__________
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
John Paul Jones
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THE SONG “Amazing Grace”
is written by an Anglican clergyman and slave trader who believes God will grant
forgiveness for his sins.
 |
The battle between Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis. |
*
The owners would be compensated.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON burned to lead men in battle, as did James Monroe. Hamilton suggested that if other routes were closed, Monroe might join Henry Laurens, who was,
planning to
raise a Negro regiment by offering freedom to slave volunteers. Although Henry
Laurens’ father John had persuaded Congress to approve this scheme with the
recommendation that the owners of the slaves be compensated, it was summarily
rejected by the state legislature. (24/27)
*
February 23: George Rogers Clark and his force of 170 soldiers reach Vincennes,
after an arduous winter march, as described by Lancaster and Plumb:
Men hung back, their
horse voices croaking of inability or unwillingness to go farther. Clark merely
took to the water once more, shouting “Follow me!” while Captain Joseph Bowman
skirted the rear with 25 riflemen who had orders to shoot any stragglers. This
seems to have been the worst part of the march, with water still shoulder-high.
More and more men had to be towed in canoes. Those on their feet tripped and
fell in deep water, then clung to a rotten log or sodden tree until stronger
hands rescued them… (48/280)
For a time, Vincennes
had been in American hands, captured by Clark, then retaken by the British,
under Gov. Henry Hamilton, sometimes known as the “Hair-Buyer,” for his policy
of paying native allies for enemy scalps.
Clark now sends Hamilton,
who commands the fort at Vincennes, warning:
SIR: In order to save
yourself from the impending storm that now threatens you, I order you
immediately to surrender yourself with all your garrison, stores, etc., etc., for,
if I am obliged to storm, you may depend on such treatment as is justly due a
murderer. Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters
that are in your possession, or hurting one house in town, for, by heavens! if
you do there shall be no mercy shown you. G.R. Clark.
To Governor Hamilton. (91/74-75)
Clark later described the short, sharp fight
that followed:
. . . about eight o’clock
gained the heights back of the town. …
Lieutenant Bailey was
ordered, with fourteen men, to march and fire on the fort. The main body … took
possession of the strongest part of the town. The firing now commenced on the
fort. … Reinforcements were sent to the attack of the garrison. … We now found
that the garrison had known nothing of us. …
Ammunition was scarce with us, as the most of our stores had been put on board of the galley … [Several gentlemen of Vincennes] had buried … their powder and ball. This was immediately produced, and we found ourselves well supplied.
*
February 25: The fort falls to the Americans. Hamilton is sent, a prisoner, to
Virginia, where he is kept in chains.
General George
Washington later urges that he be set free, and Hamilton returns to Canada,
where he continues to serve at Lt. Governor.
As Plumb and Lancaster
explain:
Except in exertion
expended and territory covered, the campaign had been a small one, but it
nailed down the whole Illinois territory for Virginia, and hence the United States,
for the rest of the war.
…To George Rogers Clark
goes most of the credit for those provisions in the Treaty of Paris that gave
Kentucky and all the Old Northwest Territory to the United States. (48/284)
*
“Bridge of gold.”
Spring: Major John Andre is pondering ways he might approach top American
commanders, across a “bridge of gold,” and turn them into assets of the Crown.
Benedict Arnold, now
married to the beautiful Peggy Shippen, a Tory sympathizer, seems interested in
crossing that bridge. (48/260)
*
June 21: Spain joins “the allies in hopes of getting back Gibraltar and her
island possessions in the Mediterranean.” (124/231)
According to Van Loon, Washington
also has the aid of old man Distance:
…no matter how hard the
English tried, no matter how bravely they fought, they found themselves out
marched and outdistanced on every field of battle. Thus far, in all their wars,
they had been able to depend on their navy, but ships were of little use in the
Allegheny Mountains and no men of war could safely hope to sail across the “drowned
lands” of Illinois. Footwork was to be the decisive factor in this encounter
and footwork, after two or three years, has a tendency to become somewhat
monotonous and undermine the discipline of the best regulated troops. (124/231-232)
*
“I did not improve my time well.”
