THE ESSEX AND ESSEX JUNIOR WERE STUFFED WITH PROVISIONS when they stood out from Nuku Hiva on December 13, 1813. Aboard were an abundance of wood, water, coconuts, bananas, plantains, and hogs. The ships were bound for Valparaiso and a rendezvous with HMS Phoebe and her escorts. Porter insisted that seeking out the British hunters was the best way to fulfill his supreme responsibility to annoy the enemy. Actually, his orders were to engage in commerce-destroying, which implied that he only fight an enemy as powerful as the Phoebe if absolutely necessary. Seeking out a British squadron that was bound to be superior was contrary to the policy of the president, not to mention common sense. In fact, the administration was so fed up with captains seeking single-ship combat that Secretary Jones routinely cautioned them not to. He wrote to one of them on December 22, 1813, “The character of the American navy stands upon a basis not to be shaken, and needs no sacrifices by unequal conflict to sustain its reputation. You will therefore avoid all unnecessary contact with the cruisers of the enemy, even with an equal, unless under circumstances that may ensure your triumph, without defeating the main object of your cruise, or jeopardizing the safety of the vessels under your command.”
SHORTLY AFTER THEY LEFT NUKU HIVA, AN INCIDENT OCCURRED on the Essex that dismayed everyone. A thoughtless boatswain’s mate struck Tamaha, the Tahitian who had been such a help to Porter when he first arrived in the Marquesas. The blow came as a complete surprise, injuring Tamaha’s pride and heart more than his body. He could not understand why he was beaten; he had done everything in his power to ingratiate himself with the Americans. He felt humiliated and cried at first, but then declared that he would not be struck again.
The ship was twenty miles from Nuku Hiva, and night was approaching. A wind was blowing and the sea was getting up, when, unseen, Tamaha jumped overboard. A seaman heard a splash, but did not report it. Tamaha’s absence wasn’t noticed until quarters the next morning. Porter hoped that he had taken an oar or something to buoy himself with, but he had no way of knowing if he had, and he feared that he had drowned. Farragut reported many years later that an officer on one of the prizes moored in Taiohae Bay said that Tamaha reached Nuku Hiva in tolerably good health, three days after leaping overboard. Porter did not record how he punished the boatswain’s mate, but it’s certain that he made the man regret his hasty action.
FOR NINE DAYS AFTER THE ESSEX AND ESSEX JUNIOR LEFT Nuku Hiva, the winds blew chiefly from north-northeast to northwest. After that, they generally blew from the northwest. Porter sailed east, making nine degrees of longitude the first three days. On December 18, the Essex reached longitude 131° west. The rest of the voyage went nearly as well. “Nothing of unusual interest occurred during our passage,” David Farragut reported. Porter continually drilled the men in small arms and boarding, something he had done throughout their odyssey. “Every day the crew were exercised at the great guns, small arms, and single stick,” Farragut remembered.
As Porter approached the coast of South America, he wrote a letter to Downes, dated January 10, 1814. In it, he revealed why he was hell-bent on going to Valparaiso, and what his strategy would be when they got there. He made it clear that he was determined to engage the British warships that Downes had reported were searching for him—Phoebe, Cherub, and Racoon. Porter did not intend to fight all three at once. If he had the misfortune of falling in with them, he planned “to make my retreat in the best manner I can.”
Of course, he was hoping that this did not happen, that he would only have to fight two, or, ideally, one—the big frigate Phoebe. “If we fall in with the Phoebe and one sloop of war,” he advised Downes, “you must endeavor to draw the sloop off in chase of you and get her as far to leeward of the frigate as possible, and as soon as you effect this I shall engage the frigate. “If we meet the Phoebe alone and to leeward of us, I shall run along side of her.” In this case, Downes was to remain to windward, out of gunshot range and observe. If the Essex was getting the better of the engagement, Downes was to do nothing, but if the Phoebe was gaining the upper hand, Downes was to intervene and enable the Essex to haul off.
If the Phoebe was to windward, Porter would attempt to gain the weather gauge (get to windward of her). If he failed, he would try to disable her with his stern guns, so as to obtain an advantage. Otherwise, although he did not say so explicitly, he would do everything possible to avoid giving the Phoebe an opportunity to fire on the Essex with her long guns, if the Essex was unable to respond with her short-range carronades.
In the event they ran across the Phoebe and a sloop of war while the Essex and Essex Junior were to windward, Downes was to “draw the sloop off . . . and leave this Phoebe to me,” Porter wrote.
“I wish you to avoid an engagement with a sloop if possible,” he cautioned Downes, “as your ship is too weak; if, however, you cannot avoid an action endeavor to cut her up so as to prevent her from coming to the assistance of the Phoebe.
“I shall in all probability run alongside the Phoebe under the Spanish ensign and pendant; should I do so you will show British colors until I hoist the American.
