Jefferson's War Read online

  Preble’s attempted diplomacy with Tripoli had failed. He had sent Richard O‘Brien, the former consul general, into Tripoli on June 12 with authority to offer $40,000 in ransom, $10,000 in bribes, and a $10,000 gift for Yusuf whenever the new U.S. consul arrived. The bashaw spurned the peace bid and wouldn’t even allow O’Brien to visit the Philadelphia prisoners. He grudgingly permitted him to send ashore clothing for them, then reversed himself and lowered the white truce flag before O‘Brien could send the clothing; the British delivered the shipment weeks later. Preble sailed away vowing to “beat & distress his savage highness” into accepting his terms.

  Preble and every consul in the region felt the sharp urgency of bringing the war to a head. At stake was America’s reputation in Barbary. “It is from thence we are either to assume and support a National Character with these States;—or bow the neck and answer to the eternal cry of give,” wrote George Davis from Tunis. Echoing Jefferson’s long-held sentiments, Tobias Lear said the United States was “a Nation different from all others, we are now powerfull if we chuse to exert our strength.”

  It was a favorable moment for an attack on Tripoli. All was quiet in Algiers, and while Morocco and Tunis were complaining about the Tripoli blockade, they weren’t going to do anything about it. Morocco again was badgering U.S. Consul James Simpson for a passport, this time so it could send wheat to Tripoli. Tunis was grousing over the Philadelphia’s destruction—Tripoli was supposed to have given the frigate to Tunis to settle debts— and was clamoring again for a gift frigate. The bey also professed to be outraged over U.S. warships having fired on a small coastal trading vessel carrying earthenware from Jerba; the incident was of little consequence, with no one hurt and scarcely $100 in damage done. Davis predicted nothing would come of all this because Tunis had its hands full with its war against Naples, and because of the calming effect of Preble frequently appearing in Tunis harbor with the Constitution. Tunis was waiting to see what Preble did at Tripoli; Davis said it was imperative that Preble stagger Tripoli with the force of his attack and impress the other Barbary States. “It must be dreadful to Barbary. ”

  Almost alone, Bainbridge was skeptical of Preble’s chances of forcing peace upon Tripoli solely with naval force. From his castle prison, Bainbridge had had plenty of opportunity to observe the Tripolitans at close hand, and he was sure warships alone would not make the bashaw agree to a peace that didn’t suit him. Tripoli was too well fortified to be beaten into submission by bombardment; its coastline was too pockmarked with bays for an effective blockade; and it had only a meager commercial trade to begin with, conducted by a few Jewish merchants whose interests were of little concern to the bashaw—and especially now, with the plentiful harvest. Bainbridge believed that only an amphibious attack by several thousand U.S. troops would force the bashaw to agree to peace on American terms, and that a landing force could easily capture the city and impose terms. While convinced that anything short of that would meet limited success and require a bought peace of some kind, Bainbridge recognized that a naval attack would serve one purpose: “A harassing bombardment will no doubt tend to make the terms more moderate....”

  August 3, 1804 2:30 P.M.

  Signal flags shot up the Constitution’s halyards, ordering the squadron to commence fire. The bomb vessels began lobbing shells into Tripoli. Sheets of musket and cannon fire flashed from enemy ships and batteries, clattering on the American warships’ masts and hulls and roiling the water among the mortar boats, gunboats, brigs, and schooners. The squadron replied with a thunderous cannonade, and the fight was on. Soon a curtain of blue-gray smoke hung over the bright waters. The Philadelphia prisoners listened anxiously to the ominous rumble of cannons coming from above their castle prison. Tripoli’s streets were filled with running men. “Every Turk had his musket and other weapons, and wild disorder rang out from every arch.” Extra guards suddenly appeared outside the captives’ prison doors. The captives were driven to the castle magazine. Powder kegs weighing 100 pounds each were loaded on their backs, and they were forced to carry them at a jog, while being beaten by drivers, up to the castle batteries—a distance of three-quarters of a mile. Along the way, the riled townspeople threw stones at them and punched and slapped them, uttering “every insult and indignity that could be offered or endured.”

