DECATUR AND THE _PHILADELPHIA_
STORY OF THE BRAVE MEN WHO DISGUISED A KETCH AS A MERCHANTMAN AND
SAILED INTO THE HARBOR OF TRIPOLI BY NIGHT, DREW UP ALONGSIDE THE
CAPTURED _PHILADELPHIA_, AND THEN, TO THE ORDER “BOARDERS AWAY!”
CLIMBED OVER THE RAIL AND THROUGH THE PORTS, AND WITH CUTLASS AND
PIKE DROVE THE PIRATES INTO THE SEA OR TO A WORSE FATE--“THE MOST
BOLD AND DARING ACT OF THE AGE.”
With 315 American prisoners, including twenty-two officers, to hold
for ransom, and with a swift and most substantial thirty-six-gun
frigate added to his fleet, the Bashaw of Tripoli had gained a decided
advantage over the Americans. He was so pleased over it that on a
festival day that followed the accident, he brought the officers
before him where his court was assembled in gala attire and, after a
proper greeting, the Americans were liberally sprinkled with ottar
of roses and other perfumes and were served with coffee and sherbet.
Later, however, they were confined in filthy dungeons and otherwise
ill treated. But, in spite of dungeons, through the aid of Mr. N. C.
Nissen, the Danish consul at Tripoli, who was unremitting in kind
attentions to the Americans, Bainbridge was able to communicate with
the American fleet, and on December 5, 1803, he sent a letter, written
with lime juice (which becomes legible when heated), in which he
proposed that the _Philadelphia_ be destroyed as she lay at anchor by
the Americans, who might come into the harbor at night in a schooner,
and, after firing her, get away again. The suggestion was adopted, and
it was carried out in a fashion that made the name of Decatur famous in
the annals of the American navy.
At this time Stephen Decatur, Jr., was a lieutenant of the navy and in
command of the famous schooner _Enterprise_. On December 23, 1803, he
fell in with a Tripolitan ketch named the _Mastico_, that was carrying
a lot of female slaves to the Sultan of Turkey, and very quickly
captured her. This prize he carried to Syracuse, where the American
fleet, under Capt. Edward Preble, was at anchor.
It is worth recalling here that Capt. Edward Preble, who was now in
command of the _Constitution_, had, as a boy of fourteen years, been
driven from his home at Portland (Falmouth), Maine, when that town was
destroyed by the infamous Mowat at the beginning of the war of the
Revolution.
[Illustration: Stephen Decatur.
_From an engraving by Osborn of the portrait by White._]
At Syracuse the project of destroying the _Philadelphia_ by means
of a small vessel well manned was mentioned to Decatur. He eagerly
asked to be allowed to undertake the work with his schooner, the
_Enterprise_, but the matter was not at once decided on. Later Lieut.
Charles Stewart, who commanded the brig _Siren_, asked for the place,
but Preble had decided meantime that Decatur should do it and that the
captured ketch _Mastico_ should be employed because she was of a rig
that could more easily enter the harbor of Tripoli without attracting
attention.
Accordingly, the ketch was taken into the service as a tender and a
picked crew of sixty-two volunteers put on board, with a faithful
Malta man for pilot. In addition to these, there were a dozen young
officers from the _Enterprise_ and from the flagship _Constitution_,
among whom were two midshipmen of whom the world was to hear later
on--James Lawrence and Thomas Macdonough. Macdonough was then but
twenty years old, while Lawrence was but sixteen. Decatur himself was
only twenty-four.
Having everything in readiness, the _Mastico_ sailed on February 9,
1804, for Tripoli, with the brig _Siren_ in company to lie in wait off
the harbor and pick up the crew of the _Mastico_ should they be obliged
to take to the small boats at any time.
Running across to Tripoli, the expedition arrived by night, but a
furious gale defeated the hope of success and all but swamped the
_Mastico_. For six days she rolled to the waves, her crew in distress
for lack of food and of any sleeping accommodations whatever, and
because of the vermin the slaves had left behind. But on the 16th of
February the weather moderated to a breeze that would just serve
their purpose, and they stood in for the harbor, overhauling their
combustibles on the way and finding everything dry and fit.
