since ballad-mongering began, the sea and the men who go down to it in ships have been a fruitful theme; and the conventional song-singing, horn-piping tar of the chanteys is a creature of fancy, pure and simple.
jack is as honest as any man. aboard ship he goes about his duties willingly, a creature of habit and environment, with a goodly respect for his “old man” and the articles of war. ashore he is an innocent,—a brand for the burning, with a half-month’s pay and a devouring thirst.
sailor-men all over the world are the same, and will be throughout all time, except in so far as their life is improved by new conditions. though jack aboard ship is the greatest grumbler in the world, ashore he loves all the world, and likes to be taken for the sailor of the songs. in a week he will spend the earnings of many months, and go back aboard ship, sadder, perhaps, but never a wiser man.
he seldom makes resolutions, however, and so, when anchor takes ground again, his money leaves him with the same merry clink as before. though a bohemian and a nomad, he does not silently steal away, like the arab. his goings, like his comings, are accompanied with much carousing and song-singing; and the sweetheart he leaves gets to know that wiving is not for him. with anchor atrip and helm alee, jack mourns not, no matter whither bound.
the improved conditions on the modern men-of-war have changed things for him somewhat, and, though still impregnated with old ideas, jack is more temperate, more fore-sighted, and more self-reliant than he once was. his lapses of discipline and his falls from grace are less frequent than of yore, for he has to keep an eye to windward if he expects to win any of the benefits that are generously held out to the hard-working, sober, and deserving.
but the bitterness of the old days is barely disguised in the jollity of the chanteys. however we take it, the sea-life is a hardship the like of which no land-lubber knows. stories of the trials of the merchant service come to him now and then and open his eyes to the real conditions of the service.
[183]
men are greater brutes at sea than ashore. the one-man power, absolute, supreme in the old days, when all license was free and monarchies trod heavily on weak necks, led men to deeds of violence and death, whenever violence and death seemed the easiest methods of enforcing discipline. men were knocked down hatchways, struck with belaying-pins, made to toe the seam on small provocation or on no provocation at all. the old-fashioned sea-yarns of captain marryat ring true as far as they go, but they do not go far enough.
in england the great frigates were generally both under-manned and badly victualled, and the cruises were long and sickening. the practice of medicine had not reached the dignity of the precise science it is to-day, and the surgeon’s appliances were rude and roughly manipulated. an?sthetics were unknown, and after the battles, the slaughter in which was sometimes terrific, many a poor chap was sent to his last account by unwise amputation or bad treatment after the operation.
the water frequently became putrid, and this, with the lack of fresh vegetables and the over use of pork, brought on the disease called scurvy, which oftentimes wiped out entire crews in its deadly ravages. every year thousands of men were carried off by it. a[184] far greater number died from the effects of scurvy than from the enemy’s fire. lieutenant kelly says that during the seven years’ war but one thousand five hundred and twelve seamen and marines were killed, but one hundred and thirty-three thousand died of disease or were reported missing. not until the beginning of this century was this dreadful evil ameliorated.
the evils of impressment and the work of the crimp and his gang—so infamous in england—had no great vogue here, for the reason that, during our wars of 1776 and 1812, the good seamen—coasters and fishermen, who had suffered most from the lion—were only too anxious to find a berth on an american man-of-war, where they could do yeoman’s service against their cruel oppressor.
“keel-hauling” and the “cat” were relics of the barbarism of the old english navy. keel-hauling was an extreme punishment, for the unfortunate rarely, if ever, survived the ordeal. in brief, it consisted in sending the poor sailor-man on a voyage of discovery along the keel of the vessel. trussed like a fowl, he was lowered over the bows of the ship and hauled along underneath her until he made his appearance at the stern, half or wholly drowned, and terribly cut all over the[185] body by the sea-growth on the ship’s bottom. he bled in every part from the cuts of the barnacles; but “this was considered rather advantageous than otherwise, as the loss of blood restored the patient, if he were not quite drowned, and the consequence was that one out of three, it is said, have been known to recover from their enforced submarine excursion.”
think of it! recovery was not anticipated, but if the victim got well, the officer in command made no objection! beside the brutality of these old english navy bullies a barbarous hottentot chief would be an angel of mercy.
flogging and the use of the cat were abolished in the american navy in 1805. this law meant the use of the cat-o’-nine tails as a regular punishment, but did not prohibit blows to enforce immediate obedience. before that time it was a common practice for the punishment of minor offences as well as the more serious ones.
flogging in the old days was an affair of much ceremony on board men-of-war. the entire ship’s company was piped on deck for the punishment, and the culprit, stripped to the waist, was brought to the mast. the boatswain’s mate, cat in hand, stood by the[186] side of a suspended grating in the gangway, and the captain, officer of the deck, and the surgeon took their posts opposite him. the offence and the sentence were then read, and the stripes were administered on the bare back of the offender, a petty officer standing by to count the blows of the lash, while the doctor, with his hand on the victim’s pulse, was ready to give the danger signal when absolutely necessary.