  Preble’s gunboats split into two divisions of three gunboats each under Captain Stephen Decatur and Lieutenant Richard Somers, and attacked the Tripolitan gunboat fleet. In Somers’s division were Lieutenant John Blake and Decatur’s younger brother, Lieutenant James Decatur. Stephen Decatur led Lieutenants Joseph Bainbridge—whose older brother William was imprisoned less than a mile away—and John Trippe. As Stephen Decatur’s formation advanced toward nine enemy gunboats through a curtain of grapeshot and musket balls, Bainbridge’s lateen yard was shot away, and he couldn’t steer his vessel and bring it alongside the enemy. So, from a distance, he harried the Tripolitans with cannon and musket fire, while Decatur, Trippe, and three dozen crewmen swarmed aboard two enemy craft. Decatur and twenty-four men cleared the decks of their prize in just ten minutes.

  Trippe boarded another gunboat, and the two vessels suddenly drifted apart, leaving him and just ten men to face thirty-six enemy. Undaunted, Trippe’s small force attacked with swords, pistols, pikes, and tomahawks. Trippe, small but well-proportioned, took on the enemy captain, an athletic man well over six feet tall. Before the battle, the Tripolitan had sworn on the Koran that he would “conquer or die,” and now he fought both Trippe and Midshipman John D. Henley with abandon. Impressed by the captain’s wild courage, the American officers exhorted him to surrender so they would not have to kill him. But the captain grimly fought on, ignoring his own wounds while slashing and stabbing Trippe with his scimitar eleven times in the head and chest. Reeling and bloody, Trippe saw an opening and desperately drove his sword into the Tripolitan, who fell and lay motionless on the deck. As Henley stepped over him, the captain suddenly gave a violent twist to Henley’s ankle before going limp and expiring on the spot. For the rest of his days, Trippe shed tears whenever relating their epic struggle.

  Somers’s division bore in on the second gunboat formation. While Somers and his crew drove five enemy craft inside the protection of the rocks with grapeshot and musket fire, James Decatur attacked the largest enemy gunboat. It quickly struck its flag, but as Decatur boarded it, the treacherous captain raised a pistol and shot him in the head. As the shocked crewmen attended to their dying lieutenant, the enemy gunboat escaped.

  The boat bearing the wounded James Decatur happened to cross paths with Stephen Decatur’s gunboat. When Decatur learned how his brother had been wounded, he left his prize with Lieutenant Thorn, took eleven men, and went looking for the Tripolitan captain. He vowed to give no quarter, just as his brother’s assailant hadn’t. “I find hand to hand is not childs play, ‘tis kill or be killed.” Decatur overtook an enemy gunboat, and he led his tiny boarding party aboard. Decatur searched out the captain, a huge Mameluke. The captain lunged at Decatur with a pike. When Decatur swung his cutlass to block the blow, his sword shattered on the metal pike head, and the captain drove the pike into Decatur’s chest. Decatur yanked it out before it caused mortal damage and flung it aside. The men wrestled on the deck. Decatur, smaller and quicker, emerged on top, just as a Tripolitan crewman swung a sword at his head. The blow might have ended Decatur’s life had it landed. But Daniel Frazier, a Decatur crewman wounded in both arms, thrust his head into the sword’s path and took the heavy, chopping blow on his own skull, sparing his captain. (Miraculously, Frazier survived.) The Mameluke flipped over Decatur, whipped out a short, curved knife, and stabbed down toward Decatur, who caught his wrist with his left hand before the Mameluke could sink the blade into his chest. As they struggled for the knife, with his other hand Decatur fumbled for the pistol that he kept in his pocket, managed to cock it, pointed it in the direction of the captain, and pulled the trigger. The captain slumped over, dead.
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br />   The captain’s death took all the fight out of his crewmen, and they surrendered. While Decatur always believed he had avenged his brother’s death—and Stewart agreed that he had—Preble and Somers thought the killer had gotten away on another gunboat. As a souvenir of their epic hand-to-hand fight, Decatur kept a book of Arabic prayers and Koran passages that he found in the dead captain’s pocket. (After her husband’s death years later, Susan Decatur gave the book to the library at Catholic College in Georgetown, in the District of Columbia.)

