morning to make sure of your character." In a few minutes a boat came
alongside, with an officer, who explained that the stranger was the
Maidstone, frigate, of thirty-eight guns, and the delay in answering
the hails and the false name given were because the Constitution had
got close so unexpectedly that they wanted time to get the people to
quarters in case she should prove an enemy. This one incident is said
to have worked a complete revolution in the feelings of the officers
and men toward Preble; and although he was as stern and strict as ever,
they could not but admire his firmness and cool courage in an emergency.
Arrived at Gibraltar, Preble met for the first time his five young
captains. Not one was twenty-five years of age, and none was married.
At the first council of war held aboard the Constitution there was
a universal shyness on their part when asked their views by the
commodore. The fame of the "old man's" temper and severity had preceded
him, and his boy captains felt no disposition whatever to either advise
him or to disagree with him. When the council was over, Preble remained
in the cabin, leaning his head on his hand, and quite overcome with
dejection and depression. To Colonel Lear, an American consul, then on
board, Preble bitterly remarked: "I have been indiscreet in accepting
this command. Had I known how I was to be supported, I certainly should
have declined it. Government has sent me here a parcel of schoolboys,
to command all my light craft!"
A year afterward, when the "parcel of schoolboys" had covered
themselves with glory, Colonel Lear asked the commodore if he
remembered this speech.
"Perfectly," answered the commodore. "But they turned out to be good
schoolboys."
After collecting his squadron at Gibraltar, Preble, with three vessels,
stood for Tangier. The Emperor of Morocco pretended to be very friendly
with the Americans, and sent them presents of bullocks, sheep, and
vegetables; but Preble, while treating him with respect, yet kept
his ships cleared for action and the men at quarters day and night,
lest the Moors should show treachery. On going ashore with some of
his officers to pay a visit of ceremony to the Emperor, he gave a
characteristic order to the commanding officer of the ship: "If I do
not return, enter into no treaty or negotiation for me, but open fire
at once." On reaching the palace he was told that the party must leave
their side-arms outside before entering the Emperor's presence. Preble
replied firmly that it was not the custom of the American navy, and
that they should enter as they were,--which they did. The Emperor soon
found what sort of a man he had to deal with, and Preble had no further
trouble with him. A few weeks after the arrival of the squadron, Preble
heard the news of the loss of the Philadelphia. Nothing better shows
the steadfast and generous nature of the man than the manner in which
he accepted this misfortune. No regrets were heard from him; no railing
accusations against Bainbridge; but a prompt and determined grappling
with the terrible complication of having a great part of his force
turned against him; and the most tender consideration for the feelings
as well as the rights of Bainbridge and his men.
Preble was enabled to provide himself with bomb-vessels and gunboats
by the aid of the King of Naples, who, like all the other European
sovereigns, wished to see the nest of pirates exterminated. The first
one of the "schoolboys" to distinguish himself was Decatur,[8] who, in
February, 1804, crept by night into the harbor of Tripoli, and earned
immortality by destroying the Philadelphia as she swung to her anchors,
in the face of one hundred and nineteen great guns and nineteen vessels
which surrounded her. The destruction of the Philadelphia not only
wiped away the stain of losing her, in the first instance, but was
of the greatest advantage to Commodore Preble in the bombardment of
Tripoli, as the frigate would have been a formidable addition to the
defence of the town.
In the summer of 1804, his preparations being made, Commodore Preble
sailed for Tripoli, where he arrived on the 25th of July. He had
one frigate,--the Constitution,--three brigs, three schooners, two
bomb-vessels, and six gunboats. With these he had to reduce an enemy
fighting one hundred and nineteen great guns behind a circle of forts,
with a fleet of a gun-brig, two schooners, two large galleys, and
nineteen gunboats, all of which could be manoeuvred both inside the
rocky harbor and in the offing.