July 8: Mary Osgood Sumner begins a diary, including a “Black Leaf,”
indicating her sins and mistakes, and a “White Leaf,” indicating her better
moments. The year here is unclear, but she writes, under “Black,”
Entries in her “White
Leaf” include:
July 8. I went and said my Catechism
to-day. Came home and wrote down the questions and answers, then dressed and
went to the dance, endeavoured to behave myself decent.
12. I went to meeting and paid good attention to the sermon, came home
and wrote down as much of it as I could remember.
27. I did everything this morning same as usual, went to school and
endeavored to be diligent; came home and washed the butter and assisted in
getting coffee.
Aug. 1. I got some peaches
for to stew after I was done washing up the things and got my work and was
midlin Diligent.
4. I did everything before breakfast and
after breakfast got some peaches for Aunt Mell and then got my work and stuck
pretty close to it and at night sat up with Sister and nursed her as good as I
could.
9. I endeavored to improve my time to-day in reading and attending
to what Brother read and most of the evening I was singing. (167/169)
*
SUMMER: General Washington has ordered Gen. John Sullivan and others to
march against the Iroquois nation.
The country of the Six
Nations was to be invaded with “the total destruction … of their settlements
and the capture of as many prisoners … as possible.” Prisoners of all ages and
sexes were to be held as hostages, being “the only kind of security to be
depended on” for the future good behavior of the Indians, in the commander in chief’s
opinion.
Settlements, which
Washington had marked down for destruction, were no huddles of wigwams. The tribes
had actual towns studded with good houses, sometimes of stone with glazed
windows, and the adjoining orchard tracts showed years of careful husbandry.
Politically, the Six Nations had kept step with their architecture and
cultivation. They had a sort of constitution and a code of law, the whole
forming a pattern of life that might have survived peaceably with the ever-oncoming
white settlers. Unfortunately, tribal life had lagged in development. The women
– and only the women – tended the fine farms and orchards. Men were above such
sordid tasks. War – which may be translated as indiscriminate bloody raiding –
and hunting alone were worthy of masculine attention. Such a tribal frame of
mind made peace a mere breathing spell between raids and forays, an unthinkable,
unattainable end.
The first Iroquois
village to go up in flames was the village of Chemung.
Here was something new
for the troops, at least those from the eastern states. There were “between 30 &
40 Houses, some of them large and neatly finish’d; particularly a Chapel and Council
House.” There was no resistance, and Chemung flamed up in a “glorious Bonfire
and wide fields of grain and vegetables were ruin’d.” If this seemed a ghastly
desolation, the troops could recall that out of such villages came Indians who
had been burning and killing and torturing through the Mohawk Valley and the
Susquehanna. …
Another town, deserted
like Chemung, was surrounded and burned: “one of the Neatest of the Indian
towns … with good Log houses with Stone Chimneys and glass windows.” …
[Soldiers laid waste to]
fields whose richness showed every sign of husbandry as fine as anything the
white man knew. Here were acres of “Cucombars, Squashes, Turnips, Pompions.”
Cornfields showed ears an awesome two feet in length. Squaw-labor had ranged
neat rows of “beans … Simblens [sometimes called pattypans or summer squash]
watermelons and pumpkins such as cannot be equalled in Jersey.” It seems odd
that in the midst of such lavishness the ration problem existed for any man,
but Henry Dearborn one day “eat part of a fryed Rattle Snake… which would have
tasted very well, had it not been Snake.”
The savagery of this type
of border warfare was shown after Indians and Tories tried to ambush the
American army. The ambush failed, and the Americans chased their foes into the
woods. Lt. William Barton’s men found several dead Iroquois after the fight. As
Barton admitted, he “skinned two of them from their hips down for boot legs; one
pair for the Major [Daniel Piatt] the other for myself.” (48/285-286, 288-291)
*
September 23: John Paul Jones defeats the Serapis in battle and takes the
battered prize into the harbor of Texel. The Dutch made
Jones into a national
hero and wherever he and his strange crew had shown themselves (out of the two
hundred and twenty-seven sailors under his command only seventy-nine were
Americans) they had been received with loud expressions of popular approval. (124/228-229)
Around this same time,
as Van Loon notes,
Gold transports from
Holland, addressed directly to General George Washington, Esq. (and sent not to
Congress), found their way across the ocean and upon several occasions
prevented a recurrence of those outbreaks of near-mutiny [among the soldiers] which
had become only too common during the last four years of Congressional neglect
and indifference and which sometimes made Washington fear that he would have to
fight the war for independence single-handed. (124/230)
*
23“Thunders
shook the mighty deep.”
