Among the young officers of Commodore Preble’s squadron before Tripoli
there was a tall, dark, melancholy-looking fellow of about twenty-five.
His name was Richard Somers and his command was the “Nautilus,” a little
schooner of twelve guns and a hundred men. He had been with Decatur
and Stewart, a junior officer on Commodore Barry’s “United States” in
the war with Spain, and the friendship formed in those early days had
been cemented by a score of thrilling adventures which had drawn them
more closely together than brothers. Charles Stewart, before Decatur’s
promotion to post-captain, had been the second in command to Preble,
and his vessel, the “Siren,” had taken a prominent part in all the many
actions with the Tripolitan forts and gunboats. He was a year or so older
than his companions and had drifted a little away from them. But Decatur
and Somers were inseparable. Some bond outside of mere professional
sympathy and environment existed between them, and there seemed to be no
thought of the one that the other did not share. The difference in their
temperaments was marked. Decatur was bold, domineering, and impetuous.
Somers was quiet, mild, and ever avoided the quarrel which Decatur too
often sought. But under the quiet exterior men had found a will like iron
and the willingness to dare and do anything that came within the province
of his profession. He was thoughtful, but not so quiet that he could not
enter into the gayety of the mess; he was mild, but not so mild that he
would overlook shortcomings among his men or brook any slight upon his
office or his reputation.
In the old days on the “United States” there happened an affair which
immediately established his reputation as an officer and a man. At first
he was not understood. His brother midshipmen, mistaking the reserve of
his manner for weakness, did not hesitate before they had been aboard with
him a month to take advantage of him in the steerage and on deck in every
possible way. Not only did they slight him, but, after the manner of the
cadet midshipman of recent years, they made him the butt of most of their
practical jokes below-decks. Somers stood it for a while in silence. He
dearly loved peace, and, beyond a good-humored protest, let everything
pass for what it was worth. But as the weeks went by and the bantering
continued, instead of laughing it off as before, Somers became more and
more quiet and self-contained.
Decatur, ever humorous and mischief-making, had himself been one of the
worst to chaff his comrade; but he knew what Somers’ silence meant, and
he desisted. He had been his school-mate in Philadelphia, and he had seen
that ominous quiet before. Decatur would have fought for him to the last
drop of his blood, but he felt that his comrade was well able to look out
for himself.
Somers went about his duties quietly, never giving a sign that there was
anything upon his mind until the day before coming into port, then he went
to Decatur, and said,--
“Stephen, to-morrow I want you to go ashore with me, for I am going to
meet three men.”
The next afternoon a cutter containing Somers, Decatur, and three
midshipmen, with their seconds, went ashore and found a secluded spot upon
the beach where they would be free from interference. He had challenged
all three to fight at the same time and would take them in succession.
In the first two duels Somers received two shots in the body, the latter
one of which caused him to sink upon the sand as though dangerously hurt;
but he rallied quickly, and, seeing that the third midshipman was standing
waiting to see if the battle could be continued, he tried to struggle to
his feet. He found he could not get up, and Decatur offered to take his
place and receive the fire of the third midshipman. But Somers, though
suffering greatly, was not to be deterred, and bade Decatur prop him up
in a sitting posture, in which position he exchanged shots with the third
man. Fortunately, none of the injuries resulted fatally, and in a few
weeks Somers was on deck again. He went about his duties as quietly as
before, but never after that did they call him milksop.
It was Somers who led one division of the gunboats to attack the
Tripolitan fleet while Decatur was leading the other. Finding that he
could not reach them by the eastern entrance, he sailed into the northern
entrance of the harbor and single-handed boldly sent his little vessel
into the midst of five of the enemy. His gunboat was smaller than any one
of those of his adversaries; but so well was his long gun served and so
true was the fire of his musketry that he held them at bay for half an
hour, and not one of them succeeded in getting alongside of him to board.
They were all bearing straight down upon the rocks, though, and Somers
could not spare enough men from the guns to man his sweeps. But Preble,
on the “Constitution,” saw his danger, and, coming up in time, sent a
broadside of grape among the pirates, and they got out their sweeps and
retreated, when, in spite of the doggedness of the defence, one united
attack would have made the victory theirs. But as they drew off, instead
of returning, as Preble wished, to the “Constitution,” Somers pursued them
until within less than a cable’s length of a twelve-gun battery, which
had not fired before for fear of damaging the fleeing Tripolitans. When
she opened fire at this close range the destruction of Somers’s valiant
little vessel seemed inevitable. But by a lucky chance a bombard exploded
in the battery, blew up the platform, and drove the Tripolitans to cover.
Before they could recover and train their guns, Somers managed to bring
his craft out in safety. In a later action, as Somers stood leaning
against a flag-staff on his little vessel, a shot came directly for him.
The officer saw it in time, and jumped aside to see the spar carried away
at just the spot where his head had been. He was spared for more deadly
work.
While these many attacks were being made upon the gunboats and batteries,
the “Intrepid,” in which Decatur had recaptured and destroyed the
“Philadelphia,” was being rapidly prepared as a fire-ship. Their plan was
to load her with a hundred barrels of powder in bulk, with bags of grape
and solid shot, and under cover of the night explode her in the midst of
the Tripolitan war-vessels. Somers, who had been frequently in the harbor
of Tripoli and knew its reefs and rocks so that he could readily thread
his way through the narrow channels, asked for the opportunity to command
this expedition. But Decatur’s success in boarding the “Philadelphia”
had raised the chivalry of every officer and man in the fleet to a point
rarely equalled in our own history, and Somers, while he did not begrudge
Decatur his two epaulettes, was filled with the passion to do a deed as
great, if not greater. They had been rivals since youth, and he felt that
now was the opportunity to attempt a great deed for his country, though
he and every man in the fleet knew that the chances of coming out alive
were but one in a hundred. Somers went to Commodore Preble and urged
his knowledge of the harbor as his chief claim to the service. It was an
honor that a half-dozen other men sought, and not until the old commodore
had weighed the chances fully did he at last agree to let Somers go.