On the morning of the 3d of August the four hundred officers and men of
the Philadelphia, confined in the dungeons of the Bashaw's castle, were
gladdened by the sight of the American flag in the offing, and soon
the music of the American guns showed them that their comrades were
battling for them. On that day began a series of desperate assaults
on the forts and war ships of Tripoli that for splendor and effect
have never been excelled. Preble could fire only thirty heavy guns at
once, while the Tripolitans could train one hundred and nineteen on
the Americans. During all these bombardments, while the gunboats, in
two divisions, were engaging the Tripolitan gunboats, running aboard
of them, with hand-to-hand fighting, sinking and burning them, the
mighty Constitution would come into position with the same steadiness
as if she were working into a friendly roadstead, and, thundering out
her whole broadside at once, would deal destruction on the forts and
vessels. In vain the Tripolitans would concentrate their fire on her.
Throwing her topsail back, she would move slowly when they expected
her to move fast, and would carry sail when they expected her to stand
still, and her fire never slackened for an instant. It was after this
first day's bombardment that the sailors nicknamed her "Old Ironsides."
She and her company seemed to be invulnerable. Escapes from calamity
were many, but accidents were few. One of the closest shaves was when,
in the midst of the hottest part of the action, a round shot entered a
stern port directly in line of Preble, and within a few feet of him. It
struck full on a quarterdeck gun, which it smashed to splinters, that
flew about among a crowd of officers and men, wounding only one, and
that slightly. Had it gone a little farther, it would have cut Preble
in two.
After one of the fiercest of the boat attacks a collision occurred
between Preble and the scarcely less fiery Decatur, which is one of the
most remarkable that ever occurred in a man-of-war. At the close of the
attack Decatur came on board the flagship to report. Preble had been
watching him, and fully expected that all of the Tripolitan gunboats
would be captured. But, after taking three of them, Decatur found it
impossible to do more. As he stepped on the Constitution's deck, still
wearing the round jacket in which he fought, his face grimed with
powder, and stained with blood from a slight wound, he said quietly to
Preble: "Well, Commodore, I have brought you out three of the boats."
Preble, suddenly catching him by the collar with both hands, shook him
violently, and shrieked at him: "Aye, sir, why did you not bring me
more?" The officers were paralyzed with astonishment at the scene, and
Decatur, who was scarcely less fiery than Preble, laid his hand upon
his dirk. Suddenly the commodore turned abruptly on his heel and went
below. Decatur immediately ordered his boat, and declared he would
leave the ship at the instant; but the officers crowded around him and
begged him to wait until the commodore had cooled down. Just then the
orderly appeared, with a request that he should wait on the commodore
in the cabin. Decatur at first declared he would not go, but at last
was reluctantly persuaded not to disobey his superior by refusing to
answer a request, which was really an order. At last he went, sullen
and rebellious. He stayed below a long time, and the officers began to
be afraid that the two had quarrelled worse than ever. After a while
one of them, whose rank entitled him to seek the commodore, went below
and tapped softly at the cabin door. He received no answer, when he
quietly opened the door a little. There sat the young captain and the
commodore close together, and both in tears. From that day there never
were two men who respected each other more than Preble and Decatur.
For more than a month these terrific assaults kept up. The Bashaw, who
had demanded a ransom of a thousand dollars each for the Philadelphia's
men, and tribute besides, fell in his demands; but Preble sent him word
that every American in Tripolitan prisons must and should be released
without the payment of a dollar. The Tripolitans had little rest, and
never knew the day that the invincible frigate might not be pounding
their forts and ships, while the enterprising flotilla of gunboats
would play havoc with their own smaller vessels. The Tripolitans had
been considered as unequalled hand-to-hand fighters; but the work of
the Americans on the night of the destruction of the Philadelphia,
and the irresistible dash with which they grappled with and boarded
the Tripolitan gunboats, disconcerted, while it did not dismay, their
fierce antagonists.
