A Call to Arms (41 page)

“According t' Mr. Boyle,” referring to the signal midshipman, “Captain Hull is inquirin' about your intentions.”

“My intentions? By that I assume he means whether I intend to invite him to supper this evening.”

Agreen's expression remained deadpan. “Could be. Or it could be he's wonderin' why the jolly boat and launch are swayed out, and why twenty Marines in full gear are standin' by on the weather deck.”

“Ah. Perhaps you're right, Agee.” Richard pondered his reply. “You may advise Mr. Boyle to advise Captain Hull that I am preparing for all contingencies.”

Agreen grinned. “An excellent response, if I may say so, Captain.”

The reply was hoisted up the signal halyard as excited shouts from lookouts brought every spyglass to bear on shore. A cluster of uniformed soldiers was advancing into Derne from the earthworks. Those Arab defenders willing and able to put up a fight were backing away step by step, parrying bayonet thrusts as best they could with their short-snubbed scimitars, seemingly to no avail. Many were gored where they stood by the vicious thrust of a bayonet, doubling over before the bloody blade was withdrawn in search of another victim. Arabs still heavily outnumbered Christians, but neither side seemed overly impressed by that margin. Close-quarter combat was quickly turning into a one-sided slaughter.

To the south, between the palace and the castle, another battle was raging, but the naval officers could not determine its course. It was apparently being waged street by street, and there were many buildings blocking their view.

“My. Crabtree,” Richard said to his first lieutenant, “we shall reduce sail to tops'ls, royals, jib, and driver. Bring her in on a parallel course with the coast, three cable lengths out. We'll tow the boats behind. And I shall have the guns run out, both sides.”

“Aye, Captain. Shall we beat to quarters?”

“I don't think that will be necessary. This is a precautionary measure only.”

“Understood, Captain.”

As Agreen Crabtree issued the orders to Josiah Smythe and Peter Weeks, Lieutenant Meyers and Lieutenant Lee stepped down the main hatchway to the gun deck, their station for action.

Three cable lengths—three-tenths of a sea mile. Richard would not have even considered sailing his ship in so close to shore in such treacherous waters had the wind not shifted to southward and strengthened to ten knots, a steady offshore lubber's breeze that could quickly carry them away from any danger. There was still a risk, of course. The wind could shift again. But Richard told himself that if he kept his sea senses alert, and if the leadsman in the fore-chains kept a sharp eye on the seabed, he would not be placing his ship in undue danger.

Under reduced sail
Portsmouth
glided along the coastline on a close haul near the spot where
Hornet
had earlier presented her broadside to the fort. No cannon, no musket, no weapon of any kind offered a challenge.

Suddenly Agreen touched Richard's arm. “There,” he said, pointing. “Sweet Jesus, would you look at that.”

He was indicating the fields west of Derne. Tripolitans were climbing, jumping, leaping over the town's defenses into those fields, then running pell-mell toward the presumed safety of the western hills. A few men carried weapons; most did not.

“They're giving us a target, Richard. Shall we respond?”

Richard watched the rout unfold before his eyes. Slowly he shook his head. “No, Agee. Leave them be. They're no longer a threat. And likely there are civilians in there among the soldiers. We have nothing to gain by killing them, and perhaps a lot to lose.”

“Agreed,” Agreen said, adding with a smile, “Maybe what's happening at the fort is more t' your liking. Have a gander.”

Richard trained his glass on what remained of the shore battery. Both the battery and the fort immediately behind it were deserted except for three men charging up the ramparts. One of the three, praise God, was his son. And he looked to be all right, although his badly torn shirt gave pause. A second man Richard identified as Lt. Presley O'Bannon. The third man he could not readily make out, but by his sheer bulk he had to be Marine private William Whittier. Whoever he was, he was carrying something bulky, and he was the first through the open door. O'Bannon followed him in. Jamie gave
Portsmouth
an enthusiastic wave before he too disappeared inside.

