University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

To a quiet, contemplative character, averse to uproar, undue
exercise of his bodily members, and all kind of useless
confusion, nothing can be more distressing than a proceeding
in all men-of-war called “general quarters.” And well may
it be so called, since it amounts to a general drawing and
quartering of all the parties concerned.

As the specific object for which a man-of-war is built and
put into commission is to fight and fire off cannon, it is, of
course, deemed indispensable that the crew should be duly instructed
in the art and mystery involved. Hence these “general
quarters,” which is a mustering of all hands to their stations
at the guns on the several decks, and a sort of sham-fight
with an imaginary foe.

The summons is given by the ship's drummer, who strikes
a peculiar beat—short, broken, rolling, shuffling—like the
sound made by the march into battle of iron-heeled grenadiers.
It is a regular tune, with a fine song composed to it; the
words of the chorus, being most artistically arranged, may
give some idea of the air:

In warm weather this pastime at the guns is exceedingly
unpleasant, to say the least, and throws a quiet man into a violent
passion and perspiration. For one, I ever abominated it.

I have a heart like Julius Cæsar, and upon occasion would
fight like Caius Marcius Coriolanus. If my beloved and forever
glorious country should be ever in jeopardy from invaders,

let Congress put me on a war-horse, in the van-guard, and
then see how I will acquit myself. But to toil and sweat in
a fictitious encounter; to squander the precious breath of my
precious body in a ridiculous fight of shams and pretensions;
to hurry about the decks, pretending to carry the killed and
wounded below; to be told that I must consider the ship
blowing up, in order to exercise myself in presence of mind,
and prepare for a real explosion; all this I despise, as beneath
a true tar and man of valor.

These were my sentiments at the time, and these remain
my sentiments still; but as, while on board the frigate, my
liberty of thought did not extend to liberty of expression, I
was obliged to keep these sentiments to myself; though, indeed,
I had some thoughts of addressing a letter, marked Private
and Confidential, to his Honor the Commodore, on the
subject.

My station at the batteries was at one of the thirty-two-pound
carronades, on the starboard side of the quarter-deck.[1]

I did not fancy this station at all; for it is well known on
shipboard that, in time of action, the quarter-deck is one of the

most dangerous posts of a man-of-war. The reason is, that
the officers of the highest rank are there stationed; and the
enemy have an ungentlemanly way of target-shooting at their
buttons. If we should chance to engage a ship, then, who
could tell but some bungling small-arm marksman in the enemy's
tops might put a bullet through me instead of the Commodore?
If they hit him, no doubt he would not feel it
much, for he was used to that sort of thing, and, indeed, had
a bullet in him already. Whereas, I was altogether unaccustomed
to having blue pills playing round my head in such
an indiscriminate way. Besides, ours was a flag-ship; and
every one knows what a peculiarly dangerous predicament the
quarter-deck of Nelson's flag-ship was in at the battle of Trafalgar;
how the lofty tops of the enemy were full of soldiers,
peppering away at the English Admiral and his officers.
Many a poor sailor, at the guns of that quarter-deck, must
have received a bullet intended for some wearer of an epaulet.

By candidly confessing my feelings on this subject, I do by
no means invalidate my claims to being held a man of prodigious
valor. I merely state my invincible repugnance to
being shot for somebody else. If I am shot, be it with the
express understanding in the shooter that I am the identical
person intended so to be served. That Thracian who, with
his compliments, sent an arrow into the King of Macedon, superscribed
“For Philip's right eye,” set a fine example to all
warriors. The hurried, hasty, indiscriminate, reckless, abandoned
manner in which both sailors and soldiers nowadays
fight is really painful to any serious-minded, methodical old
gentleman, especially if he chance to have systematized his
mind as an accountant. There is little or no skill and bravery
about it. Two parties, armed with lead and old iron, envelop
themselves in a cloud of smoke, and pitch their lead
and old iron about in all directions. If you happen to be in
the way, you are hit; possibly, killed; if not, you escape. In
sea-actions, if by good or bad luck, as the case may be, a round
shot, fired at random through the smoke, happens to send overboard

your fore-mast, another to unship your rudder, there
you lie crippled, pretty much at the mercy of your foe; who,
accordingly, pronounces himself victor, though that honor
properly belongs to the Law of Gravitation operating on the
enemy's balls in the smoke. Instead of tossing this old lead
and iron into the air, therefore, it would be much better amicably
to toss up a copper and let heads win.