Sometimes the squadron was blown off, and sometimes it had to claw
off the land, but it always returned. The loss of the Americans was
small; that of the Tripolitans great. One of the American gunboats
exploded, and a terrible misfortune happened in the loss of the ketch
Intrepid[9] and her gallant crew. Reinforcements were promised from the
United States, which did not come in time, and Preble met with all the
dangers and delays that follow the making of war four thousand miles
from home; but he was the same indomitable commander, feared alike by
his enemies and his friends. On the 10th of September the President,
forty-four guns, and the Constellation, thirty-eight guns, arrived;
the John Adams had come in some days before. By one of those strange
accidents, so common in the early days of the navy, Commodore Barron
had been sent out in the President to relieve Commodore Preble by the
government at Washington, which, in those days of slow communication,
knew nothing of Preble's actions, except that he was supposed to be
bombarding Tripoli. The season of active operations was over, however,
and nothing could be done until the following summer. Meanwhile the
Bashaw had a very just apprehension of the return of such determined
enemies as the Americans another year, and gave unmistakable signs of a
willingness to treat. To that he had been brought by Commodore Preble
and his gallant officers and crews. Knowing the work to be completed,
Preble willingly handed over his command to Commodore Barron. He had
the pleasure of giving Decatur, then a post captain, the temporary
command of the Constitution. Before leaving the squadron, he received
every testimonial of respect, and even affection, from the very men who
had so bitterly complained of his severe discipline and fiery temper.
It was said at the time, that when the squadron first knew him he had
not a friend in it, and when he left it he had not an enemy. At that
day duelling was common among the privileged classes all over the
western world, especially with army and navy officers; but so well did
Commodore Preble have his young officers in hand that not a single duel
took place in the squadron as long as he commanded it.
The younger officers were supplied with an endless fund of stories
about "the old man's" outbursts, and delighted in telling of one
especial instance which convulsed every officer and man on the
Constitution. A surgeon's mate was needed on the ship, and a little
Sicilian doctor applied for the place and got it. He asked the
commodore if he must wear uniform. To which the commodore replied,
"Certainly." Some days afterward the commodore happened to be in the
cabin, wearing his dressing-gown and shaving. Suddenly a gentleman
in uniform was announced. Now, in those days flag officers wore two
epaulets, the others but one, and the commodore himself was the only
man in the squadron who was entitled to wear two. But the stranger
had on two epaulets; besides, a sword, a cocked hat, and an enormous
amount of gold lace.
The commodore surveyed this apparition silently, puzzled to make out
who this imposing personage was, until, with a smirk, the bedizened
Sicilian announced himself as the new surgeon's mate. Furious at his
presumption in appearing in such a rig, Preble uttered a howl of rage,
which scared the little doctor so that he fled up on deck, closely
followed by the commodore, his face covered with lather, and the open
razor still in his hand. The little doctor ran along the deck, still
pursued by the commodore with the razor, until, reaching the forward
end of the ship, the poor Sicilian sprang overboard and struck out
swimming for the shore, and was never seen on the ship again.
Preble transferred his flag to the John Adams, and visited Gibraltar,
where he was received with distinction by the British officers. He had
many friends among them, especially Sir Alexander Ball, one of Nelson's
captains; and the great Nelson himself knew and admired the services of
the Americans before Tripoli. The Spaniards and Neapolitans, who had
suffered much from the corsairs, rejoiced at the drubbing Preble had
given them, and at the prospect that the Americans imprisoned in the
Bashaw's castle would soon be released. The Pope, Pius the Seventh,
said: "This American commodore has done more to humble the piratical
powers of the Barbary coast than all the Christian powers of Europe put
together."
Preble sailed for home in December, 1804, and reached Washington
the 4th of March, 1805, the day of President Jefferson's first
inauguration. The news of his success and the early release of the
Philadelphia's officers and men had preceded him. Congress passed a
vote of thanks to him and the officers and men under him. President
Jefferson, although of the opposite party in politics from Preble,
offered him the head of the Navy Department, but it was declined.
Preble's health had steadily grown worse, and soon after his return to
the United States it was seen that his days were few. He lingered until
the summer of 1807, when at Portland, Maine, near his birthplace, he
passed away, calmly and resignedly. He left a widow and one child.
Preble was in his forty-seventh year when he died. He was tall and
slight, of gentlemanly appearance and polished manners. He left behind
him a reputation for great abilities, used with an eye single to his
country's good, and a character for probity and courage seldom equalled
and never surpassed.