When night drew on, the men were divided into five crews, of which
three were to fire as many different parts of the ship, one was to hold
her upper deck, and one to remain in and guard the ketch. Meantime
seven more volunteers had been taken from the _Siren_. When night had
fully come the little ketch parted from the brig, and at 9 o’clock was
sailing into the harbor by the channel in which the _Philadelphia_ had
been lost.
All the crew but six well-disguised men were hidden below or stretched
out on deck in the shadow of the bulwarks, as soon as the city’s lights
came well in view, and with a failing wind the ketch thereafter drifted
toward the great hulk of the _Philadelphia_, which was soon brought
plainly in view in the moonlight. Her ports were aglow with lights, and
her crew were seen to be at least awake if not alert.
Drawing near at about 10 o’clock, the pilot, at Decatur’s order,
steered the ketch so as to foul the _Philadelphia’s_ rigging at the
bowsprit. Then a sentinel hailed the ketch. The Malta pilot replied
that the ketch had lost all her anchors during the gale and wished to
make fast to the cables of the _Philadelphia_ until others could be
procured on shore. Then an officer asked what brig was off shore, for
he had seen the _Siren_ in spite of precautions. The pilot replied that
it was the English war-brig _Transfer_, which had been purchased at
Malta for the Tripolitans and, fortunately, was due to arrive.
As the pilot talked, many of the Tripolitans gathered at the
_Philadelphia’s_ rail and ports to peer over at the ketch. So when,
at last, the chains at the _Philadelphia’s_ bow were almost within
grasp the wind failed, and the next instant a cat’s-paw caught the
ketch aback; she began to drift toward the broadside of the big ship,
where all these Tripolitans would have a fair view of her deck. It
was a moment of great peril, but without the least flurry two of
the disguised sailors got into a small boat and carried a line to a
ring-bolt on the man-o’-war’s bow. Then the disguised men on board
the ketch began hauling in, while those lying in the shadow of the
bulwarks, trusting to the depth of the shadow, lent their aid by
hauling hand over fist as they lay there.
Meantime the Tripolitans had sent a small boat with a line by which
they intended to swing the ketch astern of the _Philadelphia_, but the
Yankees in the small boat, with great presence of mind, took it from
them and carried it to the ketch, “to save the gentlemen the trouble,”
as they explained in broken Maltese.
During all this time the pilot had been entertaining the Tripolitan
officer with a high-colored description of the ketch’s cargo--had
really entertained him until the men hauling on the bow line had
brought the ketch within ten yards of the big ship, when unhappily the
tension on the line from the stern drew the ketch broadside on to the
_Philadelphia_, where the eyes of the idle spectators could fall on
the men who were lying on the ketch’s deck eagerly hauling in on the
bow line. One fair look was enough, and in an instant the ship was
resounding with the cry,
“Americano! Americano!”
The moment for action had come. Springing to their feet, the Americans
ran away with the line. A Tripolitan climbed over the _Philadelphia’s_
bows and cut the line loose, but the momentum already gained was great
enough to land the ketch fair in place, where grapnels were thrown out,
and with that Decatur cried, “Boarders away!” and sprang for the rail
of the _Philadelphia_.
By the side of Decatur stood Midshipmen Morris and Laws. Laws, to be
the first at the enemy, strove to get through a port, but his pistols
caught and held him for a moment, while Decatur slipped just enough to
give Morris the honor of being first, and then came Decatur and all
the rest with swinging cutlasses to clear the deck.
[Illustration: Burning of the Frigate _Philadelphia_ by Decatur.
_From an old wood cut._]
The Tripolitans had been fairly caught napping and, while never a word
was spoken, the quarter-deck was cleaned in a trice. Then the Americans
formed instantly in a line athwartship and charged silently forward.
Whelmed by the fierce onslaught, the Tripolitans fled for life, and the
rapid sound of bodies falling into the water alongside told whither
many were fleeing. Others ran below, where some met death from the
cutlasses and pikes of sailors who had climbed through the ports, and
others hid to meet a worse fate a brief time later.
So swift and thorough was the work of the American boarders that in ten
minutes the last show of resistance was ended. And then a single rocket
drew its line of flame high in air to tell the anxious friends without
the bar that the _Philadelphia_ was captured.
