THE CLERMONT—FULTON’S FIRST STEAMBOAT—1807.
THE CLERMONT—FULTON’S FIRST STEAMBOAT—1807.
FIGHT WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.
FIGHT WITH ALGERINE PIRATES.
A large quantity of combustibles was prepared and placed in the ketch, and with his daring crew Decatur left Syracuse for Tripoli in company with the brig Siren, which was to wait off the harbor and pick up the Americans in case they should be compelled to take to the small boats. On February 9, 1804, the expedition sailed from Syracuse and arrived off Tripoli by night, but a furious gale from the shore precluded the possibility of making the attack, and for six days the voyagers were tossed to and fro on the waves of the Mediterranean, their little vessel being almost swamped by the heavy seas.
On the morning of February 16 the sun rose fair and clear, the combustibles were examined and found to be dry and in good order, and sail was made for the harbor, the ketch and brig proceeding slowly in order not to arrive before night. As the darkness came on the brig paused in the offing, while under a brisk breeze the ketch sailed into the harbor. An hour later the wind lulled and the ketch slowly drifted toward the Philadelphia, which was plainly visible from its great bulk, the lighted portholes indicating that the crew was still awake. As the ketch approached it was guided so as to foul the Philadelphia at the bowsprit, and the Maltese pilot who had been taken on board at Syracuse principally because he could speak Arabic called to the officer on the Philadelphia and requested permission to make fast to theship’s ropes, for the ketch had lost all her anchors in the storm. Permission was given, and a line was cast, which was caught by the three or four men who appeared on the little boat. The remainder, stripped to the waist for battle, and with cutlasses and pistols ready to hand, lay stowed away behind the bulwarks and invisible to the corsairs.
The Tripolitan officer in command asked the pilot what ship was in the offing, for the Siren had been seen, and the Maltese replied that it was an English brig waiting for daylight to cross the bar and enter the harbor. Not the least suspicion was roused in the minds of the corsairs, although the rope which made fast the ketch to the Philadelphia was even then being handled by the men concealed beneath the bulwarks of the little slaver. As, however, a line must be fastened from the stern to the larger vessel before boarding could be effected, it was quite possible that the men would be discovered as soon as the ketch was brought alongside. The pilot, however, kept the Moors entertained with narratives of the cargo the ketch contained, manufacturing very clever stories of the beautiful slaves and immense wealth on board. A moment later the stern line was made fast and the ketch brought alongside, when the Moors discovered the figures beneath the bulwarks and raised the cry of alarm, “Americanos! Americanos!”
Decatur had divided his men into five crews—one to remain on board and guard the ketch, the other four were first to storm the upper deck of the Philadelphia, then three parties were to go below and fire the ship, while the fourth held the deck against possible Moorish re-enforcements. The moment the ketch was brought alongside Decatur gave the word, “Boarders, away!” and the American boys swarmed through the portholesand up over the bulwarks of the Philadelphia. So sudden and furious was the onslaught that the Moors were taken by surprise, and as the Americans rushed forward, cutlass in hand, fled before them, jumping into the water to escape the terrible enemy. Of the Moorish crew of nearly 300 on board, twenty were killed outright, how many were drowned could not be ascertained, but a number, afraid to leap from the ship, hid below to perish a few minutes later like rats in their holes.
In five minutes from the time of boarding the deck was cleared of the pirate crew, the work being done solely with the cutlass; not a shot was fired from beginning to end. The parties appointed to do the firing at once began the work of hauling the combustibles aboard and passing them to the lower decks, cabin and hold. Fire was set to the ship in a dozen different places and the flames spread with such rapidity that some of the Americans had a narrow escape, and one was severely scorched by being compelled to pass up through a burning hatchway. The work was well done, and, as the flames appeared through the portholes, a rocket was sent up from the ketch to notify the brig outside that the enterprise had been successful.
Their work finished, the Americans hastily let themselves down into the ketch, and not a moment too soon, for so rapidly did the flames spread that there was danger of their little boat taking fire. The Philadelphia was a mass of glowing flames before the ketch could be disengaged, and such was the draught of air toward the burning ship that for some moments it seemed uncertain whether the ketch could be gotten away. The stern and sails did actually take fire, but a few buckets of water extinguished the blaze, and the men set to work with a will at the oars, of which there were four on each side.
The capture of the ship had been effected without apparently the least suspicion on shore of what was going on. The Philadelphia lay directly under the guns of the largest fort and not quite 400 yards away. Long before the swimmers from the ship could reach the shore the blaze warned the garrisons of the forts that something was wrong. Small boats were immediately dispatched, some of the swimmers picked up, and thus the truth became known. As the ketch was in plain view, a heavy fire was at once commenced and from a hundred guns on each side of the harbor belched forth flame and iron in vengeance for the daring act. But whether from haste or inefficiency, the aim of the gunners was bad, and although shell and shot plowed up the water all around the ketch she was struck but once, and then only by a ball going through the sail.