STEPHEN DECATUR
Among the most brilliant and picturesque figures in American naval
history stands Stephen Decatur. His achievements were of that dashing
and splendid quality which leaves a blaze upon the page of history; and
the greatest of them, the destruction of the Philadelphia frigate in
the harbor of Tripoli, earned from Lord Nelson the praise of being "the
most bold and daring act of the age."
Decatur came justly by his genius for the sea. His father was a captain
in the navy of the United States, and his grandfather had been a French
naval officer. His was no rude struggle with adversity. The child of
gentle people, he entered the navy in 1797, with every advantage of
education and training. He was then eighteen years of age,--old for
a midshipman, when boys entered at thirteen and were often acting
lieutenants at sixteen. Decatur was a handsome man, tall and well made.
[Illustration: Stephen Decatur]
Although of a disposition the most generous, he was always of an
impetuous and even domineering nature. Strict habits of self-control
modified this impetuosity, but to the day of his death he was
subject to gusts of temper whenever he came across any instance of
cruelty or meanness or oppression.
A famous example of this was shown shortly before his untimely death.
He was then at the summit of his fame, one of the ranking officers
of the navy, a navy commissioner, and living in grand style for the
times in the city of Washington. He had a favorite dog, and one day,
when the dog was lying quietly asleep on the doorstep of Decatur's
house, a policeman came along and wantonly shot the poor creature.
Decatur happened to see the whole affair, and, rushing out, he gave the
policeman then and there a terrific walloping. The policeman, smarting
from the injury to his dignity as well as the pounding of his bones,
swore out a warrant, and Decatur was commanded to appear before the
Mayor of Washington. Furious at the turn of affairs, Decatur flatly
refused to obey the constable's summons. In vain the officer pleaded
with him to go quietly. Decatur would not budge a step. At last the
man brought a posse and proceeded to take him by force. Decatur would
not be guilty of the crime of resisting the law, but he proposed to
let them get him before the magistrate the best way they could. He not
only would not walk a step, but lay down on the floor, and, as he was
a large and heavy man, it was a job to lift him up and put him in a
carriage; but at last it was accomplished.
By the time they reached the Mayor's court, Decatur's temper, never
mild, was red hot. He proceeded to harangue and even to browbeat the
Mayor, who was a very insignificant person compared with Commodore
Decatur. At the first blast, though, the Mayor proved that he had a
spirit of his own. "Look here, Commodore," said he, "when you are on
the quarterdeck of your ship you command. I'll have you understand that
this courtroom is my quarterdeck, and I command here, and if I hear
another disrespectful word from you I'll send you to jail for as long
as I please." Decatur, paralyzed with astonishment, looked at the Mayor
for a long time; then, suddenly bursting into a shout of laughter,
apologized for his behavior and submitted to be fined for thrashing the
policeman.
Such was the man through life,--daring, generous, overbearing
sometimes, but always responding to what was just and courageous in
others.
Decatur's first cruise was made in the United States, frigate,
forty-four guns, wearing the broad pennant of Commodore Barry. Charles
Stewart, afterward the celebrated commodore, was one of the junior
lieutenants of the ship, and the heroic and unfortunate Richard Somers
was one of the midshipmen.
Decatur and Somers had been schoolmates in Philadelphia, and the
association formed there was cemented into a devoted friendship in
the steerage of the United States. No two natures were ever more
dissimilar than that of the impetuous Decatur and the gentle and
retiring but indomitable Somers. From the beginning they were actuated
by a noble professional rivalry; yet their close and affectionate
friendship was that of brothers, and their devotion to each other has
become a tradition in the navy.
The United States was a splendid frigate, fast and weatherly, and, from
the regularity with which she made time on her cruises, was known as
"Old Wagoner." Commodore Barry was an old officer who had done good
service in the Revolution, and when he took command of the squadron of
which "Old Wagoner" was the flagship, he sailed at once for the West
Indies, to retaliate on the French ships which had preyed upon American
commerce. It was not the good fortune of the United States to meet
a frigate of equal force, so that her men and their mettle could be
tried, but she did good service in clearing out the French privateers
which infested those seas. Decatur saw much active cruising, and gave
indications of that dashing courage, masterly seamanship, and fertile
resource which he developed the instant he got command of a ship.
