The hero of Erie (Oliver Hazard Perry)

Contents

CHAPTER

I. — Wherein Oliver learns what his fathf r did

PAGE

Chapter I. Wherein Oliver Learns What His Father Did

Captain Christopher Raymond Perry had just returned home from a long voyage to the East Indies. It was the year 1795. Since his marriage, twelve years previously, he had been making long voyages, and spending but little time with his family. But this is what a sailor's family have to become used to. His comings and goings, like his life when afloat, were uncertain; sometimes months and months would go by without the eager ones at home receiving a word from the beloved parent or brother, and then suddenly his ship would come into port, and before word could be sent ahead of him he would drop into the home circle as suddenly as if he had descended from the skies.

Mrs. Perry had known that her husband was on the seas returning, and perhaps it was her prayers that gave the vessel fair winds and pleasant weather. A

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sailor has a way of expressing this when on a homeward voyage; if everything is going finely, he says: " The girls at home, sweethearts and wives, must have hold of our towline." And many times had Captain Perry made this observation to himself, for he had sighted Block Island, bound into Providence, almost a fortnight before he had expected to in the due course of events. The moon rose early at this time of the month, and in its bright rays he had crept past Point Judith and the Island of Canonicut, and had dropped his anchor before midnight well up the harbor. Mrs. Perry, who lived in the town of South Kingston, had been awakened by a knocking on the door, and, wondering what the message could be, had gone down to open it. She had seen a figure standing there, and with a cry of joy she had found herself in her husband's arms. The children did not know that a great, strong man, whose eyes had filled with tears, had looked down upon them that night as they lay asleep; but early in the morning the news had spread about the house, the welcome, joyful words, " Father has come home from sea! " When they came down to breakfast they felt a little strange and half frightened, for their parent's stay was never long, and sometimes the tones of his voice, and even his appearance, had ahiiost faded from their minds. Soon after the morning meal, which the young ones ate in rather a constrained silence. Captain Perry had

OLIVER LEARNS WHAT HIS FATHER DID. 3

to leave again to superintend the unloading of his ship.

But the next day being Sunday, he spent it with them, and late in the afternoon he had called to his oldest boy, Oliver, and hand in hand they had walked through the orchard and the lower meadow until they had reached a place where two large maples threw a grateful shade upon the grass.

Captain Perry seated himself, and leaned back against the trunk of one of the trees and drew a long breath of pure contentment. What man could be happier? He had finished a successful voyage. He had found his family all alive and well. He was young, not even yet in what people term " the prime of life." He looked down at the peaceful river, and dropped his head forward on his chest; far away he could just see the masts of his vessel lying safe at anchor. He listened to the humming of the bees and the murmur of the insects, and to the gentle rustle of the leaves above his head, and no wonder he felt contented. No wonder he closed his eyes and drew again a thankful, heartfelt breath. Suddenly the little boy who had nestled by his knee, and who had been rather shy at first, interrupted his thoughts.

" Father," he said, looking up with great round eyes into his parent's face, " tell me a story."

Now, to a man in a happy frame of mind there is no such pleasant task as to tell stories to a young

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and appreciative listener; and if the listener happens to be a child of his own, surely the pleasure is more than doubled, and the story can not fail to be of interest. There was evidence of that in the very attitude of this expectant audience of one. He had clasped both hands upon his parent's knee, and had rested his round chin upon them, and the father looked down on the boy's face and smiled. He felt inspiration growing within him. Some day perhaps this boy would be telling stories in his turn, and so he began:

'' How old are you, Oliver, my son? "

" Ten my last birthday, father."

" Well, then, I'll begin when I was your age. I wasn't quite so tall as you are now, but I was very strong "

" I'm not very strong," put in Oliver, in a sad, apologetic little tone.