More to be dreaded than the artillery fire was the swarm of boats crammed with corsairs that put forth from the shore in pursuit. Decatur said afterwards that the little crew of the ketch must have been chased by a hundred craft of all sizes, containing probably a couple of thousand men, but the pirates reasoned very correctly that Americans who could attempt so desperate an act as the burning of a ship almost within stone’s throw of the forts were not to be trifled with in a hand-to-hand engagement, so kept at a respectful distance and contented themselves with a running fire of musketry. The Americans replied, those not at the oars maintaining a lively fusillade, while another rocket was sent up as a signal to the brig for aid. It was responded to by a rocket in the offing, the Siren’s boats, full of well-armed men, put off to the rescue, and as soon as they came within firing distance the Tripolitans withdrew.
Thus was achieved what Lord Nelson called the mostdaring act of the age. Not an American was killed, only one was wounded, he very slightly, and a third was, as already stated, severely scorched. Every participant in this hazardous adventure received his reward. Decatur, although only a boy, was made Captain; Lawrence and McDonough received substantial promotion; and every seaman was voted two months’ extra pay. The exploit had serious consequences for the crew of the Philadelphia, for the Dey of Tripoli fell into a furious passion at the loss of the ship and at once consigned the Americans to the filthiest dungeons in his castle, where they remained until liberated at the close of the war. The act of Decatur’s expedition had an important influence in bringing the war to an early conclusion, for, as the Danish Consul expressed it in an interview with the Dey, “If the Americans can burn your ships lying under the guns of the fort, they may undertake to burn your palace over your head,” and the Dey seems to have taken the same view of it. He did not have long to reflect upon the matter, however, for in less than six months Preble’s squadron arrived off Tripoli with better pilots than those of the Philadelphia, sailed through the intricate channels, entered the harbor, bombarded the forts and town, and the Dey was glad to conclude a treaty of peace, releasing all the American prisoners and promising not to demand nor exact tribute from American vessels. Decatur’s later career fully justified the reputation he won in his earliest exploit, but none of his subsequent deeds of bravery exceeded the burning of the Philadelphia.
Another of the almost unrecorded chapters in the annals of the American Navy was the heroic action betweenthe U. S. ship Wyoming, Commander McDugall, and three Japanese cruisers supported by six shore batteries, during the Civil War.
The Wyoming had her part in all the hardest of blockading and cruising service and fought well whenever she had a chance. She was sent at the same time as her sister ship, the Kearsarge, to cruise for that scourge of the seas, the Alabama, and just missed her by the merest chance on two occasions in the China Seas. From there the Alabama squared away for the Atlantic again and went to meet her fate under the heights of Cherbourg, while the Wyoming sailed to her hardest fight with the forces of the Tycoon.
It was in 1863, toward the end of the dual reign of the Tycoon and the Mikado. Japan was in the throes of civil war, and the foes of the rebel princes were resisting to the last the passing of the old feudal system.
The Prince of Nagato was one of these, and from his tiny kingdom that fronted on the Straits of Simonoseki he declared himself lord of all he surveyed, including the neighboring seas, from which he took as generous toll as did ever the pirate chiefs of Tariffa. He had laid violent hands upon the vessels of various powers, including Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. Representatives of these powers had protested, but the protests had been of little moment. The Japanese central government had disavowed the acts of the pirate prince, but confessed its inability to deal with him while more formidable matters engaged its attention.
Meanwhile Prince Nagato throve and flourished, and one day fired on the American merchantman Pembroke, having failed to wring tribute or blackmail by any other means, and killed two of her crew. Another diplomatic protest from the combined foreign representatives followed,but Commander McDugall, who was in port with the Wyoming, suggested that if the Mikado could not subdue his rebellious subject the Wyoming could and would without much urging. Accordingly, McDugall was given carte blanche to settle accounts with the Prince of Nagato in behalf of all the powers concerned.
It was the middle of July when the Wyoming found herself in the Straits of Simonoseki and in sight of the shore batteries, which were a part of the prince’s defenses to seaward. Before she had time to open on the batteries two Japanese gunboats loomed up, one ahead and one astern, in the narrow straits, and presently a third came cruising out from among the neighboring islands. It was a nasty place for a fight, McDugall being without charts or pilots, and the odds were more than enough for Nelson himself, being forty-eight guns of the three Japanese vessels to the twenty-six of the old Wyoming, to say nothing of the batteries on shore.