“It will be advisable for you at all times to keep to windward of us,” he wrote. This was the ideal position, of course, but it might be impossible to achieve, particularly against seasoned British captains.
Needless to say, instead of planning a grand battle against what would surely be heavy odds, Porter would have been far better off sailing around the Horn with his prizes into the South Atlantic and proceeding home. If he got into a fight along the way, so much the better. At least he would be following a strategy that had some logic to it.
ON JANUARY 12, A MONTH AFTER LEAVING MASSACHUSETTS BAY, a lookout at the main masthead sighted Mocha Island—normally to windward of Valparaiso. Without stopping, Porter moved slowly north to Santa Maria Island, where he filled his water casks, looked into Concepción, decided not to stop, and proceeded on a leisurely cruise north. On February 3, 1814, he sailed into Valparaiso Bay and anchored off the city.
After exchanging salutes with the battery on old Fort Viejo, he went ashore to pay his respects to the acting governor, Francisco de Formas. The reception was friendly, and the following day, Porter received the governor, his wife, and entourage aboard the Essex with a salute. The placid atmosphere of the port belied the fact that since Porter left Valparaiso almost a year earlier, Chile had been in turmoil. Royalists, directed by the viceroy of Peru, had been fighting republicans led by the Carrera brothers, Bernardo O’Higgins, and Juan Mackenna, with neither side being able to win a decisive victory. The American consul general, Joel Poinsett, continued to lend his wholehearted support to José Miguel Carrera, even though it was unclear if the Carreras would survive. The viceroy in Peru had initiated the conflict when he simultaneously invaded Argentina and Chile in 1813, seeking to overthrow their republican governments and returning the countries to Spanish rule. The fighting was intense. By March 1814 the royalists had gained the upper hand. They had captured José Miguel Carrera and his brother Luis, and threatened Santiago.
In this tense atmosphere, Colonel Francisco de la Lastra rose to power. He had been governor of Valparaiso when Porter first arrived in March 1813. A year later, in Santiago (while Porter was again in Valparaiso), he became supreme director of Chile with dictatorial powers. Lastra had been nominally a republican, but, as Porter had sensed the year before, Lastra was ready to align himself with whichever side won. He had no problem pledging allegiance to Ferdinand VII, the Spanish king whom the British were about to restore to his throne. Ferdinand’s policy, although unknown in Chile at the time, was to turn back the clock to a time before the American and French Revolutions and make Chile a royalist colony again ruled from Madrid as she had been for centuries.
Communications were so poor in Chile that when Porter arrived in Valparaiso in February, the state of the war between the royalist and republican armies was unknown. No one suspected that in just a few weeks the royalists would gain a significant advantage.
Soon after Porter’s arrival in February, he learned of the uncertain political and military situation, which had to be a factor in his thinking, but the British hunters were foremost in his mind. He sent Essex Junior to take up a position offshore, where Downes could intercept enemy merchantmen and whalers, while keeping an eye out for hostile warships. Porter was convinced that at least the Phoebe and the Cherub would appear, and perhaps the Racoon. Other warships might be on the way as well. But that might not be the case. He would just have to wait and see. In the meantime, Essex and Essex Junior were in a high state of readiness.
On February 7, Porter repaid the kindness of the governor and the people of Valparaiso by throwing a party aboard the Essex. Lieutenant Downes was invited. He was to anchor the Essex Junior in a place that would afford a full view of the sea. As was the normal routine on the Essex, one-third of the crew was on shore leave. Dancing continued until midnight, after which Lieutenant Downes returned to his ship and put to sea, taking up his normal station. His crew resumed their regular routine, but there was to be nothing routine about this night. The Essex’s crew were in the midst of taking down awnings and flags and generally cleaning up after the party, when Essex Junior made a signal—two enemy ships in sight.
George O’Brien, skipper of the English merchantman Emily, which was anchored in the harbor, received a signal as well. He leaped into a boat with some men and rowed out to the largest British warship he saw, HMS Phoebe, and warned Captain James Hillyar that the Essex was in Valparaiso. Hillyar was ecstatic; he had finally found what he had been after all these many months. O’Brien volunteered to help. He had once been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, but had been broken for misconduct and joined the merchant service. He held no grudges, however, and offered every assistance to Hillyar, even telling him that the entire crew of the Emily would volunteer to fight aboard the Phoebe.
While O’Brien conferred with Hillyar, a gun sounded on the Essex and a signal shot up for all men and boats to return. Within a remarkably short time, every sailor was aboard the Essex preparing for battle. Only one appeared drunk.
