Twelve Naval Captains / Being a Record of Certain Americans Who Made Themselves Immortal

by Molly Elliot Seawell

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 manœuvred 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.