Book: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

V >> Various >> Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864




"As I said, I was on the main deck, aft. We were all lying
stretched out in the larboard ports to see and hear what we could,
when Captain Pearson himself hailed, "What ship is that?" I could
not hear their answer, and he hailed again, and then said, if they
did not answer, he would fire. We all took this as good as an
order, and, hearing nothing, tumbled in and blazed away. The Poor
Richard fired at the same time. It was at that first broadside of
hers, as you remember, that two of Jones's heavy guns, below his
main deck, burst. We could see that as we sighted for our next
broadside, because we could see how they hove up the gun-deck
above them. As for our shot, I suppose they all told. We had ten
eighteen-pounders in that larboard battery below. I do not see why
any shot should have failed.

"However, he had no thought of being pounded to pieces by his own
firing and ours, and so he bore right down on us. He struck our
quarter, just forward of my forward gun,--struck us hard, too. We
had just fired our second shot, and then he closed, so I could not
bring our two guns to bear. This was when he first tried to fasten
the ships together. But they would not stay fastened. He could not
bring a gun to bear,--having no forward ports that served
him,--till we fell off again, and it was then that Captain Pearson
asked, in that strange stillness, if he had struck. Jones
answered, 'I have not begun to fight.' And so it proved. Our sails
were filled, he backed his top-sails, and we wore short round. As
he laid us athwart-hawse, or as we swung by him, our jib-boom ran
into his mizzen-rigging. They say Jones himself then fastened our
boom to his mainmast. Somebody did, but it did not hold, but one
of our anchors hooked his quarter, and so we fought, fastened
together, to the end,--both now fighting our starboard batteries,
and being fixed stern to stem.

"On board the Serapis our ports were not open on the starboard
side, because we had been firing on the other. And as we ran
across and loosened those guns, the men amidships actually found
they could not open their ports, the Richard was so close. They
therefore fired their first shots right through our own port-lids,
and blew them off. I was so far aft that my port-lids swung free.

"What I said, in beginning this letter, will explain to you the
long continuance of the action after this moment, when, you would
say, it must be ended by boarding, or in some other way, very
soon. As soon as we on our main deck got any idea of the Richard's
main deck, we saw that almost nobody replied to us there. In
truth, two of the six guns which made her lower starboard battery
had burst, and Jones's men would not fight what were left, nor do
I blame them. Above, their gun-deck had been hoisted up, and, as
it proved the next day, we were cutting them right through. We
pounded away at what we could see,--and much more at what we could
not see,--for it was now night, and there was a little smoke, as
you may fancy. But above, the Richard's upper deck was a good deal
higher than ours, and there Jones had dragged across upon his
quarter a piece from the larboard battery, so that he had three
nine-pounders, with which he was doing his best, almost raking us,
as you may imagine. No one ever said so to me, that I know, but I
doubt whether we could get elevation enough from any of our light
guns on our upper deck (nines) to damage his battery much, he was
so much higher than we. As for musketry, there is not much
sharp-shooting when you are firing at night in the smoke, with the
decks swaying under you.

"Many a man has asked me why neither side boarded,--and, in fact,
there is a popular impression that Jones took our ship by
boarding, as he did not. As to that, such questions are easier
asked than answered. This is to be said, however: about ten
o'clock, an English officer, who had commanded the Union
letter-of-marque, which Jones had taken a few days before, came
scrambling through one of our ports from the Richard. He went up
aft to Captain Pearson at once, and told him that the Richard was
sinking, that they had had to release all her prisoners (and she
had hundreds) from the hold and spar-deck, himself among them,
because the water came in so fast, and that, if we would hold on a
few minutes more, the ship was ours. Every word of this was true,
except the last. Hearing this, Captain Pearson--who, if you
understand, was over my head, for he kept the quarter-deck almost
throughout--hailed to ask if they had struck. He got no answer,
Jones in fact being at the other end of his ship, on his quarter,
pounding away at our main-mast. Pearson then called for boarders;
they were formed hastily, and dashed on board to take the prize.
But the Richard had not struck, though I know some of her men had
called for quarters. Her men were ready for us,--under cover,
Captain Pearson says in his despatch,--Jones himself seized a pike
and headed his crew, and our men fell back again. One of the
accounts says we tried to board earlier, as soon as the vessels
were made fast to each other. But of this I knew nothing.