Even while the rocket mounted, the three crews that had been assigned
to fire the ship were passing up the combustibles from the ketch, and
never was a work of destruction more completely done than that which
followed.
Midshipman Morris, he who had first reached the enemy, was in charge
of the crew that fired the cockpit, the lowest attainable point in the
ship. He did his work effectually, but so swiftly had those worked on
the deck above him that when he followed his men up they barely had
time to escape.
On reaching the upper deck the flames were found pouring from the
portholes on both sides and flaring up to lap the tar-soaked shrouds
and stays. Decatur was there, waiting for those from the cockpit. When
they came he paused but a moment to see that the fire was effectually
set, and then over the rail tumbled every man jack of the expedition,
Decatur himself being the last to leave the burning ship. Indeed, the
ketch was then drifting clear, and he had to jump to reach her. He had
been on board but twenty-five minutes, all told.
With poles and oars the Americans now strove to get away, but in some
way the ketch swung around under the stern of the big ship with boom
afoul, her sail flapping against the ship’s sides, and, at the last,
with the flames pouring through the ship’s cabin windows into the cabin
of the ketch, where all the ammunition of the expedition was stored,
covered over with sail-cloth only. The peril was imminent, but it was
averted when some one discovered that the forgotten line from the stern
was still fast.
When that was cleared, and with their big oars, eight on a side, the
crew began to sweep the ketch away toward the sea, the flames on the
_Philadelphia_ reached her tarred rigging at the rail. Running thence
to the masthead, they made such giant torches as illuminated the whole
bay and exposed the fleeing ketch as if in the light of day.
The Tripolitans hastened to their guns. The ketch was still well
within range, for the _Philadelphia_ lay but a quarter of a mile from
the fort, and in a few moments heavy shot were bounding and splashing
over the smooth water on every side. But, whether from anger or mere
excitement, the barbarian aim was bad, and only one shot reached the
little vessel, and that merely passed through a sail.
And then to the roar of the cannon on the beach was added that of the
guns of the _Philadelphia_, which, heated by the fierce flames of deck
and frames, began to discharge themselves. But not all of them were
fired so. Only a few had been noted when the wondering spectators saw
the great hull suddenly burst open, with huge sheets of flame spurting
from between the parting timbers. The masts with their flaming rigging
shot up a hundred and fifty feet into the air. All eyes were for a
moment dazzled with the blazing light, and then came a shock and
roar that made the earth and sea shudder. The fire had reached the
well-filled magazine.
The waves from the explosion came out to rock the triumphant Americans
in their little ketch, now rapidly reaching their shipmates and safety.
[Illustration: The Blowing up of the Frigate Philadelphia
_The U. S. Frigate Philadelphia while blocking the harbour of
Tripoli; strikes upon a rock. In this situation she surrenders. Com.
Decatur obtains leave to attempt to recover or destroy her, & with 70
volunteers sails for the ship. He reaches her & though moored under
the Bashaw’s Batteries & surrounded by his Navy, he with his men rush
on board & boldly attack & conquer the crew of near 1000 men. Finding
her recovery impossible, they set her on fire, which soon produces a
terrible explosion, while Decatur & his crew safely escape from the
harbour, amid a tremendous fire from the enemies batteries & ships._
]
Not one American lost his life and but one was wounded. Of the
Tripolitans more than twenty were certainly killed by the boarders,
while many wounded ones jumped overboard, and many cowards sneaked to
hiding places below, where the flames ended them.
To reward those who had participated in this feat, which Lord Nelson,
it is said, called “the most bold and daring act of the age,” Congress
made Decatur a captain and gave him a sword, and to each of the others
two months’ pay. And, because of this adventure, the name of the ketch
was changed to _Intrepid_.
To show his feelings in the matter, the Bashaw of Tripoli placed the
American prisoners in a cold, damp apartment in the castle, where their
only light was from an iron grating in the ceiling, and he did not
release them from it until compelled to make peace.
[Illustration: Piece of the _Philadelphia’s_ Stern.
_From the original piece at the Naval Institute, Annapolis._]