Jefferson's War (22 page)

Dale, the Navy's senior captain, was named squadron commander again. Navy Secretary Smith evidently never entertained second thoughts about Dale's uninspired leadership of the first squadron, and neither did Dale, who thought he deserved a promotion to admiral. Weary of his senior officers' demands, Smith reminded Dale frostily there was no such rank in the Navy and
then read him the riot act: “... from the tenor of your letter, I perceive that it is also necessary to state to you, that no Officer of the Navy can consistently be allowed to decline at his will & pleasure a service to which he may be ordered by the President.” Dale's resignation was accepted promptly.

Edward Preble got the command instead, a lucky break for the feisty Preble and the Navy. Preble, who had had to refuse commissions in the two earlier squadrons because of stomach ailments, was sufficiently recovered to serve, and he did not levy conditions. He was ordered to refit the 44-gun
Constitution
as his flagship. He found her rotting in Boston Harbor and spent much of the summer of 1803 making repairs. The
Constitution,
four schooners and brigs, the
Enterprise,
and the 36-gun
Philadelphia
gave Preble command of two frigates and five smaller ships. His appointment as commodore was dated May 14, 1803, exactly two years from the day that the bashaw's soldiers chopped down the U.S. consulate flagpole.

 

Unaware that he was about to be replaced, Morris at last decided to bring the squadron before Tripoli, after first changing flagships—moving to the
New York
and sending the
Chesapeake
back to the United States. Over Cathcart's protests that only he was authorized to negotiate a treaty with Tripoli, Morris put him on the
Adams
to Leghorn with a vague promise to summon him if needed. Actually, Morris intended to handle negotiations himself.

The first of the misfortunes and miscues that would pursue Morris during the remainder of his cruise now beset him. While the
New York
was crossing the western Mediterranean, a massive explosion in a storeroom killed 14 officers and men, blew down
bulkheads, and ignited a roaring fire that crept toward the magazines and barrels of gunpowder, threatening the annihilation of the ship and her company. Working feverishly side by side, officers and crew fought the blaze with wet blankets and water buckets, teetering on the edge of an inferno. The ship was saved after an hour-and-a-half battle, inspired by Lieutenants David Porter's and Isaac Chauncey's desperate acts of bravery in the smoky belowdeck passageways, where they stopped the fire from spreading to the powder magazines.

 

The remnants of Morris's squadron assembled off Tripoli in May 1803. “Twelve months pass'd after I enter'd the Straits before I saw Tripoly,” Wadsworth noted drily. “The
Chesapeak
return'd to America without seeing her enemies' Port.” But now, the frigates
New York, John Adams
and
Adams,
and the schooner
Enterprise
were all blockading Tripoli. It was the largest display of U.S. naval power in two years of war.

Captain John Rodgers, commander of the
John Adams,
had made a name for himself as a bold officer during the Quasi-War, but his reputation as a fighting man even then was well established. It was helped along by an incident in England in 1796 involving the infamous Sir Banastre Tarleton, the ruthless cavalry commander whose raids in the Carolinas made him one of the most hated British commanders of the Revolutionary War. While dining at a Liverpool hotel, Rodgers spied a rowdy crowd swarming the streets, carrying on its shoulders Tarleton, then a major general running for re-election to Parliament. The procession was led by a man bearing a banner depicting Tarleton on horseback, dispersing a crowd of Americans, with a trampled American flag beneath the hooves of his horse. Provoked by the
insult to his flag, Rodgers dashed impulsively into the street and struck the banner bearer. Then he retrieved his pistols from his room and confronted Tarleton in front of his supporters. Tarleton coolly claimed to be unaware of the banner and invited Rodgers to his campaign headquarters, where Tarleton laid the matter to rest by agreeing to destroy the offending banner. The episode ended on a high note for Rodgers, whose bold impetuosity along with Tarleton's gracious concession made him an instant hero among Tarleton's supporters. They hoisted Rodgers onto their shoulders and paraded him through the streets as they had Tarleton before.

