellow fever, which, as the summer wore on, made sad havoc among both officers and men. Toward the end of his time he obtained the command of one of the Mosquito schooners, which, however, he held but for a short period; for, not having yet received his lieutenant's commission, he was relieved by the arrival of an officer ofthat rank. An interesting incident of this cruise was a meeting with his brother William, then already a lieutenant, whom he had not seen for thirteen years. Soon after that he obtained permission to visit New Orleans; and it is a curious coincidence that the vessel in which he took passage thither was carrying the first load of bricks to build Fort Jackson, one of the defenses of New Orleans, by the passage of which nearly forty years later he began his career as commander-in-chief. His father had then been many years dead; but he met his sister, with whom he had to make acquaintance after so long a separation.
The service of the Mosquito fleet was one of great exposure and privation. "I never owned a bed during my two years and a half in the West Indies," wrote Farragut, "but lay down to rest wherever I found the most comfortable berth." It was, however, effectual, both directly and indirectly, to the suppression of piracy; seconded as it was by the navy of Great Britain, interested like our own country in the security of commerce. Driven off the water, with their lurking-places invaded, their plunder seized, their vessels burned, their occupation afloat gone, the marauders organized themselves into bandits, and turned their predatory practices against the towns and villages. This roused the Spanish governors from the indolent complacency with which they had watched robberies upon foreigners that brought profit rather than loss to their districts. When the evil was thus brought home, the troops were put in motion; and the pirates, beset on both sides, gradually but rapidly disappeared.
This Mosquito war had, however, one very sadresult in depriving the navy of the eminent services of Commodore Porter. In 1824 a gratuitous insult, accompanied by outrage, offered to one of his officers, led him to land a party at the town of Foxardo, in Porto Rico, and force an apology from the guilty officials. Although no complaint seems to have been made by Spain, the United States Government took exception to his action and brought him to trial by court-martial. Porter confidently expected an acquittal, having proof that the outrage was wanton, and that the officials had engaged in it to protect some piratical plunder which had been taken into the place. He argued also that the wording of his orders from the department authorized his action. The court, however, found him guilty of an offense which was charged as "disobedience of orders, and conduct unbecoming an officer," and sentenced him to six months' suspension. The sentence was accompanied by the expression that the court "ascribes the conduct of the accused which is deemed censurable to an anxious disposition, on his part, to maintain the honor and advance the interest of the nation and of the service." Indignant at the result, Porter resigned from the navy and took service with the Mexican Republic. After spending there four years of harassing disappointments, the election of General Jackson to the presidency gave him a friend in power. He returned to the United States in October, 1829, under the encouragement of letters from persons closely connected with the new administration. The President offered to nominate him to his old position in the navy, but Porter declined "to associate with the men who sentenced me for upholding the honor of the flag." This, striking akindred chord in Jackson's breast, elicited a warm note of approval, and he appointed the commodore Consul-General to Algiers. The conquest of that country by France put an end to the office before he could assume the duties. The President then nominated him to be Chargé d'Affaires to Turkey. He went there in August, 1831, became Minister Resident in 1839, and died in this post in 1843.
After his return from the Mosquito fleet, Farragut married, on the 24th of September, 1823, Miss Susan C. Marchant, the daughter of a gentleman of Norfolk, Virginia. He was at this time far from well; fever, which spared him while on that sickly service, having seized him upon arrival in a healthier climate. It was probably due in part to this that two years passed after his marriage before he again joined a ship. During this period he spent some weeks with his bride in the house of Commodore Porter, who had returned temporarily from his squadron to regain his strength after a severe attack of yellow fever. This was probably his last close personal association with his early benefactor, whom the issue of the trial afterward separated from his country; but the correspondence between the two continued through life, Farragut maintaining to the last a grateful recollection of kindness shown to him by one whom he termed his "most venerated friend and commander." As late as 1835, writing from Constantinople in reply to a letter received from his former ward, Porter, then an ailing and broken man, notices this trait in him: "I have found in yours that treasure of a grateful heart which should be so much prized. I have never looked for any other returnthan what my feelings gave me, and to find such sentiments of gratitude from you, after all others had forgotten that they had received any benefits from me, is truly refreshing to the feelings." The relations thus testified to are an honor to the memory of both.