The Youth’s History of the United States by Ellis, gives this description of Jones and his career:
No history of the revolution
would be complete without an account of the exploits of Paul Jones, one of the
most daring sea rovers that ever lived. France had sent a squadron to America,
as you have already learned, but it was a long time before it rendered any real
service to the cause of independence. Meanwhile, privateers were fitted out all
along our coast. Though unable to meet the regular men-of-war of the enemy,
they struck many effectual blows. None of the privateersmen, however, could
compare with John Paul Jones, who was a Scotchman by birth, and not quite
thirty years of age when the Revolution broke out.
While only a boy he became a
sailor in the merchant service and went to America. He visited an elderly
brother, who had married and settled in Virginia, and soon formed such a liking
for the new country that he adopted it as his own. Congress having determined
to fit out a naval force, Jones was appointed first lieutenant of the Alfred, whereon he hoisted with his own
hands the first national flag ever unfurled on an American ship.
There has been much question as
to the identity of this flag. There died in the city of Trenton, New Jersey, a
few years ago, Miss Sarah Smith Stafford, an old lady whose patriotism had made
her known throughout the Union. Her mother witnessed the battle of Lexington,
and her father, while serving under Paul Jones, was wounded during the battle
with the Serapis. He lived, however,
to be more than ninety years old.
This old lady had, among her
numerous valuable relics, a flag which she insisted was the one that Paul Jones
first raised on the Alfred and afterward on the Bon Homme Richard. The flag has been exhibited in different parts
of the country, and possibly you may have seen it. If so, you have noticed that
while it resembles our national banner, it has only twelve instead of thirteen
stripes. Miss Stafford informed me that the flag was made by the lady members
of the old Swedish church in Philadelphia, and was presented by them to Paul
Jones. As he was rowed down the river to his ship, Jones stood up in the boat
and waved the flag to and fro, amid the cheers of those on shore…
The foreign commerce of America
was ruined by the ravages of the British cruisers, and capital and men sought
reward in privateering. In the year 1777 nearly five hundred prizes were taken
by American privateers. For his skill and courage Paul Jones was soon advanced
to the rank of captain, and he sailed for Europe in 1778 resolved to retaliate
in kind upon those who had ravaged the American coast.
Jones cruised off Solway Firth, close to his birth-place. One
night with thirty-one volunteers he rowed out in two boats to the coast of Scotland,
and in the harbor of Whitehaven set fire to three vessels and spiked a large
number of cannon in the guard-room of the fort. All England was alarmed when
the following year he put to sea in the Bon
Homme Richard, an old Indiaman given to him by the king of France. He now
had the rank of commodore, and was accompanied by two consorts, the Alliance and Pallas. He first sailed to the Firth of Forth and threw Edinburgh
and Leith into consternation. Afterward, when off Scarborough, he sighted the
homeward-bound Baltic fleet of merchantmen escorted by the frigates Countess of Scarborough and Serapis, the latter a ship of fifty guns
and the former of twenty-two.
Two-thirds of the men with Jones
were prisoners of war [Americans, I believe], and his regular crews had been
weakened in order to take charge of his many prizes, but he signaled to his
consorts to join in pursuit, his own ship Richard
crowding all sail. The latter carried forty-four guns, and the entire number of
men in Jones’s fleet was about three hundred and seventy-five.
The sea fight that followed was
one of the bloodiest ever known. The sun had set and the full moon was in the
sky when the captain of the Serapis
twice hailed Paul Jones, whose only answer was to open fire, to which the enemy
instantly replied. The battle had hardly begun when two of the guns on the
lower deck of the Bon Homme Richard
burst. Several of the men were killed, the rest ran up to the main deck, the
guns which they left not being worked again during the battle.
