Eyewitness to History

[Doc]

Well my memory has gotten fuzzy with age, and I read all this a long time ago, but the early US Navy, while a little small, really was a fearsome entity. So much so infact, that most British ships had orders to never engage US ships one on one. Something to the effect or 2 or 3 on one, more if possible.

America had highly accurate and powerful cannons. As Pete mentioned, cannonballs were filed and then polished to be as smooth as a baby's behind. What we really had going for us was reputation. A certain amount of bluff factor, and that the US Naval Officers were crazy as loons, especially after that whole Barbary event where some captain set his own ship on fire and then used it as a giant flaming battering ram to assault a blockade and then rammed it into the harbour, setting most of the city on fire. Once word spreads of that sort of insanity, well, folk have a little bit of fear on what you might or might not do.

Also, as I recall reading, America did not play by the "Rules." Warning and Courtesy shorts were largely ignored, with Americans paying no attention to Naval Etiquette. They did not recognize the RN as being the "embodiment" and "presense" of the nobles, and therefore, did not treat them as one might treat a noble. America had this whole "Manifest Destiny" thing going on, all men as equals. I wish I could remember the name of the book, but there was a really interesting book about early America and how the world viewed us, and about our early views, like trying to stay out of European politics and such. Even back then, Americans were viewed as uncivilized uncultured brutes, and, horror of horrors, they had a navy, which had always been a gentleman's arena.