Porter rowed out to Essex Junior to have a look for himself. What he saw—two large British warships, probably a frigate and a sloop of war—was both sobering and exhilarating. He immediately ordered Downes to run the Essex Junior into port and take up a position where Essex Junior and Essex could support each other. When Porter returned to the Essex at half past seven in the morning, he found the ship fully prepared for action. At eight o’clock the two British ships entered the harbor, also ready for battle. The larger one, the powerful 36-gun Phoebe, kept coming right at the Essex, approaching to within a few yards. Her crew was at battle stations.
All was in readiness on the Essex as well, the men filled with anticipation. Guns were boused out. Boarders gripped their cutlasses and checked their small arms. Every officer and man had a weapon, standing by for the order to board. The Phoebe drew even closer. Just then, the one tipsy youth imagined that he saw a British sailor making faces at him. He shouted that he’d stop the man from making fun of him and went to apply slow-match to his cannon. Before he could, Lieutenant McKnight punched him and sent him sprawling. If the seaman had succeeded in firing, a fierce battle would have ensued, in which Porter and the Essex would have had a decided advantage because of the power of their 32-pound carronades, and undoubtedly would have smashed the Phoebe into submission.
The British captain was now clearly visible on his quarterdeck in a pea jacket. He was close enough to yell to Porter through a trumpet, “Captain Hillyar’s compliments to Captain Porter and hopes all is well.”
As men on the Essex stood tensely by their weapons, Porter shouted back through his trumpet, “Very well, I thank you, but I hope you will not come too near, for fear some accident might take place which would be disagreeable to you,” and with a wave of his trumpet the kedge anchors went up to the yardarms, ready to grapple the enemy.
Playing on the fact that Valparaiso was a neutral harbor, Hillyar had approached the Essex close enough to see that she had not been taken by surprise, as he had hoped. She had a full complement of men aboard. George O’Brien’s report that a large part of Porter’s crew were on shore turned out to be inaccurate, and Hillyar had to quickly adjust his thinking. His gambit had failed. Instead of being unprepared, the Essex was ready. Her deadly carronades were close enough to devastate the Phoebe. Seeing this, Hillyar suddenly braced back his yards while crying out that if he did fall aboard the Essex it would be entirely by accident.
Porter yelled back, “You have no business where you are. If you touch a rope-yarn of this ship, I shall board instantly.” At the same time, he signaled Downes on Essex Junior to be ready to repel the enemy.
“O, sir,” Hillyar shouted to Porter, in a careless and indifferent manner, “I have no intention of getting on board of you.”
Hillyar was no stranger to Porter. They had become well acquainted in 1807 when both were serving in the Mediterranean. As Porter recalled, “While [Hillyar’s] family resided at Gibraltar, I was in the habit of visiting them frequently, and had spent many happy hours in their company. . . . For Captain Hillyar and his family I entertained the highest respect; and among the American officers generally, no officer of the British navy was so great a favorite as Captain Hillyar.”
Nonetheless, Porter was leery of Hillyar’s intentions. Hillyar had a well-deserved reputation for ignoring neutrality when it suited his purposes. An experienced commander who had seen plenty of action, Hillyar had demonstrated more than once what few scruples he had when victory demanded that he ignore neutral rights. In 1800, in the port of Barcelona, for instance, he had used a neutral Swedish vessel to sneak boatloads of men into the harbor, past a Spanish battery to attack an unsuspecting enemy in the harbor.
In trying to extricate himself from a potentially disastrous situation, Hillyar luffed up so as to cause the Phoebe to take aback, but in so doing, her jib-boom swept across the Essex’s forecastle. Porter shouted to all hands to be alert, ready to board if the hulls touched. “At this moment,” Porter recalled, “not a gun from the Phoebe could be brought to bear on either the Essex or Essex Junior, while her bow was exposed to the raking fire of the one, and her stern to that of the other. Her consort . . . was too far off to leeward to afford any assistance.”
“The Phoebe was . . . completely at my mercy,” Porter wrote. “I could have destroyed her in fifteen minutes.” He wasn’t exaggerating; he could have poured two or three raking broadsides into her, tearing her guts out from stem to stern, with no trouble. Powder monkeys held slow matches by the guns. Had Porter given the order, and the Essex let go her rounds, her massed boarders could have easily overwhelmed Hillyar.
But the Phoebe never touched the Essex, and Porter—choosing to observe the rules of neutrality—never fired on him, letting Hillyar off the hook. Oddly, Porter allowed himself to be disarmed by Hillyar’s assurances, even though Hillyar’s record was well known to Porter. Nonetheless, he allowed the Phoebe to extricate herself and move to a less vulnerable position, which Hillyar proceeded to do. He anchored about a half mile astern, beyond the reach of Porter’s carronades, but within range of the Phoebe’s long 18-pounders.
As soon as the Phoebe was in place, Captain Tucker brought the Cherub to anchor within pistol shot of the Essex. Whereupon, Porter ordered Essex Junior to take up a position that placed the Cherub between the fire of the two American ships. He wasn’t taking any chances.
Porter insisted that respect for Chilean neutrality was his guiding principle. He would never attack Hillyar in the port. If the Phoebe had made the first move, he would have been obliged to retaliate, but he would not initiate the action under any circumstances. He liked to point out that since the Essex was the inferior ship in point of firepower, his government would not countenance him looking for a fight, but if one came his way, he would eagerly grasp it. Not only would he jump at the opportunity, but the chance of a battle was the reason he had returned to Valparaiso in the first place. He did not need to be there. No military purpose was being served. He was there to have a fight. He might not initiate an engagement, but he would do everything he could to provoke one.
On the following morning, Hillyar noticed that the Essex was flying a large banner emblazoned with the words “FREE TRADE AND SAILORS RIGHTS.” The message stuck in his craw. He saw it as an “insidious effort to shake the loyalty of thoughtless British seamen.” Like most of Britain’s upper classes, Hillyar blamed the massive desertions from British warships on American shenanigans, rather than on the tyrannical practices of officers aboard their own men-of-war. With his ire up, Hillyar hoisted an ensign declaring “GOD AND COUNTRY; BRITISH SAILORS BEST RIGHTS; TRAITORS OFFEND BOTH.” On seeing this, the Essex men swarmed over their rigging and gave a full-throated jeer. Hillyar’s crew responded in kind, after which, his little band played “God Save the King.” Porter replied with another banner, bearing the motto “GOD, OUR COUNTRY, AND LIBERTY—TYRANTS OFFEND BOTH.” This tit-for-tat went on the entire time the two ships were anchored close to each other. The hoisting of rival banners was followed by insults shouted across the water. Songs, and even poetry, were employed to abuse each other, as well as small flags carrying pointed inscriptions.
There was another side to this relationship, however, and it softened the rivalry. On the same day the battle of the banners began, February 9, Captains Hillyar and Tucker paid a visit to Porter at the home of Mr. Blanco, the American deputy vice consul in Valparaiso, where Porter usually stayed while on shore. The meeting went well, and others followed. “A friendly intimacy [was] established,” Porter reported, “not only between the commanders . . . but the officers and boats’ crews of the respective ships. No one, to have judged from appearances, would have supposed us to have been at war, our conduct toward each other bore so much the appearance of a friendly alliance.” During their first meeting, Porter asked Hillyar if he intended to respect the neutrality of the port, and Hillyar replied in convincing fashion, “You have paid so much respect to the neutrality of the port, that I feel myself bound in honor to respect it.” Porter was satisfied that Hillyar meant what he said.
During their later meetings, Porter made it clear that he wanted a one-on-one duel between the Essex and the Phoebe, in effect, asking Hillyar to give up his advantages. But Hillyar had no reason to. His responsibility was to remove the Essex as a menace to Britain’s whalers and commerce. He was a forty-four-year-old veteran who had won enough laurels to feel secure about his reputation. He did not need another victory to prove himself. The Admiralty would judge him on whether or not he got rid of the Essex, not on how he did it. His orders from Admiral Dixon required him to destroy a menace to British interests, not to engage in a one-on-one frigate duel. Dixon would not quibble about Hillyar’s methods, nor would the Admiralty. But they certainly would if Hillyar relinquished his advantages in order to accommodate Porter. And, of course, if he lost a single-ship duel under these circumstances, he would be subject to severe penalties.
Hillyar could afford to wait. He already had a superior force, and more frigates were on the way. In fact, the Admiralty had already dispatched the powerful 38-gun frigates Briton (Sir Thomas Staines) and Targus (Captain Philip Pipon) to destroy the Essex. To be sure, the Phoebe was more powerful on paper than the Essex and could take her on with a reasonable chance of success, but naval actions turn on many variables—a lucky shot cracking a vital mast or spar, a cannonball smashing the steering—any number of things could even the odds in the Essex’s favor. So Hillyar had every reason to bide his time and blockade Essex and Essex Junior until he judged he had an overwhelming advantage.
The Phoebe and the Cherub remained close by Essex and Essex Junior until their provisioning was complete on February 14. The following day they pulled their hooks, sailed out of the harbor, and began patrolling off Valparaiso Bay, staying to windward, close to the Point of Angels.
Porter for his part continued trying to provoke a single-ship duel. On the afternoon of February 26, when the sea was calm, he towed one of his prizes, the Hector, out to sea, hoping the Phoebe alone would chase him. Instead, both British ships came after him, standing toward the bay while he was coming out. Not wanting to get far beyond the protection of the neutral harbor, Porter burned the Hector and retreated. The British ships continued after him, but he managed to get safely back to his former anchorage.
The following afternoon, February 27, Hillyar tried to turn the tables and lure Porter into uneven combat. He steered the Phoebe into the harbor alone—much to Porter’s surprise and delight, leaving the Cherub to leeward. At five o’clock Hillyar hove to a short distance from the Essex, shortened sail, fired a gun to windward, and hoisted a familiar ensign: “GOD AND COUNTRY; BRITISH SAILORS BEST RIGHTS; TRAITORS OFFEND BOTH.”
Believing this to be a challenge for the single-ship duel he yearned for, Porter hoisted his own pennant: “GOD, OUR COUNTRY, AND LIBERTY—TYRANTS OFFEND THEM.” At the same time he ordered sixty men from Essex Junior to join the Essex crew, making her numbers 315—more equal to the Phoebe’s 320. Porter then fired a gun and got underway, anticipating a deadly fight. In response, the Phoebe stood out of the harbor to give the combatants some fighting room—or so Porter thought. He followed, getting closer to her as he went. Suddenly, to Porter’s complete surprise, the Phoebe bore up before the wind and ran down for her consort.
It was a sensible maneuver, designed to capture the Essex at the least possible risk. But Porter was indignant, feeling he had been cheated out of what he most wanted. He fired two guns at the Phoebe in a vain effort to bring her to. When that failed, he hauled his wind, and returned to the protection of the port. The Phoebe, in company with the Cherub, came after him. They entered the harbor, but did not commence an attack. Porter assumed it was because Hillyar respected the neutrality of the port.
Hillyar sent his chivalrous first lieutenant, William Ingram, to the Essex under a flag of truce to explain that Captain Hillyar had not issued a challenge. Firing a gun and hoisting a flag, Ingram said, was intended merely as a signal to the Cherub. Porter did not believe him. He accused Hillyar of being “cowardly and dishonorable.”
During this set-to, the Phoebe showed herself once again to be a slow sailor. The Essex was obviously the faster ship, and that speed could make a big difference in a one-on-one fight. It could also allow Porter to escape, if it came to that.
Some days later, Porter decided he would make a night attack on the Phoebe using the small boats he had employed so successfully in the Galapagos Islands. Given the constant training his men had received in hand-to-hand combat, he was confident they were superior to any British crew, which was probably true. On the night of March 12, all the Essex’s boats were filled with armed men, and with muffled oars, they rowed toward the Phoebe. Porter was in the lead boat with Farragut. They pulled close enough to hear conversation on the forecastle, which led Porter to believe that Hillyar was waiting for him, whereupon he aborted the mission and rowed back to the harbor.
In fact, Hillyar was unaware of Porter’s presence, and the Essex men got back to their ship without difficulty. Porter never mentioned the incident in any letter or in his journal. David Farragut gave the details much later. Porter was evidently too embarrassed to mention the non-event. He must have realized later that he had taken Hillyar by surprise after all, and had retreated when he did not have to. Hillyar was informed of what happened sometime later.
On March 14, Porter began a paper war with Hillyar, hoping to prod him into abandoning his caution. He accused Hillyar of trying to encourage men on the Essex to desert. Hillyar denied doing so, although, of course, he would welcome any American seaman who left his ship. That Porter thought his transparent gambit would succeed with Hillyar is a tribute to his inflamed imagination.
At length, Porter concluded that Hillyar was never going to fight him one-on-one, and he looked for an opportunity to escape. His sense of urgency increased when word arrived overland from Buenos Aires that the 38-gun Targus was on the way, and possibly two other frigates, along with the Racoon—back from the Columbia River. In fact, the Targus arrived off Valparaiso on April 13.
Porter planned to race out to sea and draw the Phoebe and the Cherub after him, giving Essex Junior a chance to sortie safely out of the harbor. Porter could then rely on his speed to get away. If all went well, he and Downes would rendezvous later. It was a workable plan.
An opportunity arose on March 28. At daylight, winds were light, and Porter had the ship ready for an escape. He had determined from a report by Lieutenant Maury that Phoebe and Cherub, which were usually stationed to the weather point, or western side of Valparaiso Bay, would be more to leeward, giving Porter an excellent chance to get to windward of them and break free close hauled. Meanwhile Essex Junior could slip out to leeward when the two British ships inevitably hauled their wind and chased the Essex.
All Porter needed was a stronger breeze, and at noon the wind, which was from the south southwest, freshened before increasing to a strong gale. It blew over the hills and through the ravines in back of the harbor, stirring the bay waters to a frenzy and rocking the shipping. Porter ordered the royals and their masts taken down, and then, at 2:45, the Essex suddenly parted her larboard cable, causing her to drag the starboard anchor leeward. Conditions now seemed ideal to go forward with the escape Porter had been planning. He hailed Essex Junior to send a boat to take Joel Poinsett, who often was aboard, ashore. Immediately after Poinsett departed, Porter ordered the starboard anchor cable cut, and he was on his way.
At that moment, Phoebe and Cherub were standing in for the protection of the harbor, providing Porter with an opportunity of getting to windward of them. He took in the topgallant sails, which were set over single-reefed topsails, and stood close hauled for the Point of Angels at the western end of Valparaiso Bay. His chances of breaking free looked excellent. But, as luck would have it, on luffing round the point, a heavy squall suddenly struck the ship. The topsail halyards were let go, but the yards jammed and would not come down. When the ship was nearly gunwale to, the main topmast went by the board, carrying the men on the topgallant yard, Samuel Miller and Thomas Browne (both superb topmen), into the sea, where they drowned.
Porter quickly gave orders to wear ship and clear the wreckage. The mainsail and main topsail were cut from the wreckage to prevent them from acting against the ship as it worked back into the bay. Porter was trying desperately to return the Essex to her original anchorage, where she would be safe in neutral territory again. Despite a mighty effort from her crew, however, the disabled ship could not make it back. As an alternative, Porter ran to leeward (east) for about three miles into a small bay called Villa la Mar—about one and a half miles to leeward of the battery on old Fort jel Barron, guarding the east side of Valparaiso Bay. Once there, he let go his anchor in nine and a half fathoms within pistol shot of shore. It was 3:45 P.M. Porter intended to make repairs quickly in what he assumed were neutral waters.
Being in neutral territory did not put a check on Hillyar, however. He was already hot after the Essex with the Cherub close behind. When he saw Porter drop anchor, he must have been relieved. Hillyar knew he was facing disaster when Porter raced close-hauled for the Point of Angels. The Phoebe could never have caught him. Allowing the Essex to escape had been Hillyar’s worst nightmare. The sudden squall that wrecked Porter’s plans saved Hillyar. He did not want to answer to the Admiralty for failing to destroy the Essex when she was within his grasp.
Hillyar was saved again when Porter wore ship and ended up anchored on the east side of Valparaiso Bay to make repairs. The Essex might have continued eastward into the open sea, where, again, Hillyar might not have caught her, even though she was injured. When Porter dropped his hook, thinking he was safe in neutral territory, Hillyar pounced. Having already had a brush with disaster, he was not going to let this opportunity pass. He now had a chance to engage the Essex in an unequal battle with both of his ships. He did not hesitate.
As Phoebe and Cherub sped toward the Essex with motto pennants flying, they made furious preparations for battle. Porter cleared for action as well, but he did not think Hillyar would actually attack him. Nonetheless, he prepared for the worst. He knew that if there was a fight, the Phoebe’s long 18-pounders would be critical. The Cherub was a different matter. Her principal armament was carronades, just like the Essex, which meant that to be effective she had to get close to the Essex, where Porter’s heavier guns could decimate her. So the Phoebe, with her battery of long guns, would carry the brunt of the attack.
Despite the significant advantage he now had, Hillyar remained cautious. He approached deliberately, giving Porter time to run three 12-pounders out of stern ports and rig springs on the Essex’s cable, so that she could turn without using her sails. Poinsett, meanwhile, had remained on the scene, and he tried to help. He urged the governor of Valparaiso to use the small battery nearby to defend the neutrality of the port, but he refused. The governor did offer to send an officer to Hillyar and request that he cease firing, should Porter succeed in reaching the common anchorage—an unlikely event, which the governor was well aware of. The political complexion of Chile had changed completely at this point and the authorities were clearly pro-British.
The men from all the ships were ready for a fight. They had been anticipating one for weeks. The ships bristled with hostility. Still, with the decisive battle now at hand, tension gripped every stomach, especially on the Essex, where the crew could see the obvious superiority of the enemy. “I well remember the feelings of awe produced in me by the approach of the hostile ships,” Farragut recalled. “Even to my young mind it was perceptible in the faces of those around me, as clearly as possible, that our case was hopeless. It was equally apparent that all were ready to die at their guns rather than surrender.” In their heart of hearts, however, the brave crew of the Essex must have hoped that Hillyar would not violate a neutral port—certainly Captain Porter did.
They hoped in vain. Hillyar was determined to smash the Essex right now. As he drew closer, the wind continued southerly but had let up some. He positioned the Phoebe under the Essex’s stern and the Cherub off her starboard bow, commencing a hot fire from both ships at 3:54 P.M. Porter’s 12-pounders fired back and were surprisingly effective. A splinter struck Captain Tucker on the Cherub, but he kept directing the fight, even though blood was pulsing from his wound. Fire from the Essex soon forced Tucker to change positions, but it still looked as if the American frigate stood no chance. During the next half hour, however, Porter’s three long 12-pounders, firing out of stern ports, were handled with such skill that both enemy ships were forced to haul off for repairs. In addition to being much cut up in her rigging, and her topsail sheets flying away, the Phoebe had lost use of her mainsail, jib, and mainstay.
Hillyar could afford to pause; the Essex was trapped—too banged up to attempt an escape—and he needed to change his strategy.
The carnage aboard the Essex was indeed dreadful. With only three long guns to oppose two broadsides, Porter had attempted to bring his broadsides to bear with the springs he had hitched to the cables, but they were no sooner hooked up than Hillyar’s gunners cut them. Many Essex men had been killed in the first minutes of the fight, before her three long twelves in the stern could be brought to bear. Nonetheless, spirits remained high; the men had no quit in them. The ensign flying at the gaff had been shot away, but “FREE TRADE AND SAILORS RIGHTS” continued flying at the foremast. Porter replaced the damaged ensign and put another in the mizzen rigging.
Farragut was stationed beside the captain during this time, along with another midshipman and the sailing master. Two quartermasters attended the wheel. The jobs of those next to Porter were to carry out his every wish amidst the smoke, confusion, and incessant cacophony of an ever-changing battle. “I performed the duties of the captain’s aid, quarter gunner, powder boy, and in fact did everything that was required of me,” Farragut remembered. He could have added that he was exposed to enemy missiles the entire time, as well as the deadly splinters they unleashed. The first man he saw killed sickened him. “I shall never forget the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. He was a boatswain’s mate, and was fearfully mutilated. It staggered and sickened me at first; but they soon began to fall around me so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect on my nerves.”
When he wasn’t employed otherwise, Farragut “assisted in working a gun,” often running to bring powder from the boys, and send them back for more “until the Captain wanted me to carry a message; and this continued to employ me during the action.”
Hillyar soon returned to the attack, positioning both his ships on Essex’s starboard quarter, out of range of her carronades. Porter’s deadly stern guns could not be brought to bear either. The punishing blows from Phoebe hit the Essex hard, while she remained unable to return fire—a sitting duck if ever there was one. Porter was in the exact situation he had most feared, where his short-range carronades could not reach an enemy employing long guns. His only hope was to get a sail up and bear down on the Phoebe. But the topsail sheets and halyards had been shot away, as well as the jib and fore topmast staysail halyards. The only ropes not cut were the flying jib halyards. After several frustrating attempts, the crew finally hoisted the flying jib, and Porter quickly cut the cable. With a favorable slant of wind, the Essex ran down toward the Phoebe with guns blazing, intending to board and fight it out hand to hand. “The firing on both sides was now tremendous”; Porter recalled: “I had let fall my fore topsail and foresail, but the want of tacks and sheets had rendered them almost useless to us—yet we were enabled for a short time to close with the enemy.”
The Cherub was forced to haul off and continue firing ineffectively from long distance, out of range of Essex’s carronades. Hillyar also maneuvered away from the Essex as she came toward him. He had no intention of allowing her to crash into his ship and have the American crew swarm aboard. He pulled to a position where his long guns could pummel the Essex without fear of being hit in return.
The Essex was again helpless. Hillyar’s continuous fire smashed many of her guns and created havoc on her decks. The killed and wounded were everywhere. Porter gave up trying to close with Hillyar and decided to run the Essex ashore, land the men who were alive, and destroy her. At the moment, the wind was favorable.
As the stricken Essex strained toward shore, her decks were strewn with bloody, mangled bodies. She had been on fire several times and was in desperate condition. For a brief moment it looked as if she might make it to the beach. But when she was a hundred feet from it, the wind suddenly, according to Porter’s journal, “shifted from the land (as is very common in this port in the latter part of the day)” taking the ship flat aback and paying her head offshore, pointing it directly at the Phoebe, where she was “once again exposed to a dreadful raking fire.”
At this moment, Lieutenant Downes appeared looking for orders. Essex Junior, being too weak to participate, had been spared. Downes was convinced that the Essex, in her wretched state, would shortly be taken, and he wanted direction. Porter ordered him back to defend Essex Junior, but if that proved impossible, to destroy her if it looked as if she were in danger of being captured. Downes went back, taking with him several of the wounded and leaving three of his healthy men.
All the while, the Phoebe kept up a deadly barrage, raking the Essex. Porter could not return fire. And the Cherub, without having to fear any response from the Essex, lobbed in her shots as well. The carnage on the Americans’ decks was frightful. Lifeless bodies lay strewn about, their mortal wounds horribly evident—heads cut off, chests shot out, arms sliced in half. Blasphemous oaths from the wounded filled the air, as they writhed in pain from jagged splinters stuck in their bodies every which way, mangled arms, gouged-out eyes, sliced ears. Blood ran everywhere. “The slaughter on board my ship [was] horrible,” Porter lamented.