" Never mind that, son," went on his father, "you've grown so fast; why, you're a half head taller than most boys of your age, and you'll grow up to your strength, too; and now I'll go on with the story: I lived here in the same house where you live now. I went to the schoolhouse that you go to, and old Mr. Judson, whom you often see in his big white wig and snuffy coat on the streets, was my schoolmaster. Things are very little changed; I could almost imagine, as I look about me, that I am your age again. These trees were not quite so tall as they are now, and

OLIVER LEARNS WHAT HIS FATHER DID. 5

there are a few new houses on the hillside, and the meeting-house has a new steeple, but, as I say, all is about the same. I played the same games that you do; I set traps for squirrels and woodchucks, and I gathered birds' nests in the spring and chestnuts in the fall, and fought snowball fights in the winter, and so you know by looking around you what my life was, and how happy a boy can be who has little care and sorrow. But all this time every one was talking of the troubles of the country, and saying that it would be but a short time before we would be at war with England. The talk increased every day, and the troubles brewed, until one morning the news was brought to us by the postboy that the country had risen and that a battle had been fought, and that the war was on. I was but fifteen years old when this took place. I had sailed in boats on the river, as you do now with your companions, and I had made one or two little voyages out on the sound, and so I became filled with the idea that I must be a sailor, and that the country was in great need of my services as such. For a long time my family would not hear of it — imagine how your mother would hate to see you leave her — but at last, when the war was on about a year, I obtained their permission to leave home, and embarked as cabin boy on board a privateer commanded by Captain Reed. The life of a sailor is a hard one at the best; perhaps no man works harder and has

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fewer comforts. He must be ready at all times to tumble out of his cozy hammock and go on the wet, slippery deck, or he must climb aloft in the cold, cutting snowstorm, to help furl sail. He must be ready to fight when called upon, and he must be obedient to orders, always alert and vigorous. As the old song goes, ' he must be all of one part with his ship.' Some lads take naturally to this sort of life, and perhaps without boasting I may say that I did. I thrived in the rough life, and when I returned after my first voyage my folks scarcely knew me, I had grown so brown and strong."

The boy, whose grasp had tightened on his father's knee, winced a little, and Captain Perry, who had not noticed this, once more drew a long breath, looked up to the peaceful branches of the tree above his head, and out once more on to the shimmering reaches of the river. He paused for a few minutes, and mayhap his thoughts wandered back more vividly to the stirring days of twenty years before. But the boy never took his eyes off his father's face. In his mind a firm resolve was growing. In that flash of time he decided for himself, as many a youngster has upon an instant decided his future and lived to round it out.

" Go on, father," he said quietly; " pray don't

stop."

Captain Perry placed his hands on the boy's head, and took up his tale again. He went on to tell of how

OLIVER LEARNS WHAT HIS FATHER DID. 7

he had vohinteered upon the piibhc vessel of war Trumbull, and how he had fought on her until he liad gained command of one of the broadside guns, and how, after this voyage he had volunteered on board the sloop-of-war Mifflin, commanded by Captain Babcock, and how he was taken prisoner when she was captured by the enemy, and confined on board the dreadful prison ship Jersey. He told of the horrible sufferings; of the starvation and disease that carried off the prisoners by the score; of how at one time a boat would come twice a day to take away the dead. He told how he had seen strong men waste away to living skeletons and wish to die. When he came to the part of his narrative in which he related how again and again he planned to escape, and how at last the dreadful prison fever laid hold of him, the boy began to gasp, and the father paused, then hurried on the telling. When he came to the part that told of his liberation, little Oliver sighed with relief, and so the tale proceeded. Captain Perry in graphic words described how he had again taken service on board a private armed brig commanded by Captain Rathbone, and had cruised on a voyage full of excitement, straight into the English Channel. Here again he had been taken prisoner, and for eighteen months was confined in a British prison. When he related his thrilling escape from this, Oliver was panting and almost trembling with excitement. Closely he followed the rest of the story — how his father had, after a life of vicissitude in London, managed to ship aboard an Enghsh vessel bound for the island of St. Thomas, whence he had made his way to Charleston, South Carolina, and there soon learned that peace had been declared. This same year he had made a voyage to Scotland, and returned as mate of the vessel.

" And who do you suppose was on that voyage with me, Oliver? " he asked.

" I know," the boy put in; " mother was. She told us all about it once."

Captain Perry again drew a long breath. " She was indeed, my son," he said. " It was there I met her, and it was the luckiest voyage of all my life, and the luckiest voyage I shall ever make."

It was so dark by this time that lights had begun to twinkle in the windows of the farmhouses across the river. The captain drew his great watch out of his pocket. " Whew! " he whistled, imitating the boatswain's call, "pipe down all hands! Mother must be wondering what has become of us. Come, my lad, let's have a run back to the house. Ahead with you, and see what your legs are good for." They struck into a dog-trot, hand in hand, and every turn in the path the captain would sing out, " Hard astarboard now!" or "Hard aport!" as the case might be, until at last they dropped anchor on the doorstep, and announced their arrival with a hail,

OLIVER LEARNS WHAT HIS FATHER DID. 9

"Supper ahoy, there!" and a rush into the dining room.