"Meanwhile Jones's people could not stay on his lower deck,--and
could not do anything, if they had stayed there. They worked their
way above. His main deck (of twelves) was fought more
successfully, but his great strength was on his upper deck and in
his tops. To read his own account, you would almost think he
fought the battle himself with his three quarter-deck cannon, and
I suppose it would be hard to overstate what he did do. Both he
and Captain Pearson ascribe the final capture of the Serapis to
this strange incident.

"The men in the Richard's tops were throwing hand-grenades upon
our decks, and at last one fellow worked himself out to the end of
the main-yard with a bucket filled with these missiles, lighted
them one by one, and threw them fairly down our main hatchway.
Here, as our ill luck ordered, was a row of our eighteen-gun
cartridges, which the powder-boys had left there as they went for
more,--our fire, I suppose, having slackened there:--cartridges
were then just coming into use in the navy. One of these grenades
lighted the row, and the flash passed--bang--bang--bang--back to
me. Oh, it was awful! Some twenty of our men were fairly blown to
pieces. There were other men who were stripped naked, with nothing
on but the collars of their shirts and their wristbands. Farther
aft there was not so much powder, perhaps, and the men were
scorched or burned more than they were wounded. I do not know how
I escaped, but I do know that there was hardly a man forward of my
guns who did escape,--some hurt,--and the groaning and shrieking
were terrible. I will not ask you to imagine all this,--in the
utter darkness of smoke and night below-decks, almost every
lantern blown out or smashed. But I assure you I can remember it.
There were agonies there which I have never trusted my tongue to
tell. Yet I see, in my journal, in a boy's mock-man way, this is
passed by, as almost nothing. I did not think so or feel so, I can
tell you.

"It was after this that the effort was made to board. I know I had
filled some buckets of water from our lee ports, and had got some
of the worst hurt of my men below, and was trying to understand
what Brooks, who was jammed, but not burned, thought we could do,
to see if we could not at least clear things enough to fight one
gun, when boarders were called, and he left me. Cornish, who had
really been captain of the other gun, was badly hurt, and had gone
below. Then came the effort to board, which, as I say, failed; and
that was really our last effort. About half-past ten, Captain
Pearson struck. He was not able to bring a gun to bear on the
Alliance, had she closed with us; his ship had been on fire a
dozen times, and the explosion had wholly disabled our main
battery, which had been, until this came, our chief strength. But
so uncertain and confused was it all, that I know, when I heard
the cry, 'They've struck,' I took it for granted it was the
Richard. In fact, Captain Pearson had struck our flag with his own
hands. The men would not expose themselves to the fire from the
Richard's tops. Mr. Mayrant, a fine young fellow, one of Jones's
midshipmen, was wounded in boarding us after we struck, because
some of our people did not know we had struck. I know, when
Wallis, our first lieutenant, heard the cry, he ran
up-stairs,--supposing that Jones had struck to us, and not we to
him.

"It was Lieutenant Dale who boarded us. He is still living, a fine
old man, at Philadelphia. He found Captain Pearson on the lee of
our quarter-deck again, and said,--

"'Sir, I have orders to send you on board the ship along-side.'

"Up the companion comes Wallis, and says to Captain Pearson,--

"'Have they struck?'

"'No, Sir,' said Dale,--'the contrary: he has struck to us.'

"Wallis would not take it, and said to Pearson,--

"'Have you struck, Sir?'

"And he had to say he had. Wallis said, 'I have nothing more to
say,' and turned to come down to us, but Dale would not let him.
Wallis said he would silence the lower-deck guns, but Dale sent
some one else, and took them both aboard the Richard. Little
Duval--a volunteer on board, not yet rated as midshipman--went
with them. Jones gave back our captain's sword, with the usual
speech about bravery,--but they quarrelled awfully afterwards.

"I suppose Paul Jones was himself astonished when daylight showed
the condition of his ship. I am sure we were. His ship was still
on fire: ours had been a dozen times, but was out. Wherever our
main battery could hit him, we had torn his ship to
pieces,--knocked in and knocked out the sides. There was a
complete breach from the main-mast to the stern. You could see the
sky and sea through the old hulk anywhere. Indeed, the wonder was
that the quarter-deck did not fall in. The ship was sinking fast,
and the pumps would not free her. For us, our jib-boom had been
wrenched off at the beginning; our main-mast and mizzentop fell as
we struck, and at day-break the wreck was not cleared away. Jones
put Lieutenant Lunt on our vessel that night, but the next day he
removed all his wounded, and finally all his people, to the
Serapis, and at ten the Poor Richard went to the bottom. I have
always wondered that your Naval Commissioners never named another
frigate for her.