Rodgers displayed the same tigerish streak while cruising off Tripoli on May 13. Spotting a 28-gun warship racing for Tripoli harbor, he cut her off before she could reach the sanctuary and boarded her. It was the
Meshuda,
Murad Reis's old flagship, now a vessel belonging to Morocco, the same ship that had compelled Morocco to declare war on the United States. As Simpson had predicted months earlier, the
Meshuda
was being used to aid Tripoli; she was packed with guns, cutlasses, hemp, and other contraband. Twenty crewmen were Tripolitans. As Morris later put it to Simpson, Morocco's elaborate show of taking ownership of the
Meshuda
“appears to be a detestable fraud.”

Days later, the
Enterprise
spotted a felucca, a small coastal vessel, hugging the Tripoli shoreline, but before Isaac Hull's schooner could reach her, the crew brought her to shore. Hull armed a raiding party, but delayed giving the order to attack, needing the commodore's permission as well as the
New York's
supporting fire. By the time Morris arrived, Tripolitan cavalry had massed and the element of surprise was long gone. With the horse troops waiting outside the range of the
New York's
guns, but positioned to repel any raid,
Morris scuttled the mission. The
Enterprise
then attempted to shoot the felucca full of holes and sink her, but failed. The
Enterprise
and
New York
departed, and the felucca's red flag kept flying.

 

Five days after the felucca's beaching, the blockaders spotted nine gunboats and a small ship five miles west of Tripoli. As the
John Adams, New York,
and
Enterprise
converged for attack, the enemy vessels darted into a harbor and anchored. In two years, the squadron had never operated as a single entity, either in maneuvers or actual combat. But now the opportunity suddenly was at hand for a telling blow to be struck—if only the American cruisers could operate in concert. It was late in the day, and the setting sun perfectly backlit the sails of the U.S. ships, making them easy targets for shore fire, if the Tripolitans had been inclined to open up. Fortunately for the Americans, they didn't. Morris positioned his three ships abreast and sailed closer to shore. The wind died, and the Americans began to pay for their failure to practice maneuvers together. Drifting into one another's path, the ships fired broadsides at the moored gunboats and the shore. Morris tried to sort out the mess by shifting the
John Adams
in front of the
New York
and
Enterprise,
but all that did was enable Rodgers to fire on the gunboats, while preventing Morris and Hull from bringing their cannons to bear without hitting the
John Adams.
The warships slewed about awkwardly in the fading light.

The situation didn't improve with nightfall. “The moon shining against our sails & the light from our gun deck afforded them a sure mark at the distance of one mile,” wrote Henry Wadsworth. But the Tripolitans were poor marksmen and timid defenders. Had they been Americans, “they would have rowed out & completely wrecked our three ships.”

A few days later, the captain of a French sloop stopped by the
Enterprise
as it was leaving Tripoli reported that the shelling had killed three Tripolitans and wounded five others. Among the wounded was the bashaw's brother-in-law; he had lost his right arm.

 

Thirty-five miles northwest of Tripoli, the
Enterprise
spotted ten small ships in one of the many small bays that dimpled the Tripolitan coastline, and signaled the
New York
and
John Adams.
By 5:00 P.M. on June 1, the three warships were anchored a mile from the craft. They were feluccas, full of grain. Morris contacted their captains, and four of them met with him on the
New York.
They claimed they were Tunisians. More than a little skeptical, Morris gave them until midnight to bring their craft alongside the
New York,
or he would burn them.

With nightfall, more than 1,000 Tripolitan soldiers and cavalry massed on shore, racing their Arabian horses up and down the beach, waving muskets over their heads and showing off their equestrian skills. Lieutenant David Porter proposed a night attack on the grain ships. Morris rejected the plan, intending to abide by the midnight deadline he had set for the felucca captains to surrender their vessels. But he gave Porter permission to lead a reconnaissance sortie.

At 8:00 P.M., Porter, Wadsworth, and eight other volunteers climbed into two boats and in the moonlight quietly rowed to within pistol range of the feluccas. They could hear the crewmen talking. Before long, a Tripolitan sentry spotted the scouting party, and gunfire blazed from the beach. Returning fire, the Americans rowed hastily to a rock rising from the water, beyond musket range from shore. The excitement from the brief firefight and their freedom from the supervision of higher-ups put the young officers
and men in a lighthearted mood. Wadsworth clowned for them on the rock. “I stood on its summit & with my right hand extended towards heav'n took possession in the name of the United States,” he wrote. At midnight, they rowed back to the
New York.
The feluccas hadn't budged from shore. The Americans would have to burn them.