Mrs. Perry was unpacking the box containing the wonderful East Indian shawls and some odds and ends of trinkets the captain always brought back with him from his voyages; and then Oliver boldly spoke out his thoughts: " Mother," said he, with his cheek against her shoulder, " some day I'm going to be a sailor " — he paused — " like father," he added.

" Then, Oliver," returned Mrs. Perry, glancing at her husband, " you will have to be a very good one."

Like every boy whose head is full of but one idea, the lad could dream of nothing that night but ships and the sea; and when the next day he accompanied his father down to the vessel he tried to imagine himself in command of her, and grew quite excited as his mind suggested fights and adventures.

CHAPTER 11.

THE MIDSHIPMAN.

Before Captain Perry had sailed away he had promised OHver to do everything in his power to secure for him an appointment in the navy. The naval force at this time belonging to the United States was practically nothing. We possessed no first-class ship, and hardly a vessel in commission was kept in proper shape. There were a few gunboats in some of the ports, useless vessels, take it altogether, and the finances of the Naval Department were at low ebb. Oliver went to school at Newport. He had become a boy of but one idea. Maybe the love of the sea was in his blood, for such things are sometimes an inheritance. At all events, he dreamed of it and thought of it, and read all the books that he could possibly lay hand to that dealt with seafaring life. He would spend his spare hours along the water front, and with the assistance of an old sailor he began the construction of a miniature full-rigged ship.

Every time his father returned from his voyages during the next few years he found his son still growing, and still in the same settled purpose — that of folio

THE MIDSHIPMAN. ii

lowing in his footsteps. And now a great change took place in Captain Perry's life. Early in the year 1798 Captain Perry left the merchant service and accepted the command of the United States frigate General Greene, and upon his return from his first cruise he secured the appointment so long wished for, and returned home in April, 1799, for a short stay. When he joined his ship, young Oliver Hazard Perry, dressed in a new midshipman's uniform, was with him. Some people might have considered it a drawback for a lad to have commenced his career by serving in the same vessel his father commanded, but Oliver was a boy of too much individuality either to be hindered by this connection or to take advantage of it. He took his place among the other midshipmen naturally and without assumption. He worked hard and diligently at his studies, and soon became the leader in the steerage so far as mathematics was concerned. Now, if a boy supposes that by leaving school and going to sea he is going to escape the drudgery of study and the dry poring over dull facts and figures, he is mistaken. All the work that he has done heretofore will be found to be nothing when compared with that which he has to go through with in the service — that is, of course, if he wishes to become an officer and earn the attention and respect of superiors and inferiors alike.

The General Greene had set sail at once for the

Havana station, and, in a short cruise of three months in those waters, convoyed more than fifty merchant vessels to different ports of the United States, She would probably have stayed longer had it not been that a contagious fever broke out in the forecastle, and she was ordered home to spend a long time in quarantine.

Midshipman Perry had now begun to grow up to his height, his muscles were becoming developed and hard, his shoulders and chest had broadened, and his face had become fuller; altogether he was a very different-looking lad before the end of the year was out, and all this his father noticed with satisfaction. Every morning before breakfast on board the General Greene the midshipmen were sent in a scamper up the shrouds to the maintop, and down again the other side, and this was twice repeated. Any one who might consider this light exercise had best try it for himself. It was not long before Midshipman Perry was a leader in this sport, as well as in the study of navigation and the languages.

Although Captain Perry saw no more of his son than he did of the other midshipmen, he was delighted and proud. He perceived that there was the making of an officer in his boy, and often his eye glistened when the junior officers spoke well of Oliver. As for the midshipman himself, his admiration and love for his father grew and expanded daily, and he believed firmly that with him in command nothing could go wrong, no enemy would ever be able to take the ship, no storm would battle her, no misfortune overcome her.