"And so, my dear boy, I will stop. I hope in God, it will never be
your fate to see such a fight, or any fight, between an English
and an American frigate.

"We drifted into Holland. Our wounded men were sent into hospital
in the fort of the Texel. At last we were all transferred to the
French Government as prisoners, and that winter we were exchanged.
The Serapis went into the French navy, and the only important
result of the affair in history was that King George had to make
war with Holland. For, as soon as we were taken into the Texel,
the English minister claimed us of the Dutch. But the Dutch
gentlemen said they were neutrals, and could not interfere in the
Rebel quarrel. "Interfere or fight," said England,--and the first
clause of the manifesto which makes war with Holland states this
grievance, that the Dutch would not surrender us when asked for.
That is the way England treats neutrals who offer hospitality to
rebels."

So ends the letter. I suppose the old gentleman got tired of writing. I
have observed that the end of all letters is more condensed than the
beginning. Mr. Weller, indeed, pronounces the "sudden pull-up" to be the
especial charm of letter-writing. I had a mind to tell what the old
gentleman saw of Kempenfelt and the Royal George, but this is enough. As
Denis Duval scrambles across to Paul Jones's quarter-deck, at eleven
o'clock of that strange moonlight night, he vanishes from history.

* * * * *

THE FUTURE SUMMER.


Summer in all! deep summer in the pines,
And summer in the music on the sands,
And summer where the sea-flowers rise and fall
About the gloomy foreheads of stern rocks
And the green wonders of our circling sphere.

Can mockery be hidden in such guise,
To peep, like sunlight, behind shifting leaves,
And dye the purple berries of the field,
Or gleam like moonlight upon juniper,
Or wear the gems outshining jewelled pride?
Can mockery do this, and we endure
In Nature's rounded palace of the world?

Where, then, has fled the summer's wonted peace?
Sweeter than breath borne on the scented seas,
Over fresh fields, and brought to weary shores,
It should await the season's worshipper;
But as a star shines on the daisy's eye,
So shines great Conscience on the face of Peace,
And lends it calmer lustre with the dew:
When that star dims, the paling floweret fades!

Yet there be those who watch a serpent crawl
And, blackening, sleep within a blossom's heart,
Who will not slay, but call their gazing "Peace."
Even thus within the bosom of our land
Creeps, serpent-like, Sedition, and hath gnawed
In silence, while a timid crowd stood still.

O suffering land! O dear long-suffering land,
Slay thou the serpent ere he slime the core!
Take thou our houses and amenities,
Take thou the hand that parting clings to ours,
And going bears our heart into the fight;
Take thou, but slay the serpent ere he kill!

Now, as a lonely watcher on the strand,
Hemmed by the mist and the quick coming waves,
Hears but one voice, the voice of warning bell,
That solemn speaks, "Beware the jaws of death!"
Death on the sea, and warning on the strand!
Such is our life, while Summer, mocking, broods.

O mighty heart! O brave, heroic soul!
Hid in the dim mist of the things that be,
We call thee up to fill the highest place!
Whether to till thy corn and give the tithe,
Whether to grope a picket in the dark,
Or, having nobly served, to be cast down,
And, unregarded, passed by meaner feet,
Or, happier thou, to snatch the fadeless crown,
And walk in youth and beauty to God's rest,--
The purpose makes the hero, meet thy doom!

We call to thee, where'er thy pillowed head
Rests lonely for the brother who has gone,
To fix thy gaze on Freedom's chrysolite,
Which rueful fate can neither crack nor mar,
And, hand in hand indissolubly bound
To thy next fellow, hand and purpose one,
Stretch thus, a living wall, from the rock coast
Home to our ripe and yellow heart of the West,
Impenetrable union triumphing.

The solemn Autumn comes, the gathering-time!
Stand we now ripe, a harvest for the Right!
That, when fair Summer shall return to earth,
Peace may inhabit all her sacred ways,
Lap in the waves upon melodious sands,
And linger in the swaying of the corn,
Or sit with clouds upon the ambient skies,--
Summer and Peace brood on the grassy knolls
Where twilight glimmers over the calm dead,
While clustered children chant heroic tales.

* * * * *

DEMOCRACY AND THE SECESSION WAR.