After the termination of his cruise in the Mosquito fleet, and up to the beginning of the Civil War, the story of Farragut's life is for the most part but the record of the routine service of a naval officer in times of peace—periods of distant foreign cruising succeeding to, and being again succeeded by, periods of employment on shore in some of the many duties connected with the administration of the navy. But while in their superficial aspect there is little to distinguish these monotonous years, with their occasional breaks of exceptional incident, from the ordinary experiences of all naval officers, the journal of Farragut shows an activity of mind, a constant habit of observation, especially in professional matters, and a painstaking diligence in embracing every passing opportunity for improvement, which reveal to some extent the causes of his subsequent great successes. It is not indeed always possible to trace the precise connection between this or that observation, this or that course of study, and the later results; it is rather in the constant habit of doing the best at every moment, and in the gradual formation of mental character and correct professional knowledge, that are to be found the fruits of the strenuous exertion made throughout his life by Admiral Farragut. It is a noteworthy, though by no means unprecedented, circumstance that these characteristics obtained little or no recognition during his early and middle career. Unlike the great British admiral, Nelson, no war occurred to bring his high qualities into notice; and, when lacking but a year of Nelson's age when he fell at Trafalgar, Farragut was vainly petitioning the Navy Department for the command of a sloop-of-war in the war with Mexico, although he alleged his intimate knowledge of the scene of operations, the close personal examination he had made of it, and the privilege he had had of witnessing an attack by a French squadron but a few years before.
The early age at which he had left his home, the long absences of his youth, and the death of his father, had all contributed to sever his associations with New Orleans; so that his marriage in Norfolk, as was the case with so many officers of his day, fixed that city as his place of residence when not at sea. It is worthy of remembrance, in connection with his firm determination at a later day to stand by the Union rather than by a section of the country, that the only home Farragut had known out of a ship-of-war was the Southern city where he had twice married, and where the general sentiment was contrary to the course he took. The interest of the fact lies not in its bearing upon the rights or wrongs of the great quarrel that all are now fain to forget, but in showing the rare strength of character which, sustained only by its own clear convictions, resisted the social and friendly influences that overcame so many others.
In August, 1825, Farragut was promoted to be lieutenant, and at the same time ordered to the frigate Brandywine, chosen to carry back to France Lafayette, who was just drawing to a close his memorable visit to the United States. The ship sailed from the capes of the Chesapeake in September, reaching Havre after a passage of twenty-five days. From there she went to England, and thence to the Mediterranean, returning to New York in May, 1826. After his arrival Farragut was detached and went to New Haven with his wife, who had become a great sufferer from neuralgia and continued to be an invalid during the remainder of their married life. While living in New Haven he availed himself of the opportunity to attend lectures at Yale College. After his wife's treatment was finished they returned to Norfolk, where he remained until October, 1828, attached to the receiving ship and living on board with Mrs. Farragut. Here the interest which he had showed in the improvement of his own mind was transferred to the ship's boys, most of whom did not even know their letters. Farragut organized a school for these waifs, who at that time were little accustomed to receive such care, and was gratified to find very tangible results in the improvement shown by them. He next received orders to the sloop-of-war Vandalia, which sailed from Philadelphia in the last days of 1828 for the Brazil station. On this cruise, which for him lasted but a year, he for the first time visited the Rio de la Plata and Buenos Ayres, and came in contact with the afterward celebrated dictator of that country, Rosas. The different provinces, whose union is now known by the political name of the Argentine Republic, had, under the later days ofSpanish rule, constituted with Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay the Viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres. On the 25th of May, 1810, a declaration of independence was issued in the city of Buenos Ayres. A long period of disturbance, internal and external, followed. At the time of this first visit of Farragut a contest had for some time been going on between two parties, representing two opposite political ideas, and striving in arms for the control of the State. The ideal of one was a strong centralized government supported by a powerful standing army. This naturally found its most numerous constituents among the wealthy and educated inhabitants of the principal city, Buenos Ayres. The province of the same name, however, and the other provinces generally, favored a looser form of confederation. The former party, known as the Unitarios, held a brief lease of power; but their opponents found an able leader in Juan Manuel de Rosas, who personified the best and worst features of thegauchoof the pampas and obtained unbounded popularity and following among those wild herdsmen. In 1828 Rosas and his allies forced the Unitarian president to resign, and installed one of themselves, named Dorrego, as governor of Buenos Ayres. This success was but one step in the series of bloody struggles which ended in the establishment of the dictator; but it marked the point at which Farragut first saw Buenos Ayres and Rosas himself, with whom he was at a later date thrown in intimate contact and who at that moment was in the full flush of his early popularity.