the men bore it in different ways. the old hands gritted their teeth philosophically, but the younger men frequently shrieked in their agony as the pitiless lash wound itself around the tender flesh, raising at first livid red welts, and afterwards lacerating the flesh and tearing the back into bloody seams.
the effect upon the lookers-on was varied. the younger officers, newly come from well-ordered english homes, frequently fainted at the sight. but the horror of the spectacle soon died away, and before many weeks had passed, with hardened looks, they stood on the quarter-deck and watched the performance amusedly. soon the spectacle got to be a part of their life, and the jokes were many and the laughter loud at the victim’s expense. the greater the suffering the more pleasurable the excitement.
[187]
many yarns are spun of jack’s tricks to avoid the lash or to reduce to a minimum the pain of the blows. sometimes the men had their flogging served to them regularly, but in small doses. to these the punishment lost its rigor. for the boatswain’s mate not infrequently disguised the force of his blows, which came lightly enough, though the victim bawled vigorously to keep up the deception, and in the “three- and four-dozen” cases he sometimes tempered his blows to the physical condition of the sufferers, who otherwise would have swooned with the pain.
one jacky, who thought himself wiser than his fellows, in order to escape his next dozen, had a picture of a crucifix tattooed over the whole surface of his back, and under it a legend, which intimated that blows upon the image would be a sacrilege. when next he was brought before the mast he showed it to the boatswain and his captain. the captain, a crusty barnacle of the old harsh school, smiled grimly.
“don’t desecrate the picture, bos’n,” he said; “we will respect this man’s religious scruples. you may put on his shirt,” he said, chuckling to himself, “but remove his trousers, bos’n, and give him a dozen extra. and lay them on religiously, bos’n.”
[188]
all this was in the older days, and it was never so bad in the american as in the english navy. the middle period of the american navy, from before the civil war to the age of iron and steel cruisers, presents an entirely different aspect in some ways.
illegal punishments were still inflicted, for there were always then, as now, a certain percentage of ruffians forward who were amenable to no discipline, and could be managed only by meeting them with their own weapons. the “spread-eagle” and the ride on the “gray mare” were still resorted to to compel obedience.
they “spread-eagled” a man by tricing him up inside the rigging, taut lines holding his arms and legs outstretched to the farthest shrouds, a bight of rope passed around his body preventing too great a strain. he was gagged, and so he could not answer back.
the “gray mare” on which the obstreperous were forced to gallop was the spanker-boom—the long spar that extends far over the water at the ship’s stern. by casting loose the sheets, the boom rolled briskly from side to side, and the lonely horseman was forced in this perilous position to hold himself by digging his nails into the soft wood or swinging to any of[189] the gear that flew into his reach. at best it was not a safe saddle, and a rough sea made it worse than a bucking broncho.
the smoking hour
paul jones had a neat way of disciplining his midshipmen aloft. he would go to the rail himself, and casting loose the halyards, let the yard go down with a run, to the young gentleman’s great discomfiture.
but the life of the old salt was not all bitterness. it was not all shore-leave, but there was skittles now and then for the deserving and good-conduct men. jack’s pleasures were simple, as they are to-day. there was never a crew that did not have its merry chanter and its flute, fiddle, or guitar, or the twice-told tale of the ship’s methuselah to entertain the dog-watches of the evening or the smoking-hour and make a break in the dreary monotony of routine.
on public holidays, when everything was snug at sea or in port, a glorious skylark was the order of the afternoon. at the call of the bos’n’s mate, “all hands frolic,” rigorous discipline was suspended, and the men turned to with a will to make the day one to be talked about. mast-head-races, potato- and sack-races, climbing the greased pole, and rough horse-play and man-handling filled the afternoon until hammocks were piped down and[190] the watch was set. purses from the wardroom and prizes of rum and tobacco—luxuries dear to jack’s heart—were the incentives to vigorous athletics and rough buffoonery. the rigging was filled from netting to top with the rough, jesting figures, and cheer upon cheer and laugh upon laugh greeted a successful bout or fortunate sally.
jack is a child at the best of times and at the worst, and he takes his pleasures with the zest of a boy of seven, laughing and making merry until he falls to the deck from very weariness. and woe be at these merry times to the shipmate who has no sense of humor. his day is a hideous one, for he is hazed and bullied until he is forced in self-defence to seek the seclusion granted by the nethermost part of the hold. a practical joker always, when discipline is lax, jack’s boisterous humor knows no restraint.