The interest which foreign peoples take in our civil war proceeds from
two causes chiefly, though there are minor causes that help swell the
force of the current of feeling. The first of these causes is the
contemplation of the check which has been given by the war's occurrence
to our march to universal American dominion. For about seventy-two years
our "progress," as it was called, was more marvellous than the dreams of
other nations. In spite of Indian wars, of wars with France and England
and Mexico, of depredations on our commerce by France and England and
Barbary, of a currency that seemed to have been created for the
promotion of bankruptcy and the organization of instability, of biennial
changes in our tariffs and systems of revenue, of competition that ought
to have been the death of trade,--in spite of these and other evils,
this country, in the brief term of one not over-long human life,
increased in all respects at a rate to excite the gravest fears in the
minds of men who had been nursed on the balance-of-power theory. A new
power had intruded itself into the old system, and its disturbing force
was beyond all calculation. Between the day on which George Washington
took the Presidential oath and the day when South Carolina broke her
oath, our population had increased from something like three millions to
more than thirty-one millions; and in all the elements of material
strength our increase had far exceeded our growth in numbers. When the
first Congress of the old Union met, our territory was confined to a
strip of land on the western shore of the Atlantic,--and that territory
was but sparsely settled. When the thirty-sixth Congress broke up, our
territory had extended to the Pacific, on which we had two States, while
other communities there were preparing to become States. It did seem as
if Coleridge's "august conception" was about to become a great fact.
"The possible destiny of the United States of America," said that mighty
genius, "as a nation of a hundred millions of freemen, stretching from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, living under the laws of Alfred, and
speaking the language of Shakspeare and Milton, is an august
conception." To all appearance in 1860, there would be a hundred
millions of freemen here, and not far from twenty millions of slaves, at
the close of the nineteenth century; and middle-aged men were not
unreasonable in their expectation of seeing the splendid spectacle. The
rate of increase in population that we had known warranted their most
sanguine hopes. Such a nation,--a nation that should grow its own food,
make its own cloths, dig or pick up its own gold and silver and
quicksilver, mine its own coal and iron, supply itself, and the rest of
the world too, with cotton and tobacco and rice and sugar, and that
should have a mercantile tonnage of not less than fifteen millions, and
perhaps very much more,--such a nation, we say, it was reasonable to
expect the United States would become by the year 1900. But because the
thought of it was pleasing to us, we are not to conclude that it would
be so to European sovereigns and statesmen. On the contrary, they had
abundant reason to dread the accumulation of so much strength in one
empire. Even in 1860 we had passed the point at which it was possible
for us to have any fear of European nations, or of a European alliance.
We had but to will it, and British America, and what there was left of
Spanish America and Mexico, would all have been gathered in, reaped by
that mowing-machine, the American sword. Had our rulers of that year
sought to stave off civil war by plunging us into a foreign war, we
could have made ourselves masters of all North America, despite the
opposition of all Europe, had all Europe been ready to try the question
with us, whether the Monroe doctrine were a living thing or a dirty
skeleton from the past. But all Europe would not have opposed us, seeing
that England would have been the principal sufferer from our success;
and England is unpopular throughout Continental Europe,--in France, in
Germany, and in Russia. Probably the French Emperor would have preferred
a true cordial understanding with us to a nominal one with England, and,
confining his labors to Europe and the East, would have obtained her
"natural boundaries" for France, and supremacy over Egypt. The war might
have left but three great powers in the world, namely, France, Russia,
and America, or the United States, the latter to include Canada and
Mexico, with the Slave-Power's ascendency everywhere established in
North America. It was on the cards that we might avoid dissension and
civil strife by extending the Union, and by invading and conquering the
territories of our neighbors. Why this course was not adopted it is not
our purpose now to discuss; but that it would have been adopted, if the
Secession movement had been directed from the North against the rule of
the Democratic party, we are as firmly convinced as we are of the
existence of the tax-gatherer,--and no man in this country can now
entertain any doubt of his existence, or of his industry and exactions.