In December, 1829, Farragut's eyes were in such bad condition that it was found necessary to send him home. He arrived in February, 1830, and remained in Norfolk for a period of nearly three years, broken only by occasional absences. During a part of this time he was again attached to the receiving ship in the port; and, as before, manifested an interest, unusual in those days, in those under his command. One of these, then a midshipman, writes to the author that he still recalls, after the lapse of nearly sixty years, the kindness, consideration and hospitality shown him by the future admiral, who was then known through the service as the "Little Luff" Farragut—luff being a naval abbreviation, now obsolete, for lieutenant. But with all his kindness there was no relaxation in the enforcement of necessary duty. In December, 1832, he was again ordered to sea in the sloop-of-war Natchez, as her first lieutenant; or, as the expression now is, as executive officer. It was the time of the nullification troubles in South Carolina, and the ship was first sent to anchor near Charleston, where she would be prepared to support the authority of the United States Government. Fortunately, no occasion arose for her to act; and a stay which began with taking precautions against possible fire-ships from the city, ended in a series of balls and general exchanges of courtesy between the officers and the citizens. In April, 1833, the Natchez returned to Hampton Roads; and the following month sailed, carrying Farragut back again to the Brazils. On the 30th of July he was again at anchor, in his new ship, off Buenos Ayres. Since his former visit the country had passed through much trouble. A confederation had been formed between the principal provinces, in January, 1831, based upon the loosest ties of union; but the army had become dissatisfied with the progress of changes which aroselargely from jealousy of the military power, and had risen in revolt under the leadership of a general named Lavalle, who for a time had sided with Rosas. He met at first with success, defeated Dorrego and Rosas, and put the former to death; but Rosas rallied again, defeated Lavalle, and became in his place head of the army and governor of Buenos Ayres. To this position he was re-elected in 1832, and by virtue of it he was, at the time of Farragut's second visit, in chief control of the external policy and internal affairs of the confederation; the principal and seaboard province inevitably taking the lead and representing the country under even the loosest form of combination. Disturbed though the internal state of affairs was, Rosas's strong hand appears to have so far preserved the safety of foreigners as to give no cause for the interference of their ships-of-war. Farragut's stay on the station was, however, again cut short. The schooner Boxer arrived in Rio Janeiro on her way home from the East Indies; and it becoming necessary to give her a new commanding officer, he received orders to take her to the United States. He sailed in her on the 8th of June, 1834, and on the 25th of July reached Norfolk, where the vessel was put out of commission and he again returned to his family. A period of nearly four years of shore duty followed. During the latter two of these Farragut was a constant applicant for sea service, which he could not obtain. His wife was at this time becoming ever weaker and weaker. "I was necessarily confined very much to the house," he writes, "for my wife was so helpless I was obliged to lift her and carry her about like a child." His tender and untiring devotion to the suffering invalidwas no less conspicuous than his careful attention to the other duties of life, and was the constant remark of those who were witnesses of this sorrowful period.