But, before consenting, Preble repeatedly warned the young officer of
the desperate character of the work, and told him that on account of the
Napoleonic wars the Tripolitans were short of ammunition, and that so
much powder must not fall into the hands of the enemy. But Somers needed
no warning. A day or two afterwards, when the preparations were nearly
completed, Preble and some other officers were trying a fuse in the cabin
of the “Constitution.” One of the officers, watch in hand, ventured the
opinion that it burned too long and might enable the enemy to put it out
before it exploded the magazine. Hearing this, Somers said, quietly,--
“I ask for no fuse at all.”
He was more gentle than ever in those last few days, and as he and Decatur
leaned over the hammock-nettings of “Old Ironsides,” looking towards
the line of white where the sea was breaking over the outer roofs, the
melancholy look seemed to deepen and the far-away expression in his eyes
was of another world. Decatur knew that rather than give up his ship and
his powder, Somers would blow the ship and himself to eternity.
When volunteers were called for, the desperateness of the enterprise
was fully explained; but the crew of the “Nautilus,” Somers’s own vessel
stepped forward to a man. He selected four,--James Simms, Thomas Tompline,
James Harris, and William Keith. From the “Constitution” he took William
Harrison, Robert Clark, Hugh McCormick, Jacob Williams, Peter Penner, and
Isaac Downes. Midshipman Henry Wadsworth (an uncle of the poet Longfellow)
was chosen as second in command. Midshipman Joseph Israel, having vainly
pleaded with Somers to be allowed to go, at the last moment smuggled
himself aboard the “Intrepid,” and when discovered Somers had not the
heart to send him back.
Decatur and Stewart went aboard the “Nautilus” on the evening that the
attempt had been planned. The three had been so closely united all their
lives that Stewart and Decatur felt the seriousness of the moment. Even
professionally the attempt seemed almost foolhardy, for several Tripolitan
vessels had come to anchor just within the entrance, and to pass them
even at night seemed an impossibility. Somers felt a premonition of his
impending catastrophe, for just as they were about to return to their own
vessels he took a ring from his finger and, breaking it into three pieces,
gave each of them a part, retaining the third for himself.
As soon as the night fell the “Intrepid” cast off her lines and went
slowly up towards the harbor. The “Argus,” the “Vixen,” and the “Nautilus”
followed her, while shortly afterwards Stewart on the “Siren” became so
anxious that he followed, too. A haze that had come up when the sun went
down hung heavily over the water, and soon the lines of the fire-ship
became a mere gray blur against the dark coast-line beyond. The excitement
upon the guard-ships now became intense, and both officers and men climbed
the rigging and leaned out in the chains in the hope of being able to
follow the movements of the ketch. Midshipman Ridgley, on the “Nautilus,”
by the aid of a powerful night-glass aloft, managed to follow her until
she got well within the harbor, and then she vanished. The suspense soon
became almost unbearable, for not a shot had been fired and not a sound
came from the direction in which she had gone. At about nine o’clock a
half-dozen cannon-shots could be plainly heard, and even the knowledge
that she had been discovered and was being fired on was a relief from the
awful silence.
At about ten o’clock Stewart was standing at the gangway of the “Siren,”
with Lieutenant Carrol, when the latter, craning his neck out into the
night, suddenly exclaimed,--
“Look! See the light!”
Stewart saw away up the harbor a speck of light, as if from a lantern,
which moved rapidly, as though it were being carried by some one running
along a deck. Then it paused and disappeared from view. In a second a
tremendous flame shot up hundreds of feet into the air, and the glare
of it was so intense that it seemed close aboard. The flash and shock
were so stupendous that the guard-ships, though far out to sea, trembled
and shivered like the men who watched and were blinded. The sound of
the explosion which followed seemed to shake sea and sky. It was like a
hundred thunder-claps, and they could hear the echoes of it go rolling
down across the water until it was swallowed up in the silence of the
night.
That was all. The officers and the men looked at one another in mute
horror. Could anything have lived in the area of that dreadful explosion?
The tension upon the men of the little fleet was almost at the breaking
point. Every eye was strained towards the harbor and every ear caught
eagerly at the faintest sound. Officers and men frequently asked one
another the question, “Have you heard anything yet?” with always the same
reply.
The vessels beat to and fro between the harbor-entrances, firing rockets
and guns for the guidance of possible fugitives. And the doleful sound
of that gun made the silences the more depressing. All night long did the
fleet keep vigil, but not a shot, a voice, or even a splash came from the
harbor.
With the first streaks of dawn the Americans were aloft with their
glasses. On the rocks at the northern entrance, through which the
“Intrepid” had passed, they saw a mast and fragments of vessels. When
the mist cleared they saw that one of the enemy’s largest gunboats had
disappeared and two others were so badly shattered that they lay upon the
shore for repairs.
The details of the occurrence were never actually known, but it is thought
that Somers, being laid aboard by three gunboats before actually in the
midst of the shipping, and feeling himself overpowered, fired his magazine
and destroyed himself and his own men in his avowed purpose not to be
taken by the enemy.
Thus died Richard Somers, Henry Wadsworth, the midshipman, Joseph Israel,
and ten American seamen, whose names have been inscribed on the navy’s
roll of fame. Nothing can dim the honor of a man who dies willingly for
his country.