But he was still not ready to give up. He ordered a hawser bent on the sheet anchor, and the anchor cut from the bows to bring her head round. This miraculously succeeded, and the Essex’s broadside was brought to bear again. But the hawser soon snapped, and the Essex started drifting out of control while the Phoebe’s guns kept hammering her.
All the while, fires continued to threaten the Essex. Flames were shooting up from the hatchways. Tars rushed up from below, many with their clothes on fire. Their shipmates tore the burning rags off them as best they could. Porter told those having trouble getting their clothes off to jump overboard and douse the flames. On hearing this, many thought the magazine was about to blow up, and they went overboard too. Several of them made it to shore, but others drowned.
Presently, Midshipman Isaacs came up to Porter and reported that quarter-gunner Adam Roach had deserted his post. Porter turned to Farragut and said, “Do your duty.” Farragut grabbed a pistol and went searching for the deserter but could not find him. He discovered later that, upon seeing the ship on fire, Roach and six others had taken the only undamaged boat left and rowed to shore. This was not the only time during the battle that Roach appeared to be derelict in his duty. His behavior outraged his comrades. One of them was William Call, whose leg had been hit, and while it hung by the skin with blood spilling from it, he saw Roach on the berth deck, wandering around suspiciously. Furious, Call “dragged his shattered stump all around . . . , pistol in hand, trying to get a shot at him.”
Roach’s conduct puzzled Farragut. Before the battle, Roach had been a respected man on the ship—the first to grab a cutlass and board an enemy ship. When the Phoebe first entered Valparaiso Bay on February 8 and looked as if she might attack the Essex, Porter had called for a boarding party, and Farragut saw Roach in the lead “standing in an exposed position on the cathead with sleeves rolled up and cutlass in hand, ready to board, his countenance expressing eagerness for a fight.” Farragut concluded that Roach was “brave with a prospect of success, but a coward in adversity.” It could have been that Roach and the others were simply avoiding the fires, or they might have objected to Porter’s continued resistance in the face of certain defeat, and were unwilling to sacrifice themselves in a mindless slaughter, or, as Farragut suspected, they might have been just plain scared.
The Essex had now drifted to a point a half mile from the beach. Most of the men had stuck with Porter, and they continued to fight. But only a hundred remained active. Some of these were wounded and died later. The most pressing problem of the survivors was the fires that threatened to reach the magazine and blow up the ship. There had already been an explosion from gunpowder strewn about below deck. The men turned their attention “wholly to extinguish the flames, and when we had succeeded,” Porter wrote, “went again to the guns.”
Farragut received orders to bring gun primers up from below. While he was on the wardroom ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an 18-pound shot and fell back directly onto him. They tumbled down the hatchway together. At the bottom Farragut’s head struck the hard deck while the other man, who weighed over two hundred pounds, came down on the little midshipman’s hips. Had the dead man landed on Farragut’s stomach, he would have killed him. “I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck.” When Porter saw him covered with blood, he asked if he were wounded.
“Then, where are the primers?”
Suddenly realizing that he had completely forgotten why he had gone below, Farragut recovered his wits and went back for the primers. When he returned he saw Porter sprawled out on deck, apparently wounded. He asked if he were injured.
“I believe not, my son, but I felt a blow on the top of my head.”
Farragut assumed a cannonball had whizzed by close enough to the captain’s head to knock him down and damage his hat, but not his head. Porter got back on his feet right away and resumed command.
Not long afterward, Farragut saw a cannonball coming straight for him while he was standing at the wheel next to Quartermaster Francis Bland. Farragut screamed a warning, but the ball tore off Bland’s right leg and Farragut’s coattail. Recovering, Farragut dragged Bland below, hoping he could be saved, and then rushed back to the quarterdeck.
The Essex’s condition had now deteriorated to the point where the remaining, loyal-to-the-end crewmembers pleaded with Porter to surrender and save the wounded. He responded by going below to check the amount of powder remaining in the magazine, and then sent for the officers of divisions to discuss hauling down the flag. Sadly, only Stephen Decatur McKnight answered the call; the others were either dead or severely wounded. Lieutenant Wilmer was dead, and Acting Lieutenant John G. Cowell was mortally wounded with a leg shot off.
The Phoebe and Cherub, in the meantime, kept pouring in shot. The stricken Essex was still unable to respond. Her cockpit, steerage, wardroom, and berth deck were all packed with wounded. “I saw no hope of saving her,” Porter lamented, and, after sending Farragut to make certain the signal book and other important papers had been thrown overboard, he “gave the painful order to strike the colors.” It was twenty minutes after six.
In spite of the American flag having come down, Phoebe and Cherub kept firing. Porter angrily discharged a gun in the opposite direction to indicate surrender, but still the shelling continued. Ten more minutes elapsed before the guns fell silent. Before they did, Farragut, Isaacs, and others worked hard throwing pistols and other small arms overboard to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.