In April, 1838, Farragut was again ordered to sea in the home squadron, and in the following August, though still only a lieutenant, took command, in Pensacola, of the sloop-of-war Erie; a position that could only be temporary, because belonging naturally to an officer of higher rank. It fell to him, however, at a period of peculiar interest—when France became involved with Mexico in one of those brief hostilities by which alone were broken the long years of peace between Waterloo and the Crimean War. The quarrel between the two was simply as to the reparation due to French subjects for injuries received during the long years of confusion through which Mexico then had been and still was passing. As a political question it possesses no present interest whatever; but to a naval officer of Farragut's strong professional feeling and close habits of observation it offered a peculiar opportunity for noting the silent progress made during the long peace by the material of war among the navies of Europe, where the necessity of constant preparation insures an advance in which the United States then, as now, tended to lag behind. It supplied also a test, under certain conditions, of the much-vexed question of the power of ships against forts; for the French squadron, though few in numbers, deliberately undertook to batter by horizontal fire, as well as to bombard, in the more correct sense of the word, with the vertical fire of mortars, the long renowned castle of San Juan de Ulloa, the chief defense of Vera Cruz. Itwas still the day of sailing-ships, both of war and of commerce. But a few years had elapsed since a man of considerable scientific attainment had pronounced the crossing of the Atlantic to be impossible to vessels depending upon steam power alone; and only in the same year as the French attack on Vera Cruz (1838) had been seen the falsification of the prediction by the passage of the Sirius and Great Western from England to New York.
As a first means of compulsion, the French Government had in 1837 established a blockade of the Atlantic ports of Mexico. In two months the Mexican treasury lost two million dollars in duties, which would have been collected if the ships turned away had been permitted to enter; but the Government and people seemed little moved by a result that merely added one more to the many ills with which they were already afflicted. The question was then raised by the French authorities, diplomatic and military, whether the possession of the fortress of San Juan de Ulloa, which commanded the city of Vera Cruz, the most important of the coast ports, would not also confer control of a great part of the seaboard, and thus enforce a security not otherwise obtainable for the persons and property of French subjects. Blockade, though a less extreme measure, was difficult, protracted, and productive of serious loss. The violent northerly gales of winter exposed the ships to peril, and the yellow fever of the summer months was deadly to the crews. Moreover, the deprivation of commerce, though a bitter evil to a settled community whose members were accustomed to the wealth, luxury, and quiet life attendant upon uninterrupted mercantile pursuits, had been provedineffective when applied to a people to whom quiet and luxuries were the unrealized words of a dream. The French Government speedily determined to abandon the half-measure for one of more certain results; and in October, 1838, began to arrive the ships of an expedition destined to proceed to open hostilities, under the command of Admiral Baudin, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars. Appointed in the navy in 1799, immediately after the return from Egypt and the establishment of the Consulate, by the direct intervention of Bonaparte, who was a friend of his father's, Baudin had served with distinction until the fall of the empire, losing his right arm in battle; and after Waterloo it was he who made the proposition, familiar to all readers of Napoleon's life, to cover the escape of the Emperor from Rochefort by sacrificing the ships under his command in an heroic resistance to the English cruisers while the vessel bearing the fallen monarch escaped. "Sixteen years ago," said he, "my father died of joy upon learning the return from Egypt of General Bonaparte; and I myself to-day would die of grief to see the Emperor leave France if I thought that by remaining he could again do aught for her. But he must leave her only to live honored in a free country, not to die a prisoner to our rivals." Such was that career, belonging to an early and singular generation, which here for a moment crossed and linked with that of the great naval hero of our own days. Farragut has recorded his impression of him. "Admiral Baudin," he writes, "would be undoubtedly arara avisin any navy. He is about fifty years of age (he was fifty-four), has lost his right arm, looks like a North of Europe man, has a fine address, and speaks English well. He hasevery mark of a polished seaman and officer, with the expression of great decision, with firmness and activity to execute his well-digested plans. These were my remarks the first time I saw him, and his subsequent conduct soon proved I was right." His French biographer makes a remark, commonplace enough, which yet notes the essential difference in the lot of the two gallant men who thus casually met. "For the few who allow occasions to escape them, how many could justly complain that a chance has never been offered them? Admiral Baudin never had the opportunity to which his capacities suited him; all his aptitudes designated him for war on a great scale; a man such as he, succeeding Latouche-Tréville, would have saved us the sorrows of Trafalgar." Farragut was fortunate, for in him the opportunity and the man met in happy combination.