the ceremony of “crossing the line,” the boarding of the ship by neptune and his court, seems almost as old as ships, and is honored even to-day, when much of the romantic seems to have passed out of sea-life. it is the time when the deep-sea sailor has the better of his cousin of the coasts. every man who crossed the equator for the first time had to pay due honor to the god of the seas.[191] they exacted it, too, among the whalers when they crossed the arctic circle.
neptune comes aboard
the wardroom usually bought off in rum, money, or tobacco, but forward it was the roughest kind of rough man-handling; and the victims were happy indeed when they got their deep-water credentials. the details of procedure in this remarkable rite differed somewhat on different ships, but the essential elements of play and torture were the same in all cases.
the day before the line was to be reached both wardroom and forecastle would receive a manifesto setting forth the intention of the god of the seas to honor their poor craft and ordering all those who had not paid tribute to him to gather forward to greet him as he came over the side. at the hour appointed there was a commotion forward, and a figure, wearing a pasteboard crown that surmounted a genial red face adorned with oakum whiskers, made its appearance over the windward nettings and proclaimed its identity as neptune. behind him was a motley crew in costumes of any kind and all kinds—or no kind—who had girded itself for this ungentle art of bull-baiting. the deep-water men intended to have an ample return for what they themselves had suffered, not many years back, when they[192] had rounded the horn or cape of good hope.
the unfortunates, stripped to the waist, were brought forward, one by one, to be put through their paces. after a mock trial by the jury of buffoons, the king ordered their punishment meted out in doses proportioned directly to the popularity of the victims as shipmates. the old long boat, with thwarts removed and a canvas lining, served as a ducking-pond. after vigorous applications, of “slush,”—which is another name for ship’s grease,—or perhaps a toss in a hammock or a blanket, they were pitched backward into the pool and given a thorough sousing, emerging somewhat the worse for wear, but happy that the business was finally done for good and all.
to-day the roughest sort of bullying no longer takes place, and much of the romance seems to have passed out of the custom.
the punishments, too, have lost their severity. the “gray mare” swings to an empty saddle, the “spread eagle” is a thing of the past, and the “cat” is looked upon as a relic of barbarism. things are not yet pinafore-like, but the cursing and man-handling are not what they used to be. there are a few of the old-timers who still believe the “cat” a necessary evil, and would like to see an occasional[193] “spread eagle,” but the more moderate punishments of to-day have proved, save in a few hardened cases, that much may be done if the morale of the service is high.
the fact of the matter is, that the standard of the man behind the gun has kept up with the marvellous advance of the ships and the ordnance. to-day, the naval service of the united states is worthy of any seaman’s metal. as a mode of living, sea-faring on american men-of-war attracts as many good men as any other trade. machinists, electricians, carpenters, gunners, and sail-makers, all have the chance of a good living, with prizes for the honest and industrious.
the seaman himself, in times of peace, may rise by faithful service to a competency and a retiring pension more generous than that of any other nation in the world. the discipline is the discipline of right relations between superior and inferior men of sense, and the articles of war govern as rigorously the cabin as the forecastle. republican principles are carried out, as far as they are compatible with perfect subordination, and there exists no feeling between the parts of the ship, except in extraordinary instances, but wholesome respect and convention. there is little tyranny on the one side or insubordination on the other.
[194]
the training of the young officer of the old navy was the training of the larger school of the world. “least squares” and “ballistics” were not for him. he could muster a watch, bend and set a stun’sail, work out a traverse, and pass a weather-earing; but he toyed not with the higher mathematics, like the machine-made “young gentleman” of to-day. what he knew of navigation he had picked haphazard, as best he might.
at the age of twelve his career usually opened briskly in the thunder of a hurricane or the slaughter of a battle, under conditions trying to the souls of bronzed, bearded men. physical and even mental training of a certain kind he had, but the intellectual development of modern days was missing. the american officer of the days before the naval academy was founded was the result of rough conditions that nature shaped to her own ends with the only tools she had. though these “boys” had not the beautiful theory of the thing, they had its practice, and no better seamen ever lived.
at the beginning of the century, the crusty preble, commodore of the blockading fleet before tripoli, was sent a consignment of these “boys” to aid him in his work. the names of the “boys” were decatur, stewart,[195] macdonough, lawrence, and perry. excepting decatur, who was twenty-six, there was not one who was over twenty-four, and two or three of them were under twenty. the commodore grew red in the face and swore mighty oaths when he thought of the things he had to accomplish with the youngsters under his command. but he found before long that though youth might be inconvenient, it could not be considered as a reproach in their case.
decatur, with a volunteer crew, went under the guns at tripoli, captured and blew up the “philadelphia” in a way that paled all deeds of gallantry done before or since. the dreamy somers went in with a fire-ship and destroyed both the shipping and himself. in the hand-to-hand fights on the gunboats, lawrence, young bainbridge, stewart, and the others fought and defeated the best hand-to-hand fighters of the mediterranean. the dey of algiers, when decatur came before him to make terms of peace, stroked his black beard and looked at the young hero curiously. “why,” he said, “do they send over these young boys to treat with the older powers?”