Working to windward of the nearest Japanese ship, the Wyoming opened at long range, and worked down on her till when close aboard there was nothing of the enemy left standing above decks. The other two vessels had come up in the meantime and engaged the American on either side, but she lay to and gave them shot for shot, port and starboard, till her gunners were smoke-blind and the flame of the guns no longer served to light the battle-cloud that rolled in white billows over the smooth waters of the straits. It was desperate work in the shallow water, but the Wyoming was the best vessel and she outmanœuvered her two opponents from the start, though twice aground and once afire, with as many men disabled from splinters and heat as from the enemy’s shot.
Fighting themselves out of one smoke-patch into another, the three combatants circled around till they had drifted down in range of the shore batteries, which opened upon the Wyoming. But McDugall ran across the bows of one of his enemies, raked her as he went and left her a floating wreck, and then turned his attention to the batteries. The Wyoming’s men rigged the smith’s forge on deck and tossed hot shot into the works ashore till they set them afire, and the soldiers fled, and the crew of the remaining cruiser followed their example.
McDugall mended his rigging and patched his bulwarks, sent word to the recalcitrant prince to arrange for indemnity, which he did. The share of the United States was $300,000.
In this action McDugall’s loss was five men killed and six wounded.
On September 17, 1894, the Chinese ironclad Chen-Yuen with her sister ship, the flagship Ting-Yuen, and nine smaller war vessels, met the Japanese off the mouth of the Yalu River.
The Chen-Yuen was protected by 12 and 14-inch armor, and carried four 12.2-inch, two 6-inch, and twelve machine guns. Her commander was Captain McGiffen of the United States Navy.
Here the famous battle of the Yalu, the first great trial of modern ironclads, was fought. Owing to the cowardice of several Chinese commanders, who ran away at the first exchange of shots, eight Chinese ships did all the fighting against the twelve ships of the enemy. The battle was altogether a contest of Orientals, except that one man of European blood, trained in the naval school of a great Western power, commanded the Chen-Yuen—PhiloNorton McGiffin, of the United States Navy. His fighting that day was the dramatic climax of a brave and spotless life that had been a nineteenth-century revival of knight-errantry. The lives of none of the free-lances and fearless adventurers from Hawkesworth to Gordon were more romantic than that of McGiffin.
Cruiser Following Torpedo into Action.
Cruiser Following Torpedo into Action.
The reduction by Congress of the U. S. naval force sent adrift Lieutenant McGiffin, a graduate of Annapolis in the class of ’82. As China was engaged in war in Asia, McGiffin straightway tendered his services to the Chinese Government. The result was eventually that China took one French gunboat in a war otherwise entirely disastrous to her. In 1887 McGiffin became the head of the Chinese Naval Academy at Wei-Hai-Wei. This was the reason for his command of one of China’s two most formidable warships in the battle which decided the outcome of the Chino-Japanese war.
The crews of the Chinese fleet had gone through their morning drill and dinner was nearly ready when smoke from the Japanese ships was sighted by the lookout. The appearance of Japan’s fleet had been expected for a week, but nevertheless the blood in every man’s veins throbbed quick as the call to action sounded throughout the fleet. The Chen-Yuen had already been stripped for action. The decks were cleared for the passage of ammunition and for the free movement of the crew and in order to secure unobstructed arcs of fire for the guns. The small boats had been abandoned, the ladders overboard or wrapped in wet canvas. These measures were taken to avoid the danger from fire and flying splinters, both of which are as much to be feared in a sea-fight as the enemy’s shot. The gun-shields, by order of Captain McGiffin, had been removed from the big guns as affording no protection from heavy shot and as serving to interceptand cause to explode shells that would otherwise pass over the heads of the gunners. The ship’s firehose had been connected and let out and bags of sand and coal placed on deck to form breastwork against small shot. Ammunition for immediate use was piled beside the guns. The suggestive hospital appliances, bandages, and cots and chairs rigged for lowering the wounded to the sick bay, were in position. Buckets of sand were placed about the decks and inside the superstructure; for when men are torn to pieces the flow of blood makes the deck slippery.
In less than an hour after the Japanese ships dotted the horizon the battle had begun. The Chinese sailors were brave and eager for the fight. They were prepared neither to give nor take quarter and expected either to win or go down with their ship.
McGiffin stood motionless on the bridge listening to the reports of the range announced by the sub-lieutenant in the foretop as the fleets rapidly neared each other. The ordeal before him and his men was more terrible than soldiers had been called upon to face in regular battle since the beginning of human wars. That McGiffin fully realized the situation was shown by a letter written to his brother upon starting to meet the Japanese ships. “You know,” he said, “it is four killed to one wounded since the new ammunition came in. It is better so. I don’t want to be wounded. I prefer to step down or up and out of this world.” Not extraordinary words, but splendidly expressive of a soldier-like way of facing fate.