When he reached his station, Admiral Baudin suffered no time to be lost. The wintry gales were approaching, while, on the other hand, his first experience showed the miseries of disease on that sickly coast. Of the two frigates there before he came, which had been blockading during the summer, one had buried forty-five seamen and five officers out of a ship's company of four hundred men; the other, at the time of his arrival, had three hundred and forty-three sick among a crew of five hundred. With such conditions, trifling is out of place. An ultimatum was at once sent to the Mexican Government, a brief time only being allowed for a reply, because the claims of the French cabinet were already clearly understood. On the 25th of November the last of his squadron, two bomb-vessels, arrived. On the 21st he had given notice that he would wait till noon of the27th for the final decision. On the 28th the attack was made.
The castle of San Juan de Ulloa lies half a mile east and to seaward of the city of Vera Cruz, which it commands, and from which it is separated by water averaging from fifteen to twenty feet deep. It is built on the inner extremity of a reef that extends from it a little over a mile to the eastward, in the general prolongation of the line connecting the castle and the town. This shoal being covered by a foot or two of water, the builders of the fort counted upon it for protection in that direction against ships, and against attack, either by regular approaches or by escalade. The work itself was in general outline a parallelogram, with bastions at the four angles. The longer sides fronted the east and west; and of these the former, facing the shoal and the open gulf, contained the gate of the fortress and was covered by a demi-lune and line of water batteries. There were mounted in the castle and dependent works, at the time of the French attacks, one hundred and eighty-six cannon. The strength of the fortifications, the number of the guns, and the character of the surroundings, had all contributed to bestow upon San Juan de Ulloa the reputation of being the strongest position in Spanish America. It was, indeed, considered impregnable to naval attack, for the best hope of ships under such circumstances is to approach closely and drive the defenders from their guns by the superior number and weight of the pieces opposed to them; but in San Juan this was forbidden by the extent and formation of the reef. Like most coral banks, this rises sheer from the bottom, making the approach very dangerous to vessels dependent only upon sail-power; and the ground about it, though not too deep for anchorage, is rocky and foul.
Admiral Baudin, however, was thoroughly acquainted with the weak points of the fortress, through information obtained from Madrid; where plans of the works, dating from the times of the Spanish occupancy, were on file. He possessed also two steamers, the first to cross the Atlantic under the French flag, by aid of which, though small and of weak power, he could count upon placing his sailing frigates exactly where he wished them. Finally, the wretched condition of the Mexican forces, demoralized by years of irregular warfare and internal commotion, and miserably provided with material of war, gave additional chances of success.
On the morning of November 28th the two steamers towed the bomb-vessels to the eastern extremity of the reef, a little over a mile from the castle. Next two of the frigates were taken by them and anchored close to the reef, southeast from the works and distant from them half a mile. The third frigate, using her sails alone, succeeded in taking position a little ahead of her consorts. These operations were all completed before noon and were conducted under the eyes of the Mexicans, who were restrained from impeding them by the orders of their Government not to fire the first gun. A delay followed, owing to a flag of truce coming from the shore; but the proposition brought by it proved unacceptable, and the squadron opened fire at half-past two. Between that and sundown the three frigates, aided only by a small corvette which attacked under way, poured upon the castle 7,771 round shot and 177 shell, the mortar-vessels at the same time throwing in 302 bombs. At eight the fire ceased, and negotiations began. The following day, at noon, the castle was delivered into the hands of the French, who placed a garrison in it. "It was high time," said Admiral Baudin; "the wind was freshening, the sea getting up, and the anchors were breaking like glass upon the bottom, composed of sharp rocks." But the loss among the defenders had been so great, and the re-enforcements at hand were so few, that further resistance was impracticable.