“What the . . .?”

“There's your answer, Agee,” Richard said some moments later in a voice choked with emotion.

The two friends watched along with the rest of
Portsmouth's
company as the flag of Tripoli slid down the flagpole that topped the fort's lone turret. In its place, hauled up by two Marines and a midshipman, rose a mass of cloth, its provenance uncertain as it pulsed its way upward in short spurts, slowly at first, then more purposefully, until its body caught the wind and unfurled with a snap revealing fifteen stars and fifteen stripes. The vision of victory rose higher and higher above the shores of Tripoli, impelled, so it seemed, by the hurrahs and huzzahs of a naval squadron at sea and an allied army on shore.

“There, before God, is your answer.”

T
HE RAISING OF
the American flag, however thunderous the acclaim that greeted it, did not end the battle for Derne. Two days later, reinforcements from Tripoli—seven hundred cavalry and three hundred foot-soldiers—charged onto the scene. They made ready their attack on the same high ground Hamet's force had used. General Eaton, in command at his headquarters at the battered fort by the harbor, put every available hand to work shoring up the town's defenses. A good number of Derne's citizens pitched in, eager to demonstrate either their support for Hamet or their contempt for his brother—or both. Fighting shoulder to shoulder, Hamet's Muslims and Eaton's Christians successfully repelled the attacks.

His situation grave, the royal governor of Derne first took refuge in a mosque. When Eaton threatened to march in and drag him out, the governor appealed to a higher authority: a prominent local sheik, who granted the governor safe haven in his harem. Eaton scoffed at the notion and trooped his Marines to the sheik's home, only to be warned not to step inside. The citizens of Derne were warming to Hamet, the sheik said. Should his ally, General Eaton, desecrate the ancient right of sanctuary in a harem, they would be offended and turn against him. He did not mention that before taking refuge in the harem, Mustifa Bey had made it known about town that he was offering a reward of six hundred dollars for Eaton's head and thirty dollars for the head of any other Christian dog.

Eaton granted the governor one day's grace. Late that night, the sheik slipped the governor past the guards, out of Derne, and into the custody of the royal forces encamped in the southern hills.

With Derne secure, Eaton prepared to move on Tripoli. “On to Tripoli!” became the battle cry of the allied army. But there were other forces in play.

When
Hornet
brought word of the victory at Derne to Samuel Barron in Syracuse, the commodore was no doubt relieved that he had already submitted his letter of resignation and was soon to give up command of the Mediterranean Squadron. Two weeks earlier, convinced at last by Tobias Lear that Eaton's expedition was nothing more than a pipe dream, Barron had sent Lear to Tripoli aboard the frigate
Essex.
His mission: to negotiate a peace treaty on behalf of the United States and to secure the release of
Philadelphia's
crew as quickly as possible. When Commo. John Rodgers, eager to take up the fight, sailed in from Gibraltar several weeks later to assume command of the squadron, he found his hands tied. He along with everyone else had to await the outcome of the negotiations.

In Tripoli, Lear found a receptive audience. Word of the disaster at Derne had seeped like raw sewage into every nook and cranny of the bashaw's castle, and Yusuf and his Divan were concerned. The costs of this war were mounting by the day. So were the impatience and rancor of the masses and the specter of ultimate defeat. With the assistance of his foreign secretary acting in concert with the Spanish and Danish consuls in Tripoli, Yusuf orchestrated an offer. For a total sum of sixty thousand dollars—all of it ransom money, not a dollar in tribute—he would consent to peace, liberate his prisoners, and never again, as Allah was his witness, threaten the interests of the United States in the Mediterranean. Among other concessions: his personal guarantee of Hamet's safety and his promise to release Hamet's family as hostages, although not right away. Yusuf insisted on a three-year “cooling-off” period before his brother's wife and children would actually be set free. Lear made a counteroffer or two but generally accepted the proffered terms. The principals signed the agreement ending the war on June 10.