Morris ordered an attack early the next morning. Fifty officers, sailors, and Marines boarded seven boats commanded by Porter as the bright morning sun winked off the turquoise water and the sandy beach in the distance. The landing force neared the shore under the ships' covering fire. Porter split his force, sending two manned boats loaded with combustibles to burn the feluccas and continuing to the beach with the other five.

The enemy had spent the night building defenses; the Tripolitans crouched behind makeshift barricades made of boat sails and yards, and behind rocks and hillocks bordering the beach. Cavalrymen milled on the sand.

The hour for battle had struck. The raiders waded ashore amid crackling small arms fire. Sailors and Marines had landed on Tripoli, the first U.S. amphibious landing on a hostile foreign shore.

A cavalryman on a superb black steed cut showy circles on the beach, flourishing his rifle, as the Americans and Tripolitans exchanged gunfire. The high-spirited horseman galloped close to the Americans—too close, presenting an inviting target. “Several took aim at him: he plunged forward fell & bit the dust,” wrote Wadsworth, who was with the landing party. Cannon fire from the ships tore through the massing cavalry and foot soldiers.

The defenders, who numbered at least 1,000, now concentrated their rifle fire on the shore party, whose main purpose was to divert the Tripolitans' attention from the crews torching the
feluccas. Fourteen Americans went down with wounds. Shot in both thighs, Porter continued to give orders. Before long, flames were shooting from the feluccas. The sailors and Marines on the beach scrambled back into their boats and pulled out. But they were too quick: The Tripolitans rushed in and were able to put out the fires before all the grain was alight. Despite his wounds, Porter begged Morris to allow him to return to finish the job. The commodore forbade him; it was too risky. The American squadron sailed away. The Tripolitans ran onto the beach, throwing handfuls of sand in the air defiantly.

 

Unimpressed by Morris' desultory skirmishes, Yusuf boasted to Nissen that if this was America's idea of war, he would demand $500,000 for peace. In the bashaw's mind, things could scarcely get any better. Tripoli had completed a rich harvest, the bashaw was loaded with cash from Sweden's treaty, and European goods arrived almost daily. “What a glorious blockade,” Nissen remarked drily to Cathcart.

 

Having failed to awe the bashaw with American arms, Morris decided to try diplomacy. Sailing into Tripoli harbor with his squadron, Morris went ashore June 7 to open a parley with the bashaw's minister. The bashaw's terms weren't as stiff as Yusuf had told Nissen they would be, but they were plenty high: $200,000 for peace, $20,000 annual tribute, compensation for Tripoli's war expenses, and annual shipments of military and naval stores. Wadsworth, who accompanied Morris, reported that the commodore replied huffily to the proposed terms that “Were the Combined World to make the demand it would be treated with contempt....” The bey's secretary took offense, “asking whether the
com‘r came on shore to laugh at him....” The talks veered into shoal waters. With Morris still ashore, the bashaw lowered the white flag of truce, a signal for hostilities to resume. The commodore was perilously close to becoming the bashaw's prisoner—and might have, if the French consul hadn't interceded. He informed the bashaw's minister that he would guarantee Morris's honor, and that behind him stood Bonaparte and the might of France. Sobered by the invocation of the dreaded Napoleon, the bashaw and his officers reconsidered. The next morning, the white flag was run up the flagpole again, and Morris returned unmolested to the
New York.

Morris left Tripoli, never to return. He had pressing business in Malta—a new son. Mrs. Morris had given birth on June 9. Later in the month, still enjoying his family's company in Valletta, the commodore lifted the blockade altogether. Consul Davis had passed along an unsubstantiated report that Tunis and Algiers were merging their corsair fleets for possible war. Morris assumed that U.S. shipping would be their target, and he wanted all of his warships on hand in case he had to fight a new enemy. The
John Adams, Adams,
and
Enterprise
abandoned the Tripoli blockade and assembled at Malta with the rest of the squadron.