  The Constitution bombarded the forts and the city with 262 rounds of shot and shell, damaging buildings throughout the city and toppling a minaret. Five enemy gunboats and two galleys that had been held in reserve behind the rocks tried to flank the gunboats, and Preble swung his fifty guns on them. The storm of grapeshot stopped the sortie cold and inflicted heavy losses and “great havoc.”

  At 4:30 P.M., two hours after signaling the attack, Preble gave the signal to retire. The brigs, schooners, and boats towed away the gunboats, mortar boats, and their prizes under the Constitution’s covering fire. Preble took the bomb vessels in tow, and the squadron sailed out of the harbor.

  The battle was over.

  Decatur reported his captures to Preble, who was agitatedly pacing the Constitution quarterdeck, his uniform in shreds from a shot that had badly damaged a deck cannon during his ship’s brisk shelling. Decatur announced that his division had taken three prizes. Preble, expecting more than three ship captures from the attack, spun around and seized him by the collar. “Aye, sir,” he cried, shaking Decatur, “why did you not bring me out more?” The frustrated commodore stalked off to his cabin.

  But when he learned later what had happened to Decatur’s brother, Preble sent for the captain and apologized. He sent Decatur on the Constitution’s barge to bring James aboard the flagship. James died on the barge, propped in Midshipman Charles Morris’s lap. Decatur sat up with the body all night, remembering the happy times they had shared as boys. But at the burial at sea the next morning, Decatur was more proud than sad. To Morris, he confided, “I would rather see him there, than living with any cloud on his conduct.”

  The battle, a stunning demonstration of American fighting prowess, buoyed the spirits of the squadron’s crewmen and officers. They had itched for a fight like this since Sterrett demolished the Tripoli nearly three years ago to the day. In the savage hand-to-hand fighting at which the Tripolitans supposedly excelled, the Americans had proven they were fiercer, better trained, and better led. “I always thought we could lick them their own way and give them two to one,” said Decatur, and in unsurprising nineteenth-century fashion added, “Some of the Turks died like men, but much the greater number like women.” Grateful as he and the other Americans were for the Neapolitans’ help, Decatur was more amused than impressed by their battle demeanor. “While we fought they prayed.”

  Forty-four Tripolitans perished in the close-in fighting on the three captured ships, with thirty-five taken prisoner and twenty-six wounded, three later dying of their wounds. Gunfire killed and wounded many other enemy on other gunboats and the fortress batteries. James Decatur was the only American battle death; Trippe, Stephen Decatur, and a dozen others were treated for wounds. The squadron’s rapid, accurate gunnery sank three enemy vessels and cleared the decks of several others. The Tripolitan gunners consistently fired high, hitting sails and rigging, never once hulling an American ship.

  Besides the combat casualties, there was one other American victim of the battle: Lieutenant John Blake. Blake’s gunboat never closed with any enemy gunboats; it kept to the fringes of the action. His unhappy crew could only fire from a distance on the harbor and fortresses, but being where targets were fewest, their gunboat fired the fewest rounds. In an alert squadron such as Preble’s, Blake’s evasion was known to one and all within hours. Whispers of cowardice wafted through the squadron wardrooms. While Preble never reprimanded Blake officially, indignation among the officers reached such a pitch that Blake tendered his resignation as gunboat commander, rather “than to continue under a Suspicious Eye.” Preble accepted the resignation without comment.

  Stung by their losses, the Tripolitans uneasily watched the American squadron lingering just beyond the harbor, wondering when it would attack again. To soothe their apprehension, they ascribed the Americans’ surprising violence in the recent battle to drunkenness and attempted to exorcise their fears by abusing the Philadelphia prisoners. They put them to work repairing fortress walls and replenishing the forts’ powder from the castle magazine, abusing them constantly. “The infuriate Turks, wherever we met them, would strike, spit upon and stone us.”

  A few days after the gunboat battle, the squadron stopped a French privateer leaving the harbor, and after ascertaining that her papers were in order, Preble persuaded the captain to take ashore fourteen badly wounded Tripolitans. Preble’s humane gesture did not evoke a commensurate action by the bashaw toward the American prisoners. “They did not abate their cruelties to us in consequence of it,” Ray wrote. If anything, the beatings worsened, to the point where the Americans petitioned Yusuf’s intercession. He ordered the abuse stopped, but then impassively watched a guard flail a captive without intervening.

