USS Constitution vs. HMS Guerriere

R. M. Ballantyne loved ships. Because of this, and because of recent personal studies, I decided to write a little bit about the far famed combat of the USS Constitution versus the HMS Guerriere.

Setting

In 1812, the British navy was mistress of the seas. No other power could combat her effectively upon the ocean. The French had been warring for years, but most sea battles ended with British victories. Because of this preponderancy, Napoleon could not get his numerically superior land troops across the channel, onto British soil, although he had been trying for years.

With these successes in mind, British sailors and captains reveled in their authority and looked down upon other nations' naval efforts, especially disregarding those of America. At the time, the American navy was tiny in size and inexperienced in battle. The only real military experience held by our crews were gained in fighting pirates off the coast of Tripoli.

Although the British were such good sailors, they had one problem: a lack of men. English ships were notoriously undermanned, and the press gangs were continuously in use. They practiced impressment, which means that ships belonging to the British Navy could at any time send gangs of men to shore or to other vessels and sweep up all the men they could find for service aboard ship. (This was, of course, as long as they were British citizens.)

Unfortunately, they carried their authority a little too far and began to use impressment on American sailors. You see, a British ship would meet an American ship on the high sea. They would come alongside each other and then the Brit would request the American to summon all crew to deck. After this, they would go among the crew and pretend to find British citizens serving among the crew. If the crew member was an English citizen, they could lawfully use impressment upon him, and force him to leave his ship, and join their's.

In most cases, the seamen they chose were actually American sailors, not British, but we did not have the power to fight back against this injustice, so they would be impressed anyway. This practice was one of the many causes of the War of 1812.

War

With this as the setting, Congress declared war upon Great Britain on June 18, 1812. Many various underlying conflicts and territorial issues were at play in the reasoning behind the declaration of war, but one primary goal in the formal announcement was to stop the continued illegal impressment of American citizens into British ships. The young republic would once again fight the greatest nation in the world in a much forgotten but important war.

Simply put, British sailors were puffed up about their naval successes and power. They expected easy victories over the fledgling American navy, and a speedy end to the war. This, however, was not to be.

Battle

One of the most famous vessels in American naval history is the USS Constitution. Launched in 1797 from Boston, she was one of three sister frigates commissioned by Congress. She gained renown under Commodore Preble, in the fighting off Tripoli a decade earlier, but her real fame was yet to come.

In the month of August, 1812, the Constitution was on a cruise along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, looking for enemy vessels. It was on the 19th of that month that she came across a worthy opponent. The HMS Guerriere was originally a French ship which was captured by the British, and turned into an English vessel, now under the command of a Captain Dacres.

As the ships engaged, Dacres began firing broadsides into the Constitution. Due to special construction designs on the hull, the Constitution did not receive damage from these somewhat distant broadsides, the British shot simply bouncing off the reinforced sides. Jubilant at this sign of strength, legend has it that an American sailor called out -"Hurrah, her sides are made of iron," or something similar. Whatever the exact words were, from then on she was known as "Old Ironsides".