when the war was over, preble no longer grew red in the face or swore. he loved his school-boys, and walked his quarter-deck with them arm-in-arm. and they loved him[196] for his very crustiness, for they knew that back of it all was a man.
these youthful heroes were not the only ones. young farragut, an infant of twelve years, with an old “shoot-if-you’re-lucky,” quelled a promising mutiny. at eighteen bainbridge did the same. farragut, at thirteen, was recommended for promotion to a lieutenancy he was too young to take. perry was about thirty when he won the victory of erie.
a youngster’s character bears a certain definite relation to the times he lives in. skies blue and breezes light, he shapes his life’s course with no cares but the betterment of his mental condition. baffling winds create the sailor, and storm and stress bring out his greater capabilities. the spanish war has proved that heroes only slumber, and that the young gentleman with the finely-tempered mind of an annapolis training is capable of the great things his father did.
the blue-jacket of to-day has plenty of hard work to do, but he is as comfortable as good food and sleeping accommodations, regular habits, and good government can make him. as a class, the united states jacky is more contented, perhaps, than any other man of similar conditions. unlike the soldier, he does[197] not even have to rough it very much, for wherever he goes he takes his house with him.
jacky sleeps in a hammock strung upon hooks to the beams of the deck above him. when he turns out, he lashes his hammock with its lashing, and stores it in the nettings,—the troughs for the purpose at the sides of the ship,—where it must stay until night. if jack wants to sleep in the meanwhile, he chooses the softest spot he can find on a steel-clad deck; and he can sleep there, too, in the broad glare of daylight, a hundred feet passing him, and the usual run of ship’s calls and noises droning in his ears.
jacky’s food is provided by the government, while his superior of the wardroom has to pay his own mess-bill. he is allowed, in addition to his pay, the sum of nine dollars per month, and this must purchase everything, except such luxuries as he may choose to buy from his pay. the ship’s paymaster is allowed a certain amount of money to furnish the supplies, and between him and the ship’s cook the problem is settled. at the end of the month, if the amount served out is in excess of the computation for rations, the brunt falls upon the “jack-of-the-dust,”—the assistant to the paymaster’s yeoman,—who has the work of accurately[198] measuring the rations which are given to the cook of the ship.
the ship’s cook receives from the government from twenty-five to thirty-five dollars a month, according to the size of the ship, and, in addition, certain money perquisites from the different messes, which gives him a fair average. he has complete charge of the ship’s galley and the cooks of the messes, and must be able to concoct a dainty french dish for the wardroom as well as the usual “salt horse” or “dog” for the jacky.
“salt horse” is the sea-name for pork. “dog” is soaked hardtack, mixed with molasses and fried; and, though it is not pleasant twenty-nine days out of the month, it is healthful, and tastes good to a hard-working sailor with the salt of the sea producing a splendid appetite.
the mess-tables hang by iron supports to the beams of the deck above, and when the mess has been served and eaten,—as only jack knows how to eat,—they are triced up into their places, and all is cleaned and made ship-shape in the twinkling of an eye. a half-hour is allowed for dinner, and this time is kept sacred for jack’s use. a red pennant flies from the yard-arm, that all may know that the sailor-man is eating and must not[199] be disturbed by any importunate or curious callers.
in the dog-watches of the evening, after supper, from six to eight p.m., the blue-jacket is given his leisure. it is then that pipes are smoked, vigilance relaxed, boxing and wrestling bouts are in order, and jacky settles down for his rest after the day of labor. from somewhere down on the gun-deck comes the tinkle of a guitar or banjo, and a tuneful, manly voice sings the songs of france or spain, and, better still, of beloved america, for the shipmates.
the sailor of to-day is also a soldier. back in the days of henry the eighth, when england first had a navy, the sailors only worked the ships. the fighting was done by the soldiers. later, when the ships were armed with many guns and carried a greater spread of canvas, there was no space for great companies of soldiers, and the sailors became gunners as well. a few soldiers there were, but these did only sentry duty and performed the duties of the ships’s police. as such they were cordially hated by the jackies.
this antipathy has come down through the ages to the present day, and marines are still looked on by the sailor-men as land-lubbers and johnnies—sea-people who have no mission[200] upon the earth save to do all the eating and very little of the rough work.
the new navy has done much to change this feeling. the mission of the marine is now a definite one. always used as a sharpshooter, he now mans the rapid-fire batteries, and even guns of a larger caliber. he has done his work well, and the affair at guantanamo has caused the sneer to fade from the lip of the american sailor-man. two of the ablest captains of our navy, always the deadliest opponents of the marine corps, upon assuming their latest commands, applied immediately for the largest complement of marines that they could get.
