Miracles and Massacres (12 page)

The word was passed down the line, disordered as it was. It was hard to hear over all the noise, and for a moment, it looked like the orders had been lost. Then, a few of the Marines, the ones closest to Eaton, attached the sharp blades to the ends of their muskets, and the rest of his misfit army followed suit. The next order was the one Eaton believed he was born to give.

“Charge!”

Racing ahead of his men, his eyes flashing with excitement, he sprinted for the barricades. He knew the eight blue-and-red-clad leathernecks would follow him, but he wasn't sure about the others. The hired guns had barely followed him out of Alexandria; would they really charge with him into a hailstorm of musket fire?

The answer, Eaton quickly saw, was yes. Whether it was out of a selfish desire to loot Derna, a dream of putting Hamet in the Tripolitan throne, a fear of retreating and starving in the barren desert, or something else entirely, did not really matter. What did matter was that they were now following Eaton and the Marines, rushing headlong into a wave of heavy fire.

Their shouts came in at least half a dozen different languages, but they were all the same. “To Derna!” “To Tripoli!” And, in Arabic, “Hamet Qaramanli!” from those with their scimitars held high.

As bullets whizzed by Eaton's head, he leapt over the barricade and into the enemy line, his army at his heels. An enemy soldier lunged at him with a bloody sword, but Eaton ducked, dropped to the ground, and rolled past his attacker. His foe spun around but was too slow. Eaton plunged his bayonet into the Arab's stomach.

The leathernecks fired their muskets into the chests of the enemy at point-blank range. Through the cloud of noise and dirt, one unlikely reality was quickly becoming clear: Mustafa's soldiers were panicking. They hadn't expected the audacious bayonet charge and now they were in a mad rush to retreat.

The bravest enemy soldiers, Eaton saw through the chaos, were firing through the swirling dust, then running for cover, reloading and firing again. It was one of those soldiers who took direct aim at him. Eaton heard a “thwack!” and felt a piercing pain. The bullet had been aimed at his heart.

It had only missed by inches.

Eaton fell to the ground as his triumphant leathernecks, mercenaries, and Arabs—their swords and bayonets colored red with blood—rushed past him in pursuit of the retreating enemy. He clenched his teeth and wrapped his wound. His limp arm, which had taken the brunt of the enemy bullet, was not able to hold a musket any longer.
Eaton drew his pistol and charged ahead, firing into any enemy soldier brave or foolish enough to still resist.

Finally, after four hours of fighting, Derna fell silent. Atop Derna's highest flagpole, the Stars and Stripes flapped in the wind.

The city now belonged to the United States.

Eaton took a deep breath. He was pleased, but he wasn't finished. He would not be satisfied until the same flag flew over the Pasha's palace in Tripoli.

Derna

May 31, 1805

In the month after Derna fell, the enemy continued to fight. The Pasha's late-arriving reinforcements surrounded the city and outnumbered Eaton's force. But Eaton had something the Pasha's troops did not: a navy. With warships supplying Eaton with food, weapons, and money, the Pasha's troops soon began to realize that the American army could hold out for as long as it took. Many of the Pasha's men deserted and one enemy commander even approached Eaton about defecting.

On this late spring morning, Eaton was pleased to see a new frigate, the USS
Constellation
, pulling up at the dock. An hour later, a messenger from the warship approached Eaton as he sat down for lunch.

After briefly exchanging greetings the messenger got right to the point. “Sir, I am here to advise you that President Jefferson has revised his orders.”

Eaton had expected news about additional weapons or troops. He was confused.

“I'm sorry, I'm afraid I don't quite know what you are talking about.”

The messenger continued: “When you took Derna, the Pasha quickly realized that he could lose the throne. So he sued for peace. He told President Jefferson that he would stop all attacks on American ships and release the
Philadelphia
prisoners in exchange for sixty thousand dollars. It is my duty to inform you that the United States government has decided to accept his offer.”

Questions raced through Eaton's mind.
Why would the United States
allow a tyrant to remain on the throne when his defeat was imminent? Did they really expect him to live up to his word? What would happen to Eaton's Arab allies? To Hamet?

The messenger, sensing Eaton's apprehension, continued. “I am here under orders from the president to escort Hamet Qaramanli and all American troops to Sicily. I can also transport your European soldiers and a few of the Arabs. The rest must fend for themselves.”

Tripoli

June 4, 1805

William Ray had lived as a slave for nineteen months. He ate when the Pasha's men said he could eat. He worked when the Pasha's men ordered him to work, which was from sunrise to sunset, seven days a week. He slept when the Pasha's men allowed him to sleep.

But today was different. When he'd woken up this morning, no one was there to drag him out to the sea.

The captain of the
Philadelphia
called together his former crew and told him what he'd learned: reports of a treaty. Details were still sketchy, but the Pasha had granted their release.

“We are free,” the captain told them. “And tomorrow, we're going home!”

For the second time, William Ray's life was saved from suicide—which he had contemplated many times in the last nineteen months—by the words of a sailor in the United States Navy.

At sea; Washington, D.C.; Sicily

June 20, 1805

William Ray and the men of the
Philadelphia
were emaciated and exhausted, but they were also elated. They were sailing home to the United States, where a hero's welcome awaited them.

In Washington, Thomas Jefferson was triumphant. He was being heralded as the commander in chief that freed three hundred American hostages. Now he could use that success to reduce the size of the American navy and get the budget in order.

On the island of Sicily, Hamet Qaramanli was dejected, but grateful to William Eaton and his troops. As a token of his appreciation, Hamet presented Presley O'Bannon, the officer in charge of the departing Marines, with Hamet's most prized possession: a weapon he had carried from Alexandria to Derna. Its slim blade was slightly curved. Its ornate handle was shaped like the letter
J
, and running the length of the sword—a scimitar, to be precise—were engraved Arabic words.

William Eaton, on the other hand, was not so grateful. In fact, he was bitter. He was willing to concede that the treaty with the Pasha was “more favorable and—separately considered—more honorable than any peace obtained by any Christian nation with a Barbary regency at any period within a hundred years.” But he raged at the opportunity that had been lost. “I firmly believe,” he later told a friend, “we would have entered Tripoli with as little trouble as we did Derna.”

EPILOGUE

Monticello; Washington, D.C.; Tripoli

June 1815

At seventy-two years old, Thomas Jefferson looked back on a life full of historic accomplishments. With the Declaration of Independence he had given his new nation its creed. With the Louisiana Purchase he had doubled its size. His ideas about religious freedom would inform the nation's First Amendment, and his belief in small government would inspire generations of Americans to remain skeptical of centralized power.

The Barbary War was not, however, one of Jefferson's finest moments. By allowing Pasha Qaramanli to remain on the throne, he had chosen compromise over victory. He had shown weakness, and that weakness had provoked more aggression. It was a great irony that, after a daring, five-hundred-mile march to Derna, the Pasha of Tripoli would keep his job, while many officers of the American navy would lose theirs.

In the ten years after the release of the
Philadelphia
prisoners, the Pasha had broken almost every term of the treaty. Tripoli and the other
Barbary states had resumed their attacks on American ships. Now another U.S. president was again forced to deal with the situation.

At just five foot four and barely one hundred pounds, James Madison could appear, upon first impression, weak and frail. But his looks were deceiving. Madison built America's first great navy. He led the United States to victory over Great Britain in the War of 1812. And he was determined to do what his country had failed to do ever since Thomas Jefferson met Abd al-Rahman in London: He would achieve peace through strength, not appeasement. Madison made it the “settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute.”

While Jefferson rested at Monticello, an armada was parