Memorial Day 2025

Nuku Hiva

As Memorial Day is upon us, here is a brief look at another mostly forgotten incident in which some Americans carried out their duties and lost their lives in service to our country. The value of some of these various incidents may seem questionable when looked at from a distance oof 212 years, but that they were willing to die for their country, for our country, is not.

And so, to the South Pacific.

If you have seen the movie “Master and Commander,” you were introduced to the idea of a man-o-war running into the Pacific Ocean and “poaching” whaling ships. It happened several times, and Patrick O’Brian was a well read author and had a good deal of history to draw from. One of those incidents, and reportedly the inspiration for O’Brian’s novel, was the cruise of USS Essex in 1813. As with much of history, the real story has to be simplified as it would be to fantastic to be believed as a movie…

Essex was built in Salem, Mass. by Enos Briggs at his yard on Winter Island; Briggs had built a yard on Winter Island where there was deeper water so that he could build larger ships. Briggs had established a reputation for building fast ships and Essex was said to be the fastest warship in the US Navy shortly after she was launched in 1799.

Essex was 140 feet “between perpendiculars,” a term that means the distance between the rudder post and where the bow of the ship touches the waterline. This is the major bulk of the ship’s hull and the rest, the “overhangs” won’t contribute a great deal more either in carrying of cargo (if a cargo ship) or carrying of guns (if a warship). She had a 36 ft 6 inch beam and had a draft of 12 feet 3 inches. This is very close to the ship used in the filming of Master and Commander; a look at her will give you a good sense of Essex.

Essex was rated as a 32 gun ship, but was initially fitted out with 26 x 12 pound cannon and 10 x 6 pounders. She normally had a crew of about 250 - 300.

Less than a month after Congress declared war on 18 June, 1812 USS Essex was placed under the command of newly promoted Captain David Porter (step-father of David Farragut, first admiral in the US Navy, and father of David Dixon Porter, the 2nd admiral in the US Navy); it is of note that two earlier captains of Essex were Edward Preble and William Bainbridge, two of the great early captains in the Navy. 

When Porter took command of Essex her armament had been changed to 40 x 32 pound carronades, 6 x 12 pounders, and 4 - 6 pounder for long range shooting. The carronades obviously fired a heavier ball, but they were short-barreled, which meant a shorter range, and Porter complained to the Secretary of the Navy that a Royal Navy frigate with long guns would stand off and pick Essex apart without fear of getting shot. Nothing was done to fix the situation.

Porter took Essex south and patrolled in the Caribbean for several months and returned to New York in September having captured 10 British ships, to include 1 sloop of war, HMS Alert.

Porter refitted Essex and headed south again, this time to patrol off Brazil, where he took, among other prizes, a Post Office Packet (until 1823 the Royal Post Offices packets operated sparely from the Royal Navy) that had, among other things, some 16,000 British pounds aboard (roughly $75,000). To put that in perspective, Essex had cost $139,000 to build 14 years earlier; Captain's pay in 1812 was $75 per month.

In January he took Essex around Cape Horn and into the Pacific, his intention being to raid the British whaling fleet. The ship took a beating getting around Cape Horn, but they captured two schooners and then pulled into Valparaiso for repairs and provisions in March. After repairs Porter headed for the whaling grounds and over the next 5 months captured another 13 ships. They then headed to the Marquesas for water, food and some repairs, thinking that he would have less chance of running into the Royal Navy Squadron the he knew was searching for him, if he stayed away from the coast of South America.

The Marquesas are, I suppose, known to most people probably for its brief mentioning in the Crosby, Stills and Nash song “Southern Cross” (written by Steven Stills). But the Marquesas are a long way away from anything. A bit more than 500 miles south of the equator, they lie 800 miles north-east of Tahiti, a bit more than 2,000 miles south-south-east of Hawaii and 3,000 miles south-west of Mexico.

The island of Nuku Hiva is the largest of the Marquesas, about 131 square miles in size. To give you a sense of that, Lanai in the Hawaiian Islands is 140 square miles, Whidbey Island, Washington is 169 square miles, Martha’s Vineyard is 91 square miles.

Islands of the South Pacific are of two sorts: flat and seemingly ready to be washed away at the next high tide, or a mountain rising out of the sea, like something out of an adventure novel. They rise up over the horizon in front of you as you approach, a dark blue gray that only takes on greens and browns as you get close. Nuku Hiva is of that type, with a 4,000 foot mountain on the western edge of a central plateau, and lower mountains on the northern and eastern edge of the plateau. Melville’s “Typee” was written based on his stay on the island.

One more note on the Marquesas: the first people arrived in the islands around 1200 and by the 1700s the population was roughly 80,000 - 100,000. However, exposure to European sailors and lack of immunity to various diseases - measles, small pox, flus and colds - decimated the population and by the middle 1800s the population had fallen to 20 - 30,000. The current population of the Marquesas is a bit more than 9,000.

On 25 October, 1813 Essex dropped anchor in the large bay at the center of the south coast of the island, Taioha’e bay, which Porter christened Massachusetts Bay, and immediately set about building a small fort, which he named Ft Madison after President Madison, the first US base in the Pacific. He made an agreement with the local tribe - the Te L’i and made them subjects of the US. The Te L’i were happy to hear that, but Porter was unaware of some details.

He set the crew to work repairing the ship and scraping her copper bottom. The crew, on dry land for a change, and entertained by friendly Island girls, were quite pleased.

What Porter was unaware of until after he landed was that the islanders were in the middle of their own war, with three separate tribes: the Te L’i, the Happah, and the Tai Pi, in what was a three-way fight - until Porter landed.

The Te L’i, astounded by Porter’s cannons and rifles, convinced Porter to come with them and attack a Happah camp in a natural redoubt in the island center. Porter agreed, sending his XO, LT John Downes, of Canton, Mass., and 40 men and a 6-pounder cannon to the interior. Accounts vary as to whether Lt Gamble, USMC, had 20 or 40 Marines, and the raiding party may have had 40 Marines with it and just a handful of sailors, and several hundred Te L’i warriors.

They reached the natural fort and found between 3,000 and 4,000 Happah warriors inside. After a brief fight 5 Happah had been killed and an known number wounded. The wounded were killed by the Te L’i, armed with war clubs, who then took bones from the dead for ornaments. Downes later commented to Porter that he was surprised but there was no eating of the dead. 

One US sailor was wounded, but they otherwise had no casualties. The defeated  Happah negotiated a peace and then joined the Te L’i to fight the Tai Pi. (The fight seemed to distill down to which tribe was going to control the west coast of the island).

Porter decided to attack the Tai Pi positions along the coast, using one of his captured “prizes,” which he had renamed “Little Essex.” The operation reportedly included more than 200 war canoes and more than 5,000 Te L’i and Happah warriors in what was certainly the largest US amphibious landing in the Pacific in the 1800s.

Porter, leading 36 men (mostly Marines) and a cannon, chased the Tai Pi to a fort they had built, but Porter and his men were ambushed on the way in the jungle and heavy fighting continued for several hours, with the Happah and Te L’i deciding discretion was the better part of valor and leaving Porter and his men in the jungle, running low on ammo.

Gamble had his sharpshooters cover their withdrawal and they made it back to the beach with only 1 killed and several wounded, including LT Downes, with a broken leg.

The Te L’i and Happah now turned on the Americans and Porter realized he needed to show that he had superior forces or there would be a massacre. He took a force of men - most of his Sailors and Marines - into the interior to attack the Tai Pi again. They reached a position overlooking the Tai Pi town (actually a cluster of 12 villages with perhaps 10,000 Tai Pi) on November 28th but they were exhausted and the gunpowder was wet. He delayed the attack until the 30th and let his powder dry. They fought through another ambush and Porter sent word for the Tai Pi to surrender and waited. After several hours there was no answer and he ordered an attack. Porter later described the aftermath as “a scene of desolation and horror.”

But the Tai Pi admitted defeat and sued for peace, offering, as Porter noted, “countless hogs” as a peace offering.

So, by early December some sort of peace had been restored to the island, and by the 9th Essex was repaired and ready to sail.

Porter left Lt Gamble and gave him three captured whalers, and set sail, telling him that he would be back. Gamble was left in command of three ships (all seized whalers): Seringapatam (made of teak), Sir Andrew Hammond, and Greenwich, plus 2 midshipmen, 19 sailors, and 6 British prisoners, though it appears that 10 of the 19 sailors were also British. Lt Gamble thus became the only US Marine to ever command a US Navy ship.

Porter actually had a brief mutiny of sorts, as his sailors wanted to stay, but he flogged three men, and he banished one England born sailor to the island, and order was restored. Porter and Essex and Little Essex departed.

Porter and Essex left Nuku Hiva on December 9th and headed for Valparaiso, reaching that harbor on 12 January 1814, with the intention of getting new provisions, powder and shot, making some repairs and returning to pick up Gamble and his men. But on reaching Valparaiso they learned that there was a civil war ongoing in Chile, and the harbor was, apparently crawling with British agents; word was quickly passed to the the Royal Navy and dispatches were sent out.

On February 3rd, before he head had time to fully provision his ships, the Royal Navy had arrived. HMS Phoebe - 36 guns, but 30 of them were 18 pound long guns - as Porter had foreseen, in company with the 18 gun HMS Cherub, arrived off Valparaiso and blockaded the Port, trapping Essex and Little Essex in the harbor. More Royal Navy ships were headed to Valparaiso. While they waited, Captain Hillyer of Phoebe learned that Essex was mostly armed with carronades.

On March 28th, with weather turning sour, Porter tried to make a break for it, but instead of the weather helping, a squall struck as he attempted to break into open sea and he lost his main topmast. There was some debate as to whether they were still in Chilean waters, but Hillyers engaged and, as predicted, remained outside the range of Essex’s guns. Porter tried to board Cherub and was nearly successful, but Cherub evaded. Essex caught fire twice, they put it the fires out twice, they kept fighting. Essex was hit more than 200 times, with 58 dead, 65 wounded, 31 missing: more than 70 jumped over the sides during the fires, the British ships picked up more than 40.

Porter tried to run Essex ashore and blow her up but the wind shifted and blew her out to sea. Finally, after a two-and-a-half hour fight, he struck his colors.

After being taken prisoner, Porter (and young David Farragut, 11 years old, wounded in battle) and the rest of the crew were paroled and sent home on USS Essex Junior, the renamed prize, and arrived back in the US July 1814. 

Meanwhile, Lt. Gamble remained at Nuku Hiva until May. On May 7th the 10 British sailors mutinied, released the 6 prisoners, and seized control of the ship Seringapatam. They headed to sea and left Gamble and 4 sailors - all five men were wounded - in a small boat, adrift. Gamble and the sailors reached the island the next day. Six other sailors were ashore and they were attacked by Te L’i, who killed 4 and wounded the other 2 sailors ashore. They then attacked the Sir Andrew Richmond. Gamble was the only man able to fight, the other all being more severely wounded, but the mall cannons placed on the ship had all been pre-loaded and Gamble managed to fight off the attack by himself.

Gamble then burned Greenwich, managed to get all the US sailors back on board, and on May 9th set sail in Sir Andrew Hammond, headed for the Sandwich Islands (as Hawaii was known at the time). 

Gamble had no maps, but reached Hawaii on 12 June, only to be immediately captured by HMS Cherub.

Five men on Nuku Hiva, and 58 men in Valparaiso Harbor, Chile, 1813-1814, consider them this Memorial Day for just a few minutes.