The terms of the convention made by the commander of the Mexican forces had stipulated that only a certain number of troops should constitute the garrison of Vera Cruz until the affairs between the two nations were settled; but upon the 4th of December the French admiral learned, to his great indignation, that the Mexican Government had disavowed the action of the general, declared war against France, and was throwing re-enforcements into the city. He immediately took measures to disarm the works which might threaten his fleet at their anchorage, hoping at the same time, by surprising the enemy, to gain possession of Santa Anna, the new commander of the troops and then the most prominent man in Mexico. While the French were making their preparations in secret, Farragut went on shore and called upon Santa Anna, who promised to care for the persons and property of American citizens, adding: "Tell President Van Buren that we are all one family, and must be united against Europeans obtaining a foothold on this continent."
The following morning, before daylight, the French embarked fifteen hundred seamen, accompanied by a few engineer soldiers, in the boats of thesquadron; and, being covered by a thick fog, landed at six o'clock upon the beach before Vera Cruz. Formed in three divisions and unseen by the enemy, they blew open the gates of the city and at the same time stormed the forts which at the north and south terminate the seaward wall. The Mexicans, taken wholly by surprise, retreated before the assailants. The center division of the French, which had entered by the gates, pursued rapidly toward the quarters of Santa Anna. A short, vigorous resistance by a part of his guard enabled the commander-in-chief to escape in shirt and trousers; but General Arista was taken. Meanwhile the two flank divisions, having dismounted the guns in the forts and chopped the carriages in pieces, moved along the walls toward the gate. There they united with the center; and the whole body, having accomplished its object in disarming the sea face of the town, fell back upon their boats lying along the mole. Most had already re-embarked when the Mexicans, led by Santa Anna in person, charged from the gate and down the mole at double-quick. Admiral Baudin himself was still on shore, waiting to see the last man off. Though scarcely expecting this gallant return from a force that had been so badly worsted and was much inferior in numbers, the French were not unprepared. A six-pound gun on the extremity of the mole, belonging to the Mexicans, had been turned so as to sweep the approach with grape; and five of the boats of the squadron, mounting small carronades, were also disposed to repel attack. The admiral ordered the six-pounder fired, and entered his barge. The discharge swept away the head of the Mexican column, and Santa Anna himself fell with threewounds, from one of which he lost his left leg. Some of the broken column fell back upon the town, from the loop-holes of whose walls a sharp fire of musketry began, while others continued down the mole and opened vigorously upon the retreating French, directing their aim especially upon the admiral's barge. The admiral himself escaped, but narrowly; his cockswain and a midshipman standing by him being killed, and another midshipman wounded. "The Mexicans continued to fight with great gallantry," wrote Farragut; and it was perhaps well for the assailants that the fog sweeping in again covered their further retreat.
Of all these incidents Farragut was a close and interested observer. Upon joining the Erie as her commander, he found that the ship was under orders to proceed with the utmost dispatch to the Mexican coast, to afford to American citizens and their property the protection so likely to be needed in event of active hostilities. On the 26th of August she was anchored under the island of Sacrificios, off Vera Cruz, which was then still undergoing the blockade which preceded recourse to stronger measures. Farragut remained there till the 19th of September, when he returned to Pensacola; but early in November he was again off the Mexican coast at Tampico, where a revolution threatened, for Mexico at the time was not only menaced with foreign attack, but also a prey to the utmost internal disorder. On the 17th of this month the Erie ran down again to Vera Cruz; and learning there that the 27th was fixed as the day for a final conference and settlement of the questions at issue, her commander of course decided to remain throughout the affair, making preparationsto receive on board Americans and their movable property in case the city was bombarded.