The closing lines of this letter were sadly prophetic. McGiffin wrote: “I hate to think of being dreadfully mangled and then patched up, with half my limbs and senses gone.”
He came home in exactly the condition he had described. and, true to his determination, chose to step up and out of it all.
There was no sound but the panting of the ship under forced draught. The men, grouped quietly at their stations, did not venture to speak even in whispers. “Fifty-two hundred metres,” the range was called. Then the great yellow flag of China was raised to the main truck, the quick-firing guns opened fire, and the fight began.
The battle lasted for nearly five hours, with the two Chinese battleships as its centre.
It was estimated that McGiffin’s ship was hit 400 times and 120 times by large shot or shell. The rain of projectiles visited every exposed point of the vessel. Early in the fight a shell exploded in the fighting top, instantly killing every one of its inmates. Indeed, all such contrivances proved to be deathtraps. Five shells burst inside the shields of the bow six-inch gun, completely gutting the place. Though the carnage was frightful, the Chinese sailors, with their commander to encourage them, stuck to their posts. A chief gunner was aiming his gun when a shell took off his head. The man behind him caught the body, passed it back to his companions, calmly finished the sighting of the piece and fired it.
The Chen-Yuen gave as hard knocks as she received, and until her ammunition ran low her fire was rapid and more effective than that of her adversaries. One of the last shells, fired under McGiffin’s personal direction from a twelve-inch gun, disabled the thirteen-inch gun on the enemy’s flagship, the Matsushima, and exploded the powder on deck, killing or wounding more than 100 Japanese officers and men. Then McGiffin’s Chinamen cheered joyfully.
Throughout the whole fight McGiffin was the dominating spirit of his ship. He was at once her brains and her inspiration.
Even cowardice itself was moved by his fearless example. At the opening of the fight he discovered a lieutenant and a dozen terrified men hidden below one of the engine turrets. McGiffin thrashed the officer and sent them all on deck, where they afterward fought like heroes.
The five hours’ strain on the commander was terrific, for there was no subordinate who could relieve him, and his presence was required everywhere. Whilst the fight was hottest a fire broke out in the superstructure above the forecastle. It became necessary to run out a hose in the range of the starboard guns, which had been ordered to fire to port across the forecastle. The men refused to do this until McGiffin called for volunteers and offered to lead them. Word was sent to the head-gunner at the starboard battery to train his pieces ahead, and McGiffin and his volunteers started with the hose for the forecastle. Half of the men were shot down by the enemy. As the captain stooped over to grasp the hose a shot passed between his legs, burning his wrists and severing the tail of his coat. A fragment of a shell that had burst against the tower wounded him a second time.
Meanwhile men at the forcastle gun were falling rapidly and the head-gunner was killed. The man who took his place, not knowing that his comrades were in front of his guns, discharged one of them. The explosion knocked the captain and his men down and killed several outright. At the same instant another shot struck McGiffin.
He would probably have remained there unconscious if water from a gash in the hose had not revived him.His first glance on coming to his senses was into the muzzle of the starboard gun. It was slowly moving into position for firing. “What an ass I am to sit here and be blown to pieces,” thought McGiffin. So he flung himself from the superstructure and fell eight feet to the deck below. With blood pouring from his mouth he crawled into the superstructure and told the men to carry him aft. In a few minutes he was fighting his ship again.
McGiffin stood very near a large gun when it exploded. He was almost blinded. His hair and eyebrows were burned off and his clothes torn and set on fire. There was a series of gashes in his trousers extending their entire length. Throughout the fight his ears were stuffed with cotton, as were those of all the gunners, but after the day’s fighting his ear-drums were found to be permanently injured by concussion. Several times he was wounded by splinters, which he extracted himself.
With forty wounds in his body, holding an eyelid up with one hand, this man of iron nerve led the fighting on his ship until the Japanese vessels gave up the contest and he alone of all the Chinese commanders kept his ship in its proper position throughout the fight, thus protecting the flagship and saving the fleet from total destruction.
When the Japanese admiral withdrew, McGiffin navigated his ship to its dock. His mind never lost its effectiveness, though his body was shattered beyond repair. In fact, his body was described as being so covered with bruises that it resembled a checker-board.
In this action a new style of sea-fighting was inaugurated and an American sailor, a young man 34 years of age, set its standard for daring and fortitude under fire of the modern guns.
After his great battle Captain McGiffin, a mental and physical wreck, came to America to die. He met death as a brave man should, with but one regret: He wished that he might have had one chance to fight for his own country, with a Yankee crew at his back and a Yankee ship under him.