July 17, 1812, had not dawned with promise for Capt. Isaac Hull and the frigate USS Constitution. Hull and the crew realized they were surrounded by a squadron of British warships, and there was no wind for escape. Moses Smith, an enlisted crewman, remembered, “We were off Little Egg Harbour, on the New Jersey shore, at the time stretching in toward the Delaware Bay. The enemy had drawn in between us and the land so that the prospect was they might cut us off from the Capes.”

At first, Hull had tried to pull his ship to safety by using his longboats, but the British gathered all of the fleet’s…