In his journal, and afterward in a letter to Commodore Barron, then the senior officer in the United States Navy, Farragut has preserved a very full and detailed account of the attack, the principal features of which have already been mentioned; and it is interesting to note, as testifying to the care and accuracy of his observations, that the account in his journal corresponds very closely with that given in the Life of Admiral Baudin, published in France within the last few years. He was particularly impressed with, and distinguishes as matters of principal importance, the utility of the small French steamers in towing the fighting ships into position, and the destructive effects of the shell upon the soft masonry of the fort. Admiral Baudin, in his reports, indulged in some of the pardonable grumbling of a seaman of the old school about the constant ailments of the little steam-vessels; but he was too capable an officer to ignore their value, "and never," wrote Farragut in his report, "was the utility of these vessels so apparent. Everything was done by them. The day was calm, or nearly so, and the ships had no sails to manage. As soon as the anchor was let go they were ready for action. The bomb-vessels were next placed (for which the range had been calculated), and two sloops took position at right angles with the range, to tell by signal the effect of the bombs. So you see all was arranged with science and skill and without the slightest interruption, for the Mexicans had given an order to the commander of the fort not on any account to fire the first gun." This order was, in Farragut's opinion, the principal causeof the French sustaining so little loss. A well directed fire from the fort would, he thought, have destroyed the steamers and prevented the frigates from gaining the carefully chosen position, where they were least exposed to the guns of the works.
Immediately after the submission of the castle Farragut went ashore to examine and note the effects of the fire, and especially of the horizontal shell fire; which was then so much a novelty in naval warfare that he speaks of the missiles continuously as shell-shot, apparently to distinguish them from the vertically thrown bombs. "Now it was seen for the first time that the material of which Ulloa is built (soft coral) was the worst substance in the world for protection against the modern shell. The French threw almost entirely shell-shot, which entered the wall twelve or eighteen inches and then exploded, tearing out great masses of stone, and in some instances rending the wall from base to top. The damage done by these shell-shot was inconceivably greater than that by the shell from the bomb-vessels, owing to the former striking horizontally, while the latter fell vertically upon the bomb-proofs, doing but little damage.... I am satisfied of one fact—viz., that they might have bombarded with the bomb-vessels for a month without success, while the frigates would in four hours more, with their shell-shot, have reduced the fort to a heap of ruins." This opinion as to the inefficacy of bomb-firing to destroy a work anticipated the experience of the Civil War, where the conclusion was that it might wear out the endurance of the garrison by constant harassment, but not directly reduce the works themselves. It is only just to say that his estimate of theeffect of the horizontal fire upon the walls is more favorable than that of the French engineers, who did not consider that the damage done necessarily entailed a capitulation; but seamen and engineers have rarely agreed in their opinions upon this subject.
The same zeal which led Farragut to this minute inspection of the battered fortress carried him also on board one of the French ships, while she still remained cleared for action, to note matters of detail which differed from those then prevalent in his own service. Of these he made a very full representation, and one much in disparagement of the United States Navy; which, since the glories of 1812 and the first re-organization and development procured for it by the popular favor consequent upon its victories, had been allowed to drop into a state of backwardness, as regards the material, similar to that which followed the Civil War, and from which it is but now beginning to emerge. The points which he noted, though most important to that rapidity and order upon which the efficient service of a ship's batteries depends, would have now no attraction for the unprofessional reader; nor for the professional, except as matters of antiquarian interest. They showed that spirit of system, of scientific calculation, of careful adaptation of means to ends, which have ever distinguished the French material for naval war, except when the embarrassments of the treasury have prevented the adoption of expensive improvements—a spirit which for over a century made the French ships the models which their usually victorious rivals were fain to copy. "The English and ourselves may affect to despise the French by sea," wrote Farragut to Barron, "but depend upon it, sir,they are in science far ahead of us both, and when England next meets France upon the ocean she will find a different enemy from that of the last war. Of all this I know you have seen much in theory, but I have seen it tested in practice."