Linda M. Maloney - The Captain from Connecticut: The Life and Naval Times of Isaac Hull

The Life and

Naval Times of

Isaac Hull

Linda M. Maloney

Naval Institute Press

Annapolis, Maryland

This book has been brought to publication

with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

1986 by Linda M. Maloney

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

First Naval Institute Press paperback edition published in 2013.

ISBN: 978-1-61251-323-2

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Maloney, Linda M.

The Captain from Connecticut.

p.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Hull, Isaac. 2. AdmiralsUnited StatesBiography. 3. United States. NavyBiography. I. Title.

V63.H85M35 1986

359.00924 [B]

8510552

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

For Sharon, David, and Vincent

This book began more than twenty-five years ago when a young author, long on enthusiasm though short on experience, contacted the heirs of Isaac Hull for permission to write a new biography of their famous forebear. Mr. and Mrs. Haviland Hull Platt both welcomed and aided my first efforts, placing their collection of papers at my disposal. Their continued encouragement was essential to my work, and I regret only that they did not live to see its completion. Extensive private resources were also made available by Frederick Rodgers and by Arthur and Eleanor Tilton.

Among institutions whose staffs have been most gracious and helpful, particular mention should go to the William L. Clements Library of the University of Michigan, where I read my first Hull letters and whose collections acquired more and more valuable documents as the years went by, as well as to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., where I spent a year. In addition, I am grateful to the staffs of the Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division; the New-York Historical Society; the Boston Athenaeum; and the historical societies of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Maine, as well as the New Hampshire State Archives. Documents from these collections are reproduced by permission of the respective organizations.

I owe a particular debt of gratitude to the Smithsonian Institution for granting me a year as Visiting Research Associate in 196970. During that year, with the advice and encouragement of my director, the late Howard I. Chapelle, and of Harold D. Langley and the rest of the Naval History Division, I completed virtually the second half of the research. Grants from the faculty research funds of the University of South Carolina at Columbia assisted the final research and writing of the book.

A word of thanks is due also to the dozens of other libraries that turned up lesser pieces of the mosaic, as well as to the many friends whose interest in Isaac Hull has endured since our high school and college celebrations of his 9 March birthday. My classmates wrote in the high school prophecy that I would be flying to South America to investigate newly discovered Hull memorabilia, and though my researches have not carried me quite so far, the mileage has been substantial.

I am grateful to William Frohlich, Deborah Kops, and Ann Twombly at Northeastern University Press; and to Bill Fowler, who brought the manuscript to their attention.

Finally and foremost, this book has been sustained from beginning to end by the expert advice and unflagging enthusiasm of Christopher McKee. The debt I owe him only the book itself can hope to repay. Its remaining faults are those he was unable to prevent.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following institutions for permission to quote from their collections: Library of the Boston Athenaeum, William L. Clements Library, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Houghton Library, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California, Massachusetts Historical Society, Mystic Seaport Museum, and the New-York Historical Society.

Tbingen, West Germany

January 1985

Contents

Isaac Hull is, for most of those who recognize him at all, a name in a history book. A majority of American history textbooks mention the naval victories of the War of 1812 and give a passing nod to the wars first victorious captain. The conquest of HMS Guerriie was a crucial moment in the conscious life of a new nation and certainly a turning point in the life of Isaac Hull. But it is in a sense ironic that Hull should be known for nothing but this warlike deed, since in his personal character he was one of the most pacific of men. It could be said that he embodied the ideals of a nation that cared to fight only under extreme provocation. That was the dream, at least; for Isaac Hull it was a lived reality.

He came from a prototypical New England context: a middle-class family of farmer-seamen, politically significant at the local level but with few aspirations beyond that. Whatever ambitions the family had for a legal career for him were thwarted both by his lifelong aversion to politics and law courts and by his undying passion for the sea. His early seafaring days were anything but unusual: he rose to command at about the usual age and was somewhat less successful financially than most. But he developed skills in those early years that were his mainstay for life: ship-handling skills unsurpassed in his time and a way of dealing with sailors that made him one of the most beloved as well as one of the most efficient naval captains of the early Republic.

It was in the navy, however, that Hull found his true career. There his ability to maneuver a ship combined in ideal circumstances with his skill at human relations. At the peak of his career, both his professional acumen and his amiability were legendary. Nevertheless, he might have remained an obscure figure but for the good luck of 19 August 1812. As is usually the case, he created his own luck. Had he not been the consummate seaman he was, the Constitution would have been gobbled up by a British squadron weeks earlier. And, had he not summoned the audacity to leave Boston without orders, he might have captained a blockaded ship for the rest of the war. As it was, he seized the moment, and the moment was his.

The battle of 19 August has been called a classic, though the balance of skill and luck may be disputed. What should be said is that Isaac Hull took no chances of losing. He knew his advantages: a heavy ship and a big, though inexperienced, crew against a less powerful opponent with a history of winning. Hull disdained carrying out a pirouetting combat at long range, despite his skill at maneuvering, lest his adversary escape. He chose instead a battle at close range where, should his ships propulsion be disabled, he could still hope to overpower his enemy by boarding. The tactic was so successful that the opposing frigate was not merely defeated but destroyed. Hulls was the first combat, as he may have guessed, and it was vital that it be solid and complete to hearten a frightened and demoralized nation. Hull felt it important for the morale of a crew to get them in heart. His victory did that for a whole nation, giving it the impetus to see the struggle through two more years. The War of 1812, taken as a whole, was hardly a chain of glorious successes, but in retrospect the defeats seemed to fade, whereas the victories, and Hulls especially, remained landmarks of both the nations and the navys history.