A little incident that occurred while the General Greene was still cruising in the Gulf is well worth mentioning, because it shows so plainly the independence and the boldness of spirit that the early Yankee captains seemed to possess. One bright day, while on a voyage from New Orleans to Havana, with a large merchant brig under convoy, a great sail well up to windward was seen bearing down, and soon it was made out that the stranger was a British seventy-four. The brig was also to windward of the General Greene, and thus the British battle ship approached her first. She was a faster sailer than either of the American vessels, and, although the words could not be heard, it was evident to all on board the General Greene that the stranger was hailing the brig, who edged ofif a little without replying. Probably angered at being thus ignored, the English captain fired a gun across the smaller vessel's bows, but no attention was paid to this, and both Yankee ships sailed on, minding their own business and betraying not the least flurry of excitement. Quietly the crew of the frigate was called to quarters, for it was made out that the Englishman was up to some trickery. Forging ahead of the brig once more, he dropped a boat without heaving to, and an armed crew slipped down into her, but soon after they had taken up their oars, and before they reached the little vessel's side. Captain Perry had given a few instructions to one of the gunners of the first division on the spar deck to bring his piece to bear upon the boat,

" Handsomely, now, my man," said Captain Perry, " and see if you can make a good shot of it."

" Am I to try to hit her, sir? " asked the gunner, a little astonished.

" If you can," answered the captain laconically.

What would have happened if that shot had struck the small boat it might be hard to say; as it was, it slammed into the water but a few feet astern of her, and deluged the men in the stern sheets with a shower of spray. The men at the oars apparently did not like the idea of becoming a target, and stopped rowing. Their boat drifted down with the wind until it reached the side of the General Greene, but the seventy-four had begun to act like a very angry mother hen whose one chick had been disturbed and frightened. Her yards swung around with a clatter, and bristling and bustling she bore down upon the little frigate. Then she swung about so as almost to blanket her, and an officer on the quarter-deck of the Englishman appeared at the rail, trumpet in hand, and hailed angrily:

"What ship is that?"

" The United States frigate General Greene."

*' Why did you fire at my boat just now? "

" To prevent her boarding that brig. She is under my protection, sir."

The EngHshman's irritated outburst in reply to this caused the officers on the General Greene's quarter-deck to smile, despite the rather serious aspect of affairs.

" It is a strange thing," roared the British captain, " if one of his Majesty's seventy-four-gun ships can not examine a merchant brig."

Captain Perry hailed back through his own trumpet a reply to this:

" If she carried one hundred and twenty guns she should not do it to the dishonor of my flag."

A consultation was held on the Englishman's decks, and then the captain came to the rail again.

" Pardon me for having been apparently hasty," he said, " but have you any objection to my boarding the brig? "

Captain Perry looked out across the water for an instant, and then responded in tones quite as polite:

" If her captain has no objections, I have none," he responded. " You had better ask him, sir."

" Thank you, sir," answered the British captain.

" Good-day to you, sir."

" Good-day, sir."

And now the Yankee officers could not keep from laughing. During all this talk the little brig had been making short tacks and beating up into the wind, until she had so well gained the weather gauge that it would take the Englishman full half a day, despite his speed, to be on even terms again. As soon as he had perceived what had happened, as if deciding that the game was not worth the candle, he gave it up, and bore away to the southward before the wind. Very soon the brig and the frigate joined company again, and without any further adventures they reached their destination.

In the year 1800, with the same ofificers and the same crew, the General Greene was dispatched to cruise in the waters surrounding the island of Haiti, and here the midshipmen had an opportunity to see a little fighting, for ofit" the port of Jacmel the General Greene dropped anchor. The inhabitants of the island were then in revolt, and were under the leadership of the celebrated negro general, Toussaint I'Ouverture. As the United States had for some years been upon bad terms with France, and as the independence of the island was considered to be more promising to American commerce, the General Greene assisted in the reduction of the fort, and after blockading the port for some time she joined with her batteries in an engagement which resulted in the evacuation of the town by the enemy, and the surrender of the fortress and garrison eventually.

The General Greene suffered but little in the action, and no lives were lost.

Oliver and his father did not part until the following year, 1801, when the naval force of the nation was reduced again to almost nothing. In the fall of this year the corsairs of Tripoli commenced such depredations upon American commerce that it was deemed necessary to send three frigates and a sloop of war to the Mediterranean at once. Young Perry was attached to the Adams frigate, under the command of Captain Campbell. So successful was this little fleet that the pirates were driven practically from the Mediterranean waters to the protection of their ports, and thousands upon thousands of dollars were saved to American commerce.

