The Battle of New Orleans 277 



APPENDIX C 



AFTER my work was in press I for the first time 

 came across Prof. J. Russell Soley's "Naval Cam- 

 paign of 1812," in the "Proceedings of the United 

 States Naval Institute," for October 20, 1881. It 

 is apparently the precursor of a more extended his- 

 tory. Had I known that such a writer as Professor 

 Soley was engaged on a work of this kind I certainly 

 should not have attempted it myself. 



In several points our accounts differ. In the ac- 

 tion with the Guerriere his diagram differs from 

 mine chiefly in his making the Constitution steer 

 in a more direct line, while I have represented her 

 as shifting her course several times in order to 

 avoid being raked, bringing the wind first on her 

 port and then on her starboard quarter. My account 

 of the number of the crew of the Guerriere is taken 

 from the Constitution's muster-book (in the Treas- 

 ury Department at Washington), which contains 

 the names of all the British prisoners received aboard 

 the Constitution after the fight. The various writers 

 used "larboard" and "starboard" with such perfect 

 indifference, in speaking of the closing and the loss 

 of the Guerritre's mizzenmast, that I hardly knew 

 which account to adopt ; it finally seemed to me that 

 the only way to reconcile the conflicting statements 