  After a long day of patching up the victims of Preble’s attack, Cowdery decided to no longer aid or comfort the enemy. Motivated primarily by patriotism, he also saw that with this turning into a real shooting war, he soon could be overwhelmed with Tripolitan casualties. But Cowdery had no stomach for the ugly confrontation with the bashaw that a blunt refusal to serve would necessitate. Two days after the attack, the ship’s surgeon was asked to treat a soldier’s shattered hand from a bursting blunderbuss. Cowdery took a dull knife and amputated all but one finger, then very deliberately dressed the wound “in a bungling manner.”

  Cowdery had accurately assayed Preble’s character and intentions. The commodore was indeed relentless. His orders from Secretary Smith were virtually the same as Morris’s had been: to blockade and “annoy the Enemy” and to work in concert with Lear to negotiate peace if possible. But Smith also had added, “The conduct for sometime past pursued by our squadron in the Mediterranean, has, unhappily, not been calculated to accomplish the object of government nor to make a just impression on the Enemy of our national character.”

  For the first time, Smith had chosen the right man to prosecute the war. Preble was determined either to force the bashaw to make a reasonable peace “or to destroy his city ... I wish to close the war with the Barbarians by conduct which shall establish our naval character among them and make them have a respect for peace....”

  The commodore had kept up a steady blockade that snared a half dozen prizes, including the 16-gun brig Transfer, which he had converted into the U.S. warship Scourge. Twice during July there were sharp clashes between the Americans and Tripolitans. The Siren chased a small Tripolitan ship aground on July 7 and, with the Vixen’s help, destroyed it with cannon fire during a skirmish with 1,000 enemy troops on the beach. A week later, another ship was chased and riddled after it was beached, but Tripolitan soldiers killed four Americans in one of the Siren’s boats. The Vixen and Siren retaliated massively with cannon and small-arms fire, killing and wounding 150 Tripolitans. These harassing actions pleased the commodore, who had little use for the North Africans, whom he regarded as “a deep designing artfull treacherous sett of Villains and nothing will keep them so quiet as a respectable naval force near them.” Now that he had gone to the trouble of procuring gunboats and mortar vessels and towing them to Tripoli from Sicily, Preble was in no hurry to leave.

  After a turbulent early life, Preble was only beginning to mellow in his forty-second year. When he was fourteen, he had watched the British burn his home and half the town of Falmouth, Maine (it later became Portland), making a patriot of him. Later, he joined the Massachusetts State Navy, and was a midshipman on the 26-gun frigate Protector when it captured the Admiral Duff off Maine—and when the Protecto
r was captured by the 44-gun Roebuck without a fight. The British threw the American crew into the notorious prison hulk Jersey in New York harbor. Preble’s father pulled strings and arranged an exchange for his son, and he went back to sea as commander of the 12-gun Massachusetts Navy sloop Winthrop, harassing Loyalist cruisers operating out of Bagaduce, Maine, and capturing the Merriam in a daring raid at Penobscot Bay in 1782. During the last year of the war, he cruised to Bermuda and the West Indies, seizing naval prizes.

  After the war, Preble made a comfortable living as a merchant captain, but he missed the naval service. He applied for a commission when Congress established the U.S. Navy in 1794, but didn’t receive it until 1798, during the Quasi-War naval expansion. At thirty-seven, he was old for a lieutenancy, but he accepted. Displaying that he was a fighting commander, Preble earned a rapid promotion to captain. He then had the great luck of being given command of the 36-gun frigate Essex, leaving Newport, R.I., on an epic voyage to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies, from where he was to convoy eleven U.S. merchantmen home. The Essex was the first American warship to cross the equator, the first to show the flag in the East Indies, and the first to round the Cape of Good Hope twice. While it was a thrilling voyage of discovery, it exacted a heavy toll on Preble; he contracted malaria and a chronic stomach ailment, possibly ulcers, that shadowed him to a premature death and forced him to turn down commands in Dale’s and Morris’s squadrons.