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

by Molly Elliot Seawell

At another time, taking a fancy to a regimental band which came aboard the Boston in an Italian port, he sailed for America with the musicians, and it was several years before they were all returned to Italy.

The Boston soon after this returned to the United States, and the administration of the navy winked at Captain McNeill's peccadilloes, in view of the actual service he had done during his memorable cruise.

It was at this time that the government determined to send a force out, under Commodore Preble, to crush Tripoli. Somers got the command of the Nautilus, one of the four small vessels that were built and sent out, Stewart getting another, and Decatur a third. Somers was now in his twenty-fifth year, handsome, well made, and his naturally dark skin still darker from wind and sun. His manners were polished, and he was as prepossessing, in his quiet way, as the dashing Decatur. Somers's black eyes were noticeably melancholy, and after his untimely death those who loved him fancied they had always seen in his countenance some premonition of his doom.

The officers who were to command these little vessels superintended their building, as there were then no regular navy-yards in the country. The Nautilus, under Somers's command, was the first to sail, and the first to arrive at Gibraltar, in July, 1803. She was a beautiful little schooner, of twelve guns, with a crew of nearly a hundred men. She was, however, very small to cross the Atlantic, and several times during the voyage Somers was hailed and offered assistance by friendly shipmasters, who thought the gallant little vessel must have been blown out of her course.

Somers was one of the boy captains whose youth so disgusted Commodore Preble when he met them first on their arrival at Gibraltar. But the commodore found in Somers, as early as with any, the stuff of which these young officers were made. Somers was very actively engaged in the labors and cruises which occupied the winter of 1803-4, preparing to attack Tripoli in the summer. He sympathized ardently with Decatur in the splendid exploit of the destruction of the Philadelphia. He was anxious to assist him with the Nautilus, but Stewart's superior rank and larger command entitled him to support Decatur, which he did in the Siren. Decatur's success inspired every young captain in the squadron with a noble desire to equal it, and none more than the quiet and self-contained Somers.

The preparations for the bombardment of Tripoli continued, and on the 3d of August the first attack took place. Commodore Preble gave the command of the right division of gun-vessels to Somers, and the left to Decatur. Somers was supposed to be Decatur's senior at the time, but the post-captain's commission which the Congress had given Decatur as a reward for the destruction of the Philadelphia was then on its way, and arrived a few days after; while the same ship brought Somers's promotion to a master commandant.

The story of those splendid attacks has been told in the biographies of Preble and Decatur.[15] On the memorable 3d of August, when the captives of the Philadelphia in the Bashaw's dungeons first heard from the guns of the squadron the thundering demand for the release of the prisoners, Somers, like Decatur, performed prodigies of valor. The harbor of Tripoli is crossed by a great reef, above the water, and on which forts and batteries were mounted. At the western end is a narrow opening of about two hundred yards, while within the reef the rocks and shoals were so numerous and so difficult that the best seamanship and the greatest courage were necessary for an attacking enemy. The guns from the forts and ships nearer the town, too, could be concentrated on any small craft which passed through this western passage. These desperate risks did not deter Somers and Decatur, who went inside and fell upon the Tripolitan gun-vessels with the fury of fiends. On the 3d of August, while Decatur was engaged in his terrible encounter with the Tripolitan, Somers in a single small gun-vessel held at bay five gun-vessels, each larger than his own, and fought with savage determination. The wind was driving him straight on the rocks, and he had to keep backing his sweeps to save himself from destruction, while fighting like a lion. The Constitution, seeing his critical position, came to his support, and, opening her batteries on the Tripolitans, succeeded in driving them still farther within the reefs, while Somers brought his gallant little gun-vessel out in triumph.

Four of these dashing attacks were made, in every one of which Somers and Decatur commanded the two boat divisions. Both had many narrow escapes. Once, while Somers was leaning against the flagstaff of his little vessel, as she was on her way to attack, he saw a round shot coming. He jumped aside, and the next moment the flagstaff was shattered just at the point where his head had rested. His knowledge of the interior of the harbor, where the Tripolitans had a large number of vessels at anchor, inspired him with the design of leading a forlorn hope,—to strike one great blow, and, if necessary, to die for his country the next moment. At last he got Commodore Preble's permission to carry out the daring attempt, which, heroic in its conception, yet makes one of the saddest pages in the history of the American navy.

The plan was to fit up as a fire-ship, or "infernal," the ketch Intrepid, in which Decatur had won immortality in the same harbor, take it in, and explode it among the Tripolitan fleet. Somers earnestly begged Commodore Preble for the honor of leading this desperate expedition, and the commodore at last agreed. It would be necessary to pour one hundred barrels of gunpowder into the hold of the ketch in order to make it effective as a fire-ship, and before consenting to this, the Commodore warned Somers that so much powder must not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Tripolitans. It was during the Napoleonic wars, powder was in great demand, and the Tripolitans were supposed to be short of it. After this interview Somers expressed the determination to be blown up rather than to be captured.