Lear immediately sent out formal dispatches announcing the treaty, including one carried by USS
Constellation
to Derne. He added a personal note to Eaton, in essence congratulating him for the stunning victory that finally had forced Yusuf Karamanli to the bargaining table.

Lear's dispatch disgusted Eaton, who viewed it as a sop from an inept career diplomat too incompetent to incorporate military strategy. But what infuriated him beyond measure was the accompanying dispatch from Commo. John Rodgers ordering Eaton to evacuate the Marines and Europeans from Derne, but no one else. In effect, Eaton was ordered to leave his Arab allies and the citizens of Derne to their fate. And he could well imagine what that fate would be.

Forced to obey a command that to his mind represented an insufferable breach of duty, honor, and decorum, Eaton fabricated an uprising along
Derne's southern defenses to draw Hamet's Arab soldiers away from the harbor. When they returned to headquarters, the Christians were gone. The next morning, when the citizens of Derne awoke to discover what had transpired during the night, those safely aboard
Constellation
could hear their mournful wails from a mile offshore.

Hamet Karamanli, graceful and pragmatic as always, accepted his fate and returned to Egypt. His mercenaries were never paid. Year after year, William Eaton lobbied Congress to grant Hamet an annual pension in recognition of services rendered to the United States. Year after year his appeals fell on deaf ears. As the drumbeat of war with England began to sound on the distant horizon, the First Barbary War faded from public memory

M
UCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN
about the historical significance of the First Barbary War. The exploits of the U.S. Marines involved added to the luster of the Corps. The second line of the Marines' Hymn refers specifically to the Battle of Derne, and the ceremonial sword of the Marine Corps is to this day a replica of the Mameluke sword Hamet Karamanli presented to Lt. Presley O'Bannon for his valor and bravery. Gen. William Eaton's march across the desert is also legendary, and bears an uncanny semblance to the better-publicized exploits of British officer Thomas E. Lawrence in Arabia during World War I more than a century later.

But it was the U.S. Navy that took center stage in this conflict. In the Mediterranean, the U.S. Navy acted for the first time as a cohesive fighting force capable of formulating and implementing complex strategies while deployed thousands of miles from home waters. Its power was revealed in all its glory, and it was a power respected and revered even by such Royal Navy luminaries as Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson.

From such tests of courage are leaders born, and the First Barbary War produced its fair share: Edward Preble, of course, but also those young naval officers under his command whom he came to refer to affectionately as “my boys.” Among them is Lt. Stephen Decatur, whose raid on
Philadelphia
is the stuff of legend. He returned home a true American hero for the ages. At the still-tender age of twenty-five he became the youngest American officer ever to achieve the rank of captain.

But perhaps first among the Barbary heroes is Lt. Richard Somers, captain of
Intrepid
during her final voyage. He and the brave volunteers who sailed with him are not forgotten. In 2004 the New Jersey legislature passed a resolution calling for the repatriation of the remains of Somers and his crew, buried since 1805 on the shores of Tripoli. In April 2011 a
similar bill was introduced in Congress. Space to receive their remains has been reserved at Arlington National Cemetery.

In 1806 USS
Constitution
brought the Tripoli Monument from Italy, when it was fashioned, to the Washington Navy Yard. Inscribed on the thirty-foot white marble sculpture crowned by the American eagle are the names of the honored dead of the war, among them Richard Somers, James Decatur, Joseph Israel, and Henry Wadsworth (Longfellow's uncle). In 1860 that monument, the oldest military monument in the United States, was moved to the spot where it stands today, on Decatur Road near Preble Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

aback
In a position to catch the wind on the forward surface. A sail is aback when it is pressed against the mast by a headwind.

abaft
Toward the stern of a ship. Used relatively, as in “abaft the beam” of a vessel.

able seaman
A general term for a sailor with considerable experience in performing the basic tasks of sailing a ship.

after cabin
The cabin in the stern of the ship used by the captain, commodore, or admiral.