In 1803 Perry returned to the United States. He was now an acting lieutenant at the age of eighteen, but age counted little in these days when the country itself was young. Experience, coolness of judgment, and bravery were qualifications that offset those of extreme youth. It was the era of young men — young men in politics, young men in business life, and young men in the service of their country, who builded its glories and successes into a monument of the times emblazoned with the records of brave deeds not to be forgotten while the nation is a nation, and the flag they fought for floats above us. It might be well to try to understand the reasons why young men should be placed in such responsible positions as they filled in the early part of this century. In the first place, the lack of education among the lower classes of the people, from which were drawn the ordinary sailor before the mast, was a great drawback to advancement of men from the ranks. Probably the majority of them could read and write, but a youth whose preparation for service at sea embraced the study of mathematics and navigation, enabling him to work a vessel's course, and determine latitude and longitude by the sun or any of the heavenly bodies, soon found himself at the head of men whose experience afloat might equal the sum of his entire life. The early experience of the midshipmen was of the most practical kind, and the officer of a ship, besides being a navigator, must perforce be able to understand and perform the duties of the commonest sailor. Thus he gained their respect, and they knew that they could trust him; for, with all his knowledge of things they did not understand, he regarded things from their point of view also. But to return to our hero. In 1804 we find him, then, in the Mediterranean under the same commander as before, and on board one of the frigates engaged in the reduction of Tripoli. So well had he conducted himself, and such trust had Captain Campbell found him worthy of, that a few days before his nineteenth birthday he was appointed to the command of the Nautilus, a little schooner attached to the squadron, and in her he had numerous adventures worth relating. To give a recounting of all of them would be to write a separate history of the war with Tripoli, and so we give but a short account of the connection of. Perry's command with one of the most daring enterprises of all naval history.

There was a group of young men, all junior ofHcers of the American fleet, scarcely more than boys, who vied with each other in deeds of daring and boldness. Probably rashness might be a good word to use in connection with some of their doings, for apparently they acted upon impulse, and counted no odds in many cases where older and wiser heads would have dictated prudence. In the little cabin of the Nautilus were gathered a group of young men, all smooth-shaven, ruddy of cheek and bright of eye. But a year or two previously they had been rollicking youngsters together in the steerage; but now most of them had epaulets on their left shoulders. The tallest of them could scarcely stand erect, so low were the deck beams overhead. Perry was sitting at the head of the table. He spoke to a slender lad with aquiline features and light hair, who sat beside him with his chin in the hollow of his hand.

" How far in do you suppose we can go before discovery, Somers? " he asked.

" It all depends," was the answer, given in a dreamy manner, as if the lad's thoughts were far away. " I'm going in until I get bows on to something that will stop me. Of course, you fellows won't go any farther than the mouth of the harbor. I hope that the night's dark, and the wind for the nor'west."

'* Has the commodore decided what night we are going to try it? " put in a handsome curly-headed young fellow, placing his hand on Somers's shoulder.

" To-morrow night, I take it," was the rejoinder; " we'll probably get our orders in the morning."

One of the ship's messengers here appeared at the door of the cabin. " Boat's alongside, sir," he said, touching his cap.

" Then we'd better be going," said Decatur.

The young commander arose and escorted his guests to the deck, and they left the side with all the usual ceremonies, and shoved ofif into the darkness. But Perry stood there leaning against the rail for some minutes before going below. It seemed hard to imagine that it was but ten years before that he and his father had sat under the shade of the maples while he listened to the tale that had so thrilled him. He had lived not a few stories himself since that day, and now here he was in acting command of his own vessel, with responsibilities upon his shoulders, and men to jump at his very gesture of command. Somehow the expression on Somers's face haunted him — the sad, dreamy look, as if he realized for the first time fully what was before him on the morrow. He could yet hear the roll of the oars, and a laugh broke the stillness, coming from the direction of the parting boats. He recognized that it was Lieutenant Decatur, and then there came another musical laugh. It was Richard Somers this time. Perry turned and went down to the cabin.

Chapter III. The Fire-ship

Perhaps no vessel ever bore a more fitting name or one more suited to her calling than did the bombketch Intrepid, She is inseparably connected with the names of the bravest, and she marks one of the most daring enterprises of all history.*