The carronade at which I was stationed was known as
“Gun No. 5,” on the First Lieutenant's quarter-bill. Among
our gun's crew, however, it was known as Black Bet. This
name was bestowed by the captain of the gun—a fine negro
—in honor of his sweet-heart, a colored lady of Philadelphia.
Of Black Bet I was rammer-and-sponger; and ram and
sponge I did, like a good fellow. I have no doubt that, had
I and my gun been at the battle of the Nile, we would mutually
have immortalized ourselves; the ramming-pole would
have been hung up in Westminster Abbey; and I, ennobled
by the king, besides receiving the illustrious honor of an autograph
letter from his majesty through the perfumed right hand
of his private secretary.

But it was terrible work to help run in and out of the port-hole
that amazing mass of metal, especially as the thing must
be done in a trice. Then, at the summons of a horrid, rasping
rattle, swayed by the Captain in person, we were made
to rush from our guns, seize pikes and pistols, and repel an
imaginary army of boarders, who, by a fiction of the officers,
were supposed to be assailing all sides of the ship at once.
After cutting and slashing at them a while, we jumped back
to our guns, and again went to jerking our elbows.

Meantime, a loud cry is heard of “Fire! fire! fire!” in the
fore-top; and a regular engine, worked by a set of Boweryboy
tars, is forthwith set to playing streams of water aloft.
And now it is “Fire! fire! fire!” on the main-deck; and the
entire ship is in as great a commotion as if a whole city ward
were in a blaze.

Are our officers of the Navy utterly unacquainted with the

laws of good health? Do they not know that this violent
exercise, taking place just after a hearty dinner, as it generally
does, is eminently calculated to breed the dyspepsia?
There was no satisfaction in dining; the flavor of every mouthful
was destroyed by the thought that the next moment the
cannonading drum might be beating to quarters.

Such a sea-martinet was our Captain, that sometimes we
were roused from our hammocks at night; when a scene would
ensue that it is not in the power of pen and ink to describe.
Five hundred men spring to their feet, dress themselves, take
up their bedding, and run to the nettings and stow it; then
hie to their stations—each man jostling his neighbor—some
alow, some aloft; some this way, some that; and in less than
five minutes the frigate is ready for action, and still as the
grave; almost every man precisely where he would be were
an enemy actually about to be engaged. The Gunner, like
a Cornwall miner in a cave, is burrowing down in the magazine
under the Ward-room, which is lighted by battle-lanterns,
placed behind glazed glass bull's=eyes inserted in the
bulkhead. The powder-monkeys, or boys, who fetch and carry
cartridges, are scampering to and fro among the guns; and the
first and second loaders stand ready to receive their supplies.

These Powder-monkeys, as they are called, enact a curious
part in time of action. The entrance to the magazine on the
berth-deck, where they procure their food for the guns, is
guarded by a woolen screen; and a gunner's mate, standing
behind it, thrusts out the cartridges through a small arm-hole
in this screen. The enemy's shot (perhaps red hot) are flying
in all directions; and to protect their cartridges, the powder-monkeys
hurriedly wrap them up in their jackets; and
with all haste scramble up the ladders to their respective
guns, like eating-house waiters hurrying along with hot cakes
for breakfast.

At general quarters the shot-boxes are uncovered; showing
the grape-shot—aptly so called, for they precisely resemble
bunches of the fruit; though, to receive a bunch of iron

grapes in the abdomen would be but a sorry dessert; and also
showing the canister-shot—old iron of various sorts, packed in
a tin case, like a tea-caddy.

Imagine some midnight craft sailing down on her enemy
thus; twenty-four pounders leveled, matches lighted, and each
captain of his gun at his post!