Jones was always fiercely in
earnest and his wish was to fight at close quarters. After a little maneuvering
he closed with Serapis, but finding
he could not bring his guns to bear, let her fall off again. Captain Pearson of
the latter shouted,
“Have you struck?”
“Struck!” called back Jones: “I
haven’t begun to fight yet!”
As the Serapis swung round, her jib-boom caught in the mizzen-rigging of
the Richard. Jones himself lashed the
boom to his mast. The lurching of the vessels broke the hold, but one of the
enemy’s anchors caught his quarter and held fast. Thenceforward, as may be
said, the two foes fought locked in each other’s arms.
When the Serapis attempted to fire through from the starboard side, she
found she could not open the ports because the Richard was too close; so the cannon were first discharged with the
ports closed, the port-lids being blown away in order to open a passage. The
main deck of the Richard was so high
that the broadsides from the main deck of Serapis
did not hurt any one, for you will remember that the Americans had deserted the
lower deck of the Richard. The firing, however, did great damage to the ship.
The fighting went on for two
hours. The Serapis and Richard delivered their terrible
broadsides as often as the cannon could be loaded and discharged. The moon lit
up the strange scene, and the smoke from the guns drifted off through the spars
and rigging and settled into a cloud above. Their “thunders shook the mighty
deep,” and never did men fight with greater bravery.
It was at this time that Paul
Jones made the maddening discovery that his colleague Captain Landais,
commanding the Alliance, was firing
into him. Sometimes Landais would discharge his broadside at the Scarborough, and then deliberately aim
at the Bon Homme Richard. Many of the
Americans believed she had fallen into English hands.
Commodore Jones, however, had no
time to inquire into the astounding behavior of his captain, but gave his whole
attention to the Serapis, whose tars
were fighting like heroes. In the rigging of the Richard were perched a number of sailors, who flung hand grenades
upon the deck of the Serapis. One of
the seamen made his way out to the end of the main-yard, carrying with him a
bucket of the deadly missiles. These he carefully lighted and dropped down the
hatchway of the Serapis. He was so
cool that he hit the mark every time.
Unfortunately for the Serapis a row of eighteen-pound
cartridges had been left on the deck by the powder-boys, and they now stretched
the whole length of the ship. The American sailor up aloft dropped one of his
flaming grenades into this row, and the explosion that instantly followed blew
a score of men to pieces and severely burned others.
Captain Pearson again called out
to Jones to know whether he had struck, but Jones, who was at the other end of
his ship directing the fire of his nine-pounders, did not hear him. Then
Pearson summoned his boarders and made a dash for the deck of the Richard, but Jones caught up a pike and,
leading the charge, drove them back. A half hour later Pearson struck. His ship
had been fired a dozen times, but it was the explosion caused by the
hand-grenade dropped from the rigging of the Richard that decided the battle against him. It had silenced his
main battery, and that was his chief reliance.
Amid the awful din and smoke and
uproar, half the people on the Serapis
believed it was the Richard that had
surrendered. Pearson himself hauled down his flag. Half his men were disabled
and the others were terrified by the murderous fire from the rigging of the Richard.
When morning broke the Richard was seen to be a complete wreck.
She was still on fire, and the broadsides of the Serapis had riddled her as though she were made of card-board. She
was fast sinking, and Jones had only time to remove his wounded and then his
crew to the Serapis when his own
vessel went to the bottom. Four-fifths of his men were killed or wounded. He
took his prizes into Holland and turned them over to the French government. To
save the Dutch from diplomatic trouble the commodore assumed command of the Alliance
and put to sea. Landais sailed for home, and on his arrival was deposed from
his command on the ground of insanity, and was afterward expelled from the
navy.
The king of France, through his
ambassador at the Hague, complimented Jones for his exploit, and presented him
with a sword. The commodore’s victory enabled him to effect the release of the
American prisoners in England, who were exchanged for the officers and seamen
he had captured.