any ship, old or new, is as frail as the crew that mans it. the strength of any vessel varies directly with its discipline and personnel. hull, jones, decatur, bainbridge, and stewart, in the old days, knew with some accuracy the forces they had to reckon with. their guns were of simple contrivance, and their men knew them as well as they knew how to reef a topsail or smartly pass a weather-earing. they feared nothing so long as they were confident of their captain. new and mysterious contrivances for death-dealing were unknown to them, and hence the morale of the old sea-battles was the morale only of strength and discipline.[201] there were no uncertain factors to reckon with, save the weight of metal and the comparative training of the gun-crews.
to-day the unknown plays a large part in warfare. intricate appliances, mysterious inventions, new types of torpedo-boats, and submarine vessels form a new element to contend against and have a personal moral influence upon the discipline of crews. to combat this new element of the unknown and uncertain has required sailors and men of a different stripe from the old. where, in the old days, ignorance and all its accompanying evils held sway over the mind of poor jack, and made him a prey to superstition and imagination, to-day, by dint of careful training of brain as well as body, he has become a thinking creature of power and force of mind. he knows in a general way the working of the great mechanical contrivances; and in the fights that are to come, as well as those that have been, he will show that the metal the american jacky is made of rings true and stands well the trial by fire.
[202]
the old ships and the new
with much hitching of trousers and shifting of quid, the old longshoreman will tell you that sea-life isn’t at all what it once was.
he will gaze out to sea, where the great iron machines are plying back and forth, and a reminiscent sparkle will come into his eyes as he turns to his lobster-pots and tells you how it was in the good days of clippers and sailing-frigates, when sailor-men were sailor-men and not boiler-room swabs, machine-made and steam-soaked. he will also yarn, with much d—ning of his eyes (and yours), of how fair it was in the deck-watches of the “saucy sally” barque, with everything drawing alow and aloft, grog and ’baccy a-plenty, and never a care but the hurry to spend the voyage-money. and not till he’s mumbled all his discontent will he haul his sheets and give you right-of-way.
he forgets, sheer hulk that he is, that he’s been in dry-dock a generation or more and that swift-moving time has loosed his gear and dimmed his binnacle-lights. despite his ancient croaking, tricks at the wheel are to-day as ably kept, eyes as sharp as his still peer into the dimness over the forecastle, and the sea-lead takes as long a heave as in the early sixties, when he hauled up to new york[203] with a thousand dollars in prize-money and a heart full for the business of spending it. it has always been so. there has never been an age that has not had its carper to tell you of the wonders that once were.
yet it was truly beautiful. with the tide on the ebb and the wind a-piping free, never was a fairer sight than the atlantic clipper as she picked her speedy way through the shipping to the harbor’s mouth; and nothing so stately as the gallant frigate in her wake, with all sail set to ga’n’s’ls, her topsails bellying grandly to the quartering breeze, which whipped the filmy wave-tops against her broad bows, under which the yellow curl lapped merrily its greeting. the harbor clear and the capes abeam, aloft flew the nimble sail-loosers. the royals and the stu’n-sails flapped to the freshening wind, sheets went home with a run, and the yards flew to their blocks.
then, her departure taken, like a gull she sped blithely on her course. the rays of the afternoon sun gilded her snowy canvases until she looked a thing of air and fairyland, not of reality. on she flew, her tall spars dipping grandly to the swells—a stately farewell courtesy to the clipper, hull down to leeward. on the decks the boatswain piped his cheerful note, and everything came ship-shape and[204] bristol-fashion for the cruise. the running-gear was neatly coiled for running, the guns secured for sea, and the watches told off. the officer of the deck walked to and fro, singing softly to himself, casting now and then a careful eye aloft to the weather-leeches, which quivered like an aspen as the helmsman, leaning to the slant of the deck, kept her well up to her work.
and yet the poetry has not gone out of it all. the poetry of the sailing-frigate was lyric. that of the steel battle-ship is homeric.
nothing save a war of the elements has the power of a battle-ship in action. ten thousand tons of steel,—a mighty fortress churning speedily through the water fills the spirit with wonder at the works of man and makes any engine for his destruction a possibility. away down below the water-line a score or more of furnaces, white-heated, roar furiously under the forced draught, and the monster engines move their ponderous arms majestically, and in rhythm and harmony mask their awful strength. before the furnace-doors, blackened, half-naked stokers move, silhouetted against the crimson glare, like grim phantoms of the shades. the iron uprights and tools are hot to their touch, the purple gases hiss[205] and sputter in their very faces, yet still they toil on, gasping for breath, their tongues cleaving to their mouths, and their wet bodies steaming in the heat of it.