When, therefore, our Union was severed in twain by the action of the
Southern Secessionists, and the Confederacy was established, it was the
most natural thing in the world that most European governments, and by
far the larger part of the governing classes in most European nations,
should sympathize with the Rebels: not because they altogether approved
of what the Rebels avowed to be their principles, or of their scandalous
actions in the cause of lawlessness; but because their success would
break down a nation that was becoming too strong to have any regard for
European opinion, and the continuance and growth of which were believed
to be incompatible with the safety of Europe, and the retention of its
controlling position in the world. England was relieved of her fears
with regard to her North-American possessions; and Spain saw an end put
to those insulting demands that she should sell Cuba, which for years
had proceeded from Democratic administrations,--President Buchanan, in
the very last days of his term, and while the Union was falling to
pieces around him, persisting in a demand which then had become as
ridiculous as it had ever been wicked. Austria and Prussia could have no
objection to the breaking-up of a nation which had sympathized with
Poland, Hungary, and Italy, and which, so far as it acted at all, had
acted in behalf of European Liberalism. France, which would have been
willing to act with us, had we remained in condition to render our
action valuable, had no idea of risking anything in our behalf, and
turned her attention to Mexico, as a field well worthy of her
cultivation, and which our troubles had laid open to her enterprise and
ambition. The kingdom of Italy was of too recent birth to have much
influence; and, though its sympathies were with us, it was forced by
circumstances to conform to the example of France and England. Even
Russia, though unquestionably our friend, and sincerely anxious for our
success, probably did not much regret that something had here occurred
which might teach us to become less ready to prompt Poles to rebel, and
not so eager to help them when in rebellion. Most of the lesser
governments of Europe saw our difficulties with satisfaction, because
generally they are illiberal in their character, and our example was
calculated to render their subjects disaffected.

The feeling of which we speak is one that arose from the rapid growth of
this country, and of the fears that that growth had created as to the
safety of European States. It had nothing to do with the character of
our national polity, or with the political opinions of our people. It
would have existed all the same, if we had been governed by an Autocrat
or a Stratocrat, instead of having a movable President for our chief. It
would have been as strong, if our national legislature had been as
quiescent as Napoleon I.'s Senate, instead of being a reckless and an
undignified Congress. It owed its existence to our power, our growth,
our ambition, our "reannexing" spirit, our disposition to meddle with
the affairs of others, our restlessness, and our frequent avowals of an
intention to become masters of all the Occident. We might have been
regarded as even more dangerous than we were, had our government been as
firmly founded as that of Russia, or had it, like that of France, the
power that proceeds at once from the great intellect and the great name
of its chief. A Napoleon or a Nicholas at the head of a people so
intelligent and so active as Americans would indeed have been a most
formidable personage, and likely to employ his power for the disturbance
of mankind.

But in addition to the fear that was created by our rapid growth in
greatness, the rulers of foreign nations regarded us with apprehension
because of our political position. We stood at the head of the popular
interest of Christendom, and all that we effected was carried to the
credit of popular institutions. We stood in antagonism to the
monarchical and aristocratical polities of Europe. The greater our
success, the stronger was the testimony borne by our career against the
old forms of government. Our example was believed to have brought about
that French movement which had shaken the world. The French Revolution
was held to be the child of the American Revolution; and if we had
accomplished so much in our weak youth, what might not be expected from
our example when we should have passed into the state of ripened
manhood? Our existence in full proportions would be a protest against
hereditary rule and exclusiveness. Imitation would follow, and every
existing political interest in Europe was alarmed at the thought of the
attacks to which it was exposed, and which might be precipitated at any
moment. On the other hand, if our "experiment" should prove a failure,
if democracy should come to utter grief in America, if civil war, debt,
and the lessening of the comforts of the masses should be the final
result of our attempt to establish the sovereignty of the people, would
not the effect be fatal to the popular cause in Europe? Certainly there
would be a great reaction, perhaps as great, and even as permanent, as
that Catholic reaction which began in the generation that followed the
death of Luther, and which has been so forcibly painted by the greatest
literary artists of our time. This was the second cause of that interest
in our conflict which has prevailed in Europe, which still prevails
there, and which has compelled Europeans of all classes, our foes as
well as our friends, to turn their attention to our land. "The eyes of
the world are upon us!" is a common saying with egotistical communities
and parties, and mostly it is ridiculously employed; but it was the
soberest of facts for the three years that followed the Battle of Bull
Run. If that gaze has latterly lost some of its intensity, it is because
the thought of intervention in our quarrel has, to appearance, been
abandoned even by the most inveterate of Tories who are not at the same
time fools or the hireling advocates of the Confederate cause.
Intervention in Mexico, too, whatever its success, has proved a more
difficult and a more costly business than was expected, and has
indisposed men who wish our fall to be eager in taking any part in
bringing it about. It may be, too, that the opinion prevails in Europe
that the Rebels are quite equal to the work which there it is desired
should here be wrought, and that policy requires that both parties
should be allowed to bleed to death, perishing by their own hands. If
American democracy is bent upon suicide, why should European aristocrats
interfere openly in the conflict?

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