From an old painting Chase of the Constitution
From the painting by John W. Jarvis Edward Preble
Thus ended with complete success what Lord Nelson called the most bold and daring act of the age. When, three days later, the Intrepid sailed through the American squadron in Syracuse, each ship gave Decatur and his men a deafening salute of cheers. What music to a sailor’s ears!
SCENE III. PREBLE ATTACKS TRIPOLI
As spring came on the commodore pushed his preparations for a naval attack on Tripoli. He now had only one large ship, the Constitution. There were five brigs and schooners. A captured Tripolitan brig, commissioned as the Scourge, made a sixth. Preble knew that these ships could not get in close enough to the enemy to win the decisive results he was determined to have. So he borrowed six gunboats, two bomb vessels, and ninety-six sailors from the King of Naples. Even with this reënforcement, Preble had but one thousand and sixty men to attack a strongly fortified town defended by twenty-five thousand soldiers and sailors. Still his hopes for success were high.
Early in August, 1804, the orders for a grand attack were issued. This was to be no distant cannonade. The Constitution was to attack the batteries at point-blank range. The gunboats were to board the enemy flotilla. The bomb vessels were to toss their 13-inch grenades into the town.
The Bashaw, as the Tripolitan ruler was called, saw that a storm was about to break over his head. In addition to formidable batteries ashore, he had twenty-one gunboats. These were manned by from twenty-four to forty men. Each carried one large and two small guns. We must not mistake these Tripolitans. They were splendid seamen and fierce fighters. Boarding was their usual method of attack. Nine of their gunboats were stationed outside the reefs east of the harbor entrance. Five were under the powerful batteries to the westward. The remainder lay inside the harbor in reserve.
At two o’clock in the afternoon of August 3, the flagship displayed the long-awaited signal for attack. Our six gunboats, under Decatur, were to attack the nine Tripolitan craft east of the harbor. Only three of his detachment, for various reasons, reached the enemy. Now three against nine were big odds. But, thought our young fellows, the bigger the odds the greater the glory. And they had Stephen Decatur—himself worth a couple of gunboats—to lead them. He, like the Spartans, “was not wont to ask how many but where, the enemy were!”