Jones was absent from home for
about three years, during which time his exploits were numerous and of the most
astonishing character. He was denounced as a pirate by the English, who became
so alarmed by his achievements that many people did not feel safe even in
London. Some of the timid ones looked out on the Thames, half expecting to see
the terrible fellow lay their city under tribute. At one time he landed on the
coast of Scotland, and, appearing at the residence of the Earl of Selkirk,
captured a large amount of silver plate and booty. But he treated the earl’s
household with great courtesy, and the plate that was seized at the time is now
in the possession of the members of the Selkirk family.
NOTE TO TEACHERS: I
felt the story of John Paul Jones offered a chance to
look at the nature of courage and success – this time in battle. When Jones
spotted enemy vessels in the distance. He
steered immediately for the largest British target, Serapis, a warship of 50 guns.
Each year I tried to tell the story the
same way, giving it a drama it deserved. At first the British pounded Jones. Serapis had heavier guns and more of them and hammered the
American ship. Two of Jones’s largest guns blew up as soon as he fired them. So
he had to order his biggest cannon to remain silent, and fought one-handed, as
it were.
Serapis poured in fire and Jones maneuvered
closer – hoping to allow his men to board the enemy ship and take it that way.
A shot carried away the American flag and Captain Pearson on Serapis
called out for the American commander to surrender. Jones responded firmly: “I
have not yet begun to fight.”
Eventually, Jones rammed against the
side of Pearson’s ship and grappling hooks and ropes were used to tie the ships
together, until they were as “snug as two logs in a woodpile.”
Jones’ move had been so sudden that he
caught the British with some of their gun doors closed. Now they were so tight
together the doors could not swing open. Pearson ordered his crews to shoot
them off and keep pouring fire into the American vessel’s sides. The two ships
were as close as cars in a parking lot. Sailors could stab at enemy gunners
through the ports. The slaughter was fearsome. Cannonballs tore men apart,
shattered guns and sent jagged metal fragments flying in all directions. Wooden
planks were blown to bits, and whizzing splinters increased the terror. The
dead lay in heaps and blood ran in streams across the decks.
Bonhomme Richard was soon so full of holes that
enemy fire passed in one side, out the other, and splashed in the ocean beyond.
How, then, does Jones win? That was the
question I wanted to pose and wanted my students to consider. I explained that
there were marines in the tops of the sails. Now one of the Americans saw an
open hatch on the deck of the enemy ship. He lit his match, and heaved his
bomb. I drew another dumb little picture to show what happened next. The bomb
bounced once or twice on the deck and then fell through the opening, landing
near a stack of gunpowder bags. The explosion tore the heart out of the British
warship. Twenty enemy sailors were killed and many wounded by the explosion;
then Jones and his three remaining guns began aiming at the main mast of Serapis and broke it off.
Preston had no choice but to surrender.
The details didn’t matter in any cosmic
sense – but made for a good story. Captured prisoners, taken in earlier
clashes, were forced to keep manning pumps below desks as Jones’ vessel kept up
the fight and continued slowly sinking. An American sailor had begged Jones to
surrender – till Jones hurled a pistol at his head and knocked him cold.
What then matters about a sea battle
long ago? Do we test on dates: 1779? Or
names of ships? Or should students recognize names? In this case, with Jones’ name, I felt the
answer was yes.
What else? To me the answer was clear. THREE. That was the key. THREE.
Jones had continued to fight when only
three guns remained – and it was that perseverance that mattered. I wanted
students to think. Were they like Jones? Or were they prone to quit in the face
of difficulty?
I was watching a seventh grade basketball
practice one day, and saw a kid skid on the floor and burn his knee. A trickle
of blood began (this was long before the fear of AIDS led to a rule change, and
bleeding players had to come out). So, he came over to Coach H. and asked to be
taken out.
I told my classes that if they were
playing, they should never want to come out. In basketball and soccer, especially,
perpetual movement, running hard at all times, made a difference. Even if you
weren’t the fastest or best player, I explained, you had to keep firing your
“three guns.” You had to refuse to quit.
HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DID ATTITUDE MAKE? WAS IT LUCK – THE GRENADE TOSS – THAT WON THE BATTLE?
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