modern sea monsters in action
the deck above gives no sign of the struggle below. where, in the old days, the sonorous trumpet rang out and the spar-deck was alive with the watch who hurried to the pin-rail at the frequent call, now all is quiet. here and there bright work is polished, or a lookout passes a cheery call, but nothing save the man at the wheel and the officer of the watch shows the actual working of the ship.
seamanship, in the sense of sail-handling, is a thing of the past. though there is no officer in the navy who could not in an emergency handle a square-rigger with the science of an old sea-captain, the man on the bridge has now come to be first a tactician and after that a master of steam and electricity.
in the sea-battles of 1812 the captain was here, there, and everywhere in the thickest of the fight, inspiring by his personal magnetism the men at the guns. he was the soul of his ship. to-day the sea-battle is a one-man battle. the captain is still the heart and soul of the ship, but his ends are accomplished in a less personal way. his men need not see him. by the touch of a finger he can perform[206] every action necessary to carry his ship to victory. he can see everything, do everything, and make his presence everywhere felt by the mere operation of a set of electrical instruments in front of him.
the intricacies of his position are, in a way, increased. he may lose a boiler, split a crank, or break an electrical connection, but the beautiful subtleties of old-fashioned seamanship have no place whatever on the modern war-ship.
let it not be understood that the handling of the great ocean fortress of to-day may be mastered by any save a craftsman of the art. with plenty of sea-room and a keen watch alow and aloft the trick is a simple one, for the monster is only a speck in the infinity of sea and sky, and there is never a fear save for a blow, or a ship, or a shore. but in close man?uvre, or in harbor, the problem is different. ten thousand tons of bulk cannot be turned and twisted on the heel with the swish and toss of the wieldy clipper. observant transpontine voyagers, who have watched the gigantic liner warped out from her pier into a swift tide-way with a leeward ebb, will tell you what a complicated and difficult thing it seems to be.
the captain of the battle-ship must be all[207] that the merchant captain is, and more besides. mooring and slipping moorings should be an open book to the naval officer, but his higher studies, the deeper intricacies of the science of war, are mysteries for the merchant captain. all of it is seamanship, of course. but to-day it is the seamanship of the bridled elements, where strength is met by strength and steam and iron make wind and wave as nothing.
the perfection of the seamanship of the past was not in strength, but in yielding, and the saltiest sea-captain was he who cajoled both ship and sea to his bidding. the wind and waves, they say, are always on the side of the ablest navigators, but it was rather a mysterious and subtle knowledge of the habits and humors of god’s sea and sky, and a sympathy born of constant communion, which made both ship and captain a part of the elements about them, and turned them into servants, and not masters.
the naval captains of 1812 had learned this freemasonry of sea and sky, and one incident—a typical one—will show it as no mere words can do. its characteristics are yankee pluck and old-fashioned yankee seamanship.
the frigate “constitution”—of glorious memory—in 1812 gave the british squadron which surrounded her startling proof of[208] the niceties of yankee seamanship. there never has been a race for such a stake, and never will be. had “old ironsides” been captured, there is no telling what would have been the deadly effect on the american fortunes. it was the race for the life of a nation.
the “constitution” was the country’s hope and pride, and captain hull knew it. he felt that “old ironsides” could never fail to do the work required of her. so for four days and nights the old man towed her along, the british frigates just out of range, until he showed clean heels to the entire squadron. the ingenuity and deft man?uvring of the chase has no parallel in the history of this or any other country in the world.
with hardly a catspaw of wind, hull drifted into sight of the british fleet off the jersey coast. before he knew it, they brought the wind up with them, and his position was desperate. there were four frigates and a ship-of-the-line spread out in a way to take advantage of any breath of air. hull called away his boats, and running lines to them, sent them ahead to tow her as best they might. the british did still better, for they concentrated the boats of the squadron on two ships, and gained rapidly on the american. hull cut ports over the stern, and ran two 18-pounders[209] out of his cabin windows, where he began a continuous fire on the enemy. the british ships shifted their helms and took up positions on the quarters of the frigate, unable to approach too closely with their boats for fear of the “constitution’s” stern-guns, which dropped their hurtling shot under their very bows.
the desperate game had only begun. hull, finding that he had but one hundred and fifty feet of water under him, decided to kedge her along. in a few minutes the largest boat was rowing away ahead with a small anchor on board, stretching out half a mile of cable. the anchor dropped, the men hauled in roundly and walked away with the line at a smart pace. it was heart-breaking work, but the speed of the ship was trebled. by the time the vessel was warped up to the first anchor another one was ready for her, and she clawed still further out of the enemy’s reach. the british did not at first discover the magic headway of the american, and not for some time did they attempt to follow suit.
then a breeze came up. hull hauled his yards to it, picked up his boats without slacking sail, and went ahead. but hardly were the sails drawing when the wind died away again. one of the ships came into range,[210] and there was nothing for it but to go back to the kedging. three times did this occur, the captain, with his eye on the dog-vane, jockeying her along as a skipper would his racing-yacht. the men had now been at their quarters for thirty-six hours without rest or sleep. but at the order they dropped into the boats again, ready for anything.