But if verily going into action, then would the Neversink
have made still further preparations; for however alike in
some things, there is always a vast difference—if you sound
them—between a reality and a sham. Not to speak of the
pale sternness of the men at their guns at such a juncture, and
the choked thoughts at their hearts, the ship itself would here
and there present a far different appearance. Something like
that of an extensive mansion preparing for a grand entertainment,
when folding-doors are withdrawn, chambers converted
into drawing-rooms, and every inch of available space thrown
into one continuous whole. For previous to an action, every
bulk-head in a man-of-war is knocked down; great guns are
run out of the Commodore's parlor windows; nothing separates
the ward-room officers' quarters from those of the men,
but an ensign used for a curtain. The sailors' mess-chests are
tumbled down into the hold; and the hospital cots—of which
all men-of-war carry a large supply—are dragged forth from
the sail-room, and piled near at hand to receive the wounded;
amputation-tables are ranged in the cock-pit or in the tiers,
whereon to carve the bodies of the maimed. The yards are
slung in chains; fire-screens distributed here and there; hillocks
of cannon-balls piled between the guns; shot-plugs suspended
within easy reach from the beams; and solid masses
of wads, big as Dutch cheeses, braced to the cheeks of the gun-carriages.

No small difference, also, would be visible in the ward-robe
of both officers and men. The officers generally fight as dandies
dance, namely, in silk stockings; inasmuch as, in case of
being wounded in the leg, the silk-hose can be more easily
drawn off by the Surgeon; cotton sticks, and works into the

wound. An economical captain, while taking care to case his
legs in silk, might yet see fit to save his best suit, and fight in
his old clothes. For, besides that an old garment might much
better be cut to pieces than a new one, it must be a mighty
disagreeable thing to die in a stiff, tight-breasted coat, not yet
worked easy under the armpits. At such times, a man
should feel free, unencumbered, and perfectly at his ease in
point of straps and suspenders. No ill-will concerning his
tailor, should intrude upon his thoughts of eternity. Seneca
understood this, when he chose to die naked in a bath. And
men-of-war's-men understand it, also; for most of them, in
battle, strip to the waist-bands; wearing nothing but a pair
of duck trowsers, and a handkerchief round their head.

A captain combining a heedful patriotism with economy,
would probably “bend” his old topsails before going into battle,
instead of exposing his best canvass to be riddled to pieces;
for it is generally the case that the enemy's shot flies high.
Unless allowance is made for it in pointing the tube, at long-gun
distance, the slightest roll of the ship, at the time of firing,
would send a shot, meant for the hull, high over the top-gallant
yards.

But besides these differences between a sham-fight at general
quarters and a real cannonading, the aspect of the ship,
at the beating of the retreat, would, in the latter case, be
very dissimilar to the neatness and uniformity in the former.

Then our bulwarks might look like the walls of the houses
in West Broadway in New York, after being broken into and
burned out by the Negro Mob. Our stout masts and yards
might be lying about decks, like tree boughs after a tornado
in a piece of woodland; our dangling ropes, cut and sundered
in all directions, would be bleeding tar at every yarn; and
strewn with jagged splinters from our wounded planks, the
gun-deck might resemble a carpenter's shop. Then, when
all was over, and all hands would be piped to take down the
hammocks from the exposed nettings (where they play the
part of the cotton bales at New Orleans), we might find bits

of broken shot, iron bolts, and bullets in our blankets. And,
while smeared with blood like butchers, the surgeon and his
mates would be amputating arms and legs on the berth-deck,
an underling of the carpenter's gang would be new-legging
and arming the broken chairs and tables in the Commodore's
cabin; while the rest of his squad would be splicing and fishing
the shattered masts and yards. The scupper-holes having
discharged the last rivulet of blood, the decks would be
washed down; and the galley-cooks would be going fore and
aft, sprinkling them with hot vinegar, to take out the shambles'
smell from the planks; which, unless some such means
are employed, often create a highly offensive effluvia for weeks
after a fight.

Then, upon mustering the men, and calling the quarter-bills
by the light of a battle-lantern, many a wounded seaman,
with his arm in a sling, would answer for some poor shipmate
who could never more make answer for himself:

“Tom Brown?”

“Killed, sir.”

“Jack Jewel?”

“Killed, sir.”

“Joe Hardy?”

“Killed, sir.”

And opposite all these poor fellows' names, down would go
on the quarter-bills the bloody marks of red ink—a murderer's
fluid, fitly used on these occasions.