He made several cruises, reached his lieutenancy, and was attached to
the Essex when she went under Captain Bainbridge to the Mediterranean,
in 1802. During the troubles the officers of the Essex had, at
Barcelona, with the officers of the Spanish guardship, Decatur was
conspicuous. Having been annoyed and insulted by the Spanish officers,
on his way to and from his ship, he went aboard the Spaniard, and
asked for her commanding officer. He was absent, and Decatur left this
message, which he shouted out in his tremendous voice, on the Spanish
quarterdeck: "Tell him that Lieutenant Decatur of the Essex declares
him to be a scoundrelly coward; and if Lieutenant Decatur meets him
ashore, he will cut his ears off!" A duel in the case was narrowly
averted.
At twenty-four Decatur got his first command, the Argus, one of the
two sixteen-gun brigs which were to assist Commodore Preble in the
reduction of the Barbary powers. This was a heavier vessel than a young
officer of Decatur's rank was entitled to, and he was given the command
of her only to take her out of the Mediterranean, where he was to
exchange with Isaac Hull, then a lieutenant commandant, and take Hull's
vessel, the Enterprise, schooner, of twelve guns. The Enterprise, like
the great frigates Constitution and Constellation, was a favorite of
fortune. She had a glorious record for so small a vessel, and fought
ten spirited actions during her career, winding up with the capture of
the Boxer in the war of 1812-15. She was lucky also in escaping many
times from superior force, and had an uninterrupted course of success.
Her good fortune really consisted in the people who manned her, and
the officers who commanded her,--of whom Decatur was not the least
distinguished. He had the good fortune to have as his first lieutenant
in the little schooner James Lawrence, a man after Decatur's own heart,
who was worthy of his ship and his captain.
Decatur was one of the young commanders who took part in the council
of war called by Commodore Preble at Gibraltar, in the autumn of 1803,
at which the peppery commodore was so disgusted that he called them
"a parcel of schoolboys." But most of them were shortly destined to
immortality.
After collecting his force, Preble sailed for Syracuse, that historic
city, beautiful in its decay. The object of the American commander
was to establish a base of supplies, and to get the co-operation of
the King of the Two Sicilies, who was also at war with the Bashaw of
Tripoli. It was while at Syracuse, in the autumn of 1803, that the plan
to destroy the Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli was determined
upon. The credit of the original idea has been separately claimed
for Preble, Bainbridge, and Decatur; and the fact probably is that
it occurred at practically the same time to each one of them. Every
one of Preble's dashing young captains desired the honor of making
the attempt, and the fact that Decatur obtained the distinction is
presumptive proof that he had a share in the first inception of the
plan. Stewart's claim to a part in the undertaking was so strong that
to him fell the honor of supporting, in the Siren, Decatur's proposed
attack.
In order to look over the ground, Preble in the Constitution,
accompanied by Decatur in the Enterprise, sailed for Tripoli, in
December, 1803. Decatur, with his characteristic boldness, offered to
make the attempt with the Enterprise; but Commodore Preble prudently
concluded to use a ketch, the Meshouda, which Decatur had lately
captured and which was of a build and rig common in Mediterranean
waters.
As Decatur meant to get inside the harbor of Tripoli by stratagem, it
was important to have a vessel that would not attract attention. The
ketch was fittingly renamed the Intrepid, and preparations were begun
for the desperate adventure with her.
Decatur was extremely anxious, as was Stewart, to cut the Philadelphia
out; but Commodore Preble, as bold as they were, but older and more
prudent, saw the insurmountable difficulties in the way of bringing so
large a ship as the Philadelphia out of a dangerous and unknown harbor
such as Tripoli. He therefore gave strict orders that no attempt should
be made to carry her out, but that she should be destroyed at her
moorings; and the commodore was certain to be obeyed.
The Intrepid was converted into a fire-ship, or "infernal." She was
filled with combustibles, and it was designed that she should steal in
at night in disguise, throw the combustibles into the Philadelphia,
fire them, and then make a race for her life.