another breeze sprang up now and held for two hours. like logs the sailor-men tumbled over on the decks, nearly dead for lack of sleep. on the afternoon of the third day of the chase the “constitution” lost the wind and the enemy kept it. back again to kedging they went, weary and sick at heart.
but relief was in sight. a great cloud hove up on the southeastern horizon, and the black squall that followed was a godsend to the “constitution” and her weary crew. hull knew the englishmen would not like the looks of the squall. no more did he. but he kept his boats at the towing, nevertheless.
he stationed his men at the halyards and down-hauls, and had everything in hand for the shock. he calmly watched the on-coming line of froth, growing whiter every minute, while his officers came to him and begged him to take in his sail. but wait he did until the first breath stirred his royals. then the shrill[211] pipe of the boatswain called the boats alongside of the “constitution.”
they were not a moment too soon. as the men were hooking the tackles the blast struck the ship. over she heeled, almost on her beam ends, the boats tossed up like feather-weights. the yards came down with a rush, and the sails flew up to the quarter-blocks, though the wind seemed likely to blow them out of the bolt-ropes. she righted herself in a moment, though, and so cleverly had hull watched his time that not a boat was lost.
among the enemy all was disorganization. every sail was furled, and some of their boats went adrift. then, as the friendly rain and mist came down, the wily yankee spread his sails—not even furled—and sailed away on an easy bowline at nine knots an hour.
the race was won. before the englishmen could recover, hull managed by wetting his sails to make them hold the wind, and soon the enemy was but a blur on his western horizon. then the british gave it up.
the superiority of yankee seamanship was never more marked than in this chase. the british had the wind, the advantage of position, the force, and lacked only the wonderful skill and indomitable perseverance of the american, who, with everything against him, never for a[212] moment despaired of pulling gallant “old ironsides” out of the reach of his slow-moving enemy.
the difficult man?uvre of picking up his boats without backing a yard or easing a sheet he repeated again and again, to the wonderment of his adversaries, whose attempts in this direction failed every time they tried it in a smart breeze. hull’s tactics at the coming of the squall were hazardous, and under any other circumstances would have been suicidal. for a skipper to have his boats two cable-lengths away from his ship, with his royals flapping to the first shock of a squall, is bad seamanship. but if tackles are hooked and men are safe aboard there is no marine feat like it.
the naval history of this country is full of such instances. captain charles stewart, on the same ship, did a wonderful thing. in his fight with the “cyane” and the “levant” he delivered a broadside from both batteries at the same time. then, shifting his helm under cover of the smoke, he backed his topsails and drew out sternward from the enemy’s fire, taking a new position, and delivering another broadside, which brought about their surrender.
the war-ship of fifty years ago was as different from the battle-ship of to-day as a caravel[213] from a torpedo-boat. with half the length and a third the tonnage, the old “ship-of-the-line” had three times as many men as the modern sea-fighter. yet, with a thousand men aboard, she had work for them all. more than two acres of canvas were to be handled, and over a hundred guns were to be served, loaded, and fired. a thousand pieces of running-gear were to be rove and manned. the huge topsails, weighing, with their yards, many tons, needed on their halyards half a hundred men. great anchors were to be broken from their sandy holds, and the capstan-bars, double-banked, hove around to the sound of the merry chantey and deep-voiced trumpet. homeward bound, the business of anchor-hoisting turned into a mad scene, and many a rude jest and hoarse song turned the crowded fo’c’s’le into a carnival of jollity.
in matters of routine and training the crews of the american frigates differed little from those of england. the sailor-men of the united states, though newer to the work of navigating the big ships, were smart seamen, and could cross or bring down their light yards, send down their masts, or clear for action with the oldest and very best of england’s men-o’war’s-men.
the ships themselves differed little in general[214] construction. during the war of 1812, of large frigates we possessed but the “constitution,” the “president,” and the “constellation.” though built upon models patterned after the accepted standards of the period, they were somewhat smaller than the british vessels and usually carried a lighter armament. their unbroken list of victories during the war with england is remarkable when one considers what the young nation was contending against, both at home and abroad, and how little aid congress had given the infant navy.
it seems really wonderful how a large body of men, numbering from three hundred to six hundred, and later a thousand or more, could find comfort and a home from one year’s end to another in a space only two hundred feet long and fifty feet wide.
but jack is nowhere so comfortable as aboard ship. he is used to prescribed limits, and crawls into his hammock at night happy that the space is no greater. there is a companionship, he thinks, in close quarters, and he likes them.
in the old ships it was a matter of great importance to provide comfortable quarters for the great crews they were obliged to carry. in england, during the first years of the century, the complement of a “seventy-four” was[215] five hundred and ninety, and even six hundred and forty men. hammocks seem to have been used during the reign of queen elizabeth, when they were called “nets,” probably because they were made of rope-yarn.
the officers were then, as now, given the after part of the ship. a wooden bulkhead separated the cabins of the officers from the main-decks, where the men lived, though when the ship was cleared for action the bulkheads were taken down and all movable property both of officer and man was taken below-deck.
this gave a clean sweep of the deck from bow to stern. the steerage had from two to six broadside-guns in it, and even the captain had to live with a couple of brass stern-chasers and a broadsider or two.
the grandest line-of-battle-ship ever built for this country was the old “pennsylvania.” she was made of wood throughout, two hundred and twenty feet long and fifty-eight feet beam, with a draft of twenty-five feet of water and thirty-five hundred tons displacement,—just one-third of that of the modern “iowa.” eleven hundred men could swing their hammocks on her wide decks, where no modern gun-carriages or steel compartments broke the long sweep from the cabin forward. her sides were of oak, with a thickness of eighteen inches[216] at the upper gun-ports and thirty-two inches at the water-line, almost heavy enough at long range to resist the shot of a modern rifle. her sixteen inches were proof against her own fire at a mile. on her three fighting-decks she carried sixteen 8-inch guns, the heaviest they had in those days, and one hundred and four 32-pounders. her mainmast was over two hundred feet long, and with all sail set she could leg it at twelve knots an hour.
but compare her with the modern “indiana.” the “pennsylvania” weighed less than the armor of the “indiana” alone. the “indiana” has but sixteen guns, against one hundred and twenty on the “pennsylvania;” but that broadside can send two tons of tempered steel at a single discharge. the old 8-inch guns of the “pennsylvania” could send a shell through fifteen inches of oak at a distance of a mile—the equivalent of half an inch of steel.
the range of a modern rifle is from five to twelve miles; the penetration is almost anything you please in the way of steel armor. the “pennsylvania’s” shells at point-blank range would hardly make a perceptible dent in the “indiana’s” steel armor, and the old cast-iron shot would roll harmlessly down the new ship’s sides. but one explosive shell[217] from the “indiana” would go through the “pennsylvania” from stem to stern, and would splinter and burn her beyond repair.
the “pennsylvania” cost the government, in 1837, nearly seven hundred thousand dollars; a fabulous sum for a battle-ship in those days. the “indiana” cost three millions and a half,—only two hundred and fifty thousand dollars less than the sum paid for that vast territory bought from napoleon, and known as the “louisiana purchase,” and about half the sum paid for the acquisition of alaska from russia.
the statistics are interesting. according to official authority, in putting this vessel together seven hundred tons of rivets alone were used. about four hundred plans were made for the hull and about two hundred and fifty plans and drawings were made for the engines. these would take a force of one hundred men a year to complete.
the engines and machinery alone weigh about nine hundred tons. the smoke-stacks are about sixteen feet in diameter. each of the main engines is so enormous that under the great frames, in the economy of space and construction, are two smaller engines, the sole mission of which is to start the big ones. there are about sixty-six separate engines[218] for various purposes. the condensing-tubes, placed end to end, would cover a distance of twelve miles. thirty tons of water fill her boilers, which would stand a pressure of one hundred and sixty pounds to the square inch. three dynamos provide the electricity,—a plant which would light a town of five thousand inhabitants. there are twenty-one complete sets of speaking-tubes and twenty-four telephone stations.
the two great turrets are clad with nineteen inches of toughened steel. in each of these turrets are two 13-inch guns. each of these guns is about fifty feet long and weighs sixty-one tons. there are eight 8-inch guns on the superstructure, in sets of twos, and amidships on the main-deck are four 6-inch rifles. in ten minutes, firing each 13-inch gun once in two minutes, and using all the other guns at their full power, the “indiana” could fire about sixty tons of death-dealing metal.
the millennium has not yet been reached, but such awful force makes universal peace a possibility. what the immediate future holds forth in naval architecture and gunnery is a matter which excites some curiosity, for it almost seems as though perfection, according to the standard of the end of the century, has been reached. and yet we already know of[219] certain changes, improvements, and inventions, the direct outcome of the spanish war, which are to be made on the vessels now contracted for, which affect importantly the government of the ship; and so it may be that the next twenty years will show as great an evolution as have the two decades just past.
but whatever the future may bring, it has been a marvellous and momentous change from the old navy to the new. since the “monitor”–“merrimac” fight no country has been quicker to profit by the lessons of the victory of iron over wood and steel over iron than the united states.
but the navy that is, however glorious its achievements, can never dim the glory of the navy that was, though sailor-men, old and new, know that in a test of ship and ship, and man and man, the flag of this country will continue to fly triumphant.
