An Excerpt: October 11, 1776 – Battle of Valcour Island
A successful ship captain in battle does not stand next to the wheel with his hands behind his back. I slipped on the bloody deck as I moved from one end of the ship to another, giving firing instructions as I shifted from gun to gun. I barked orders to be relayed to my flotilla. For hours I never stopped moving, encouraging my men and wreaking havoc on the enemy. Everywhere I went, I heard the sweet whoosh of balls shooting wide and the terrible smack of those hitting their target. A cannonball struck a man near me, covering me with blood and gore. I tried to wipe it off. The salty taste of another man’s blood always finds its way into your mouth.
There are rare pauses in a battle, like the calm in a hurricane— moments when all shooting and cannonade stops. Everyone is either taking a breath or reloading. In those fleeting moments, I shouted myself hoarse through a speaking-horn trumpet to instruct nearby ships, although my words were quickly drowned out by the renewal of cannon fire by both sides.
It was clear the British were concentrating their fire on me and my ship. I knew I stood out in my uniform, but it provided courage to my men. I saw a cannonball gouge our mainmast and crack our cantilevered yardarm. Our location in the center of our arc of ships gave us some protection and advantage. In any event, my ship and crew held up under the pounding.
While the wind was calm in the channel, the maelstrom of misdi- rected cannon and musket balls churned the water as fierce as any storm. The ships strained at their moorings like horses ready to bolt from dan- ger. Pumps spurted as men working below deck struggled to keep ships afloat. Everywhere, the flotsam of battle bobbed amongst the waves.
Rowboats shuttled to the hospital ship Enterprise to deposit the wounded and dying in that vessel filled with pain. Dr. Stephen McCrea and his assistants performed valiant service. We all witnessed their gruesome handiwork as arms, legs, and bodies thrown over the side without ceremony floated amongst our ships.
The British also landed their Indian allies on the isle and the west- ern shore of the channel. Death enveloped us as the red devils poured musket fire and arrows onto our ships. I had anticipated this possibil- ity by stationing our ships as far from shore as possible, and also by protecting the vessels from enemy fire by building aboard five-foot- tall fences called a fascines (essentially thick bundles of sticks tied together). I also ordered our best marksmen to the tops of our masts to provide counterfire.
With our initial success and the retreat of the HMS Maria, we were able to concentrate our fire on the HMS Carleton. Indeed, I had the pleasure of tutoring the gunners on the Congress, as well as aiming a couple of shots with my own hand that struck the HMS Carleton amid- ships. The twelve-gun, sixty-six-foot British schooner received constant raking fire from our half-moon formation. My plan of engaging one man-of-war at a time seemed to be working. The HMS Carleton unsuc- cessfully attempted to drop anchor because its chain was severed by one of our cannon shots; we were able to fill her with cannonballs to the point that she began to list. My men, eager for a prize, boarded rowboats and began to approach the HMS Carleton to take her. Unfortunately, a gust of wind allowed her to get underway with her surviving skele- ton crew. I recall with admiration the sight of a young British midship- man—he single-handedly ran out on the bowsprit, exposing himself to a hail of fire, and released the anchor cable, allowing the ship to drift out of our reach.
At the same time, the British tried again to secure the listing Royal Savage. Regretfully, we had to turn our fire on our abandoned vessel, raking the British and irreparably disabling our ship by setting it ablaze.
One of the truths for soldiers and sailors is that they rarely go by their given names—almost immediately they adopt some friendly or teasing moniker. So it was for Putt. The name struck me because it seemed like a nickname one would give to an old man. Putt was barely twenty, yet he embraced it. I generally called men by their last names or ranks, but on rare occasions, I fell into using their nicknames—as I did with the affable Putt. I looked across the deck of the Congress as he dutifully manned a cannon, ready to swab out the barrel after firing. At that moment, he was struck by a chain shot aimed at our mast.
Modern war is so fierce. It is no longer the wound of axe, sword, or arrow. You hear people say a man was “cut down in battle.” It sounds like a scythe neatly ending a life. The truth is more like trying to cut a piece of meat with a sledgehammer. Parts disappear, and what is left are mangled chunks of flesh. So it was for Putt. In an instant, his top half disappeared in a spray of blood and bone. What was left crumpled and spilled its contents onto the deck. Nothing in my life had prepared me for such carnage, but I also had no time to dwell on it.
The Liberty, Lee, and Washington were near the New York shore and taking heavy casualties from sniper fire. Likewise, numerous deaths occurred in attempting to repel bateaux and canoe boarding parties. Enemy gunners had found their range, and twenty-four-pound projec- tiles were arcing toward our ships from nearly a half mile away. The New Jersey, the Philadelphia, and the Congress each had over twenty holes in them. Repeated hits from British cannonballs had chewed away large portions of their hulls. Fortunately, most were above the waterline. The Trumbull received a twelve-pound round in the stern and twenty or thirty other hits—they were almost out of twelve- and eighteen-pound shot, but her gun crews defiantly continued to fire their remaining ammunition at the enemy.
I had anticipated a short engagement, but hour after hour the guns screamed their hate. Ball, chain, grapeshot, and acrid gray smoke from cannon fire filled the air. Dead and dying lay on the decks of all ships, made slick with blood. Bodies floated around the lake, having been tossed overboard to make room for the remaining fighting crew. Sailors on both sides now embraced each other in death as they never could in life, as rival brothers eternally bonded in a shared violent end. The smell of battle filled our nostrils. Vomit, the contents of men’s bowels, and their innards lay strewn across the decks, mixing with the unfor- gettable stench of burnt flesh, burning wood, and gunpowder. So much blood was flowing off the decks that it looked like the ships themselves were bleeding.
As it passed five o’clock, the battle had been raging for over seven hours. By removing the HMS Carleton, the British had opened the line of approach for their most powerful ships to engage my men. The HMS Inflexible had been forced to hang back all afternoon because of the HMS Carleton’s positioning. Now the two-hundred-ton man-of-war with her twelve-pound cannon pummeled our line for almost an hour, inflicting heavy casualties.
By sunset, the superior British gunnery and firepower began to tell the tale. It was only the coming of darkness that allowed our line to hold. However, the enemy dropped anchor, blocking off escape with their own crescent-moon formation at anchor to our south. I had our ships pull back an additional three hundred yards to give us some space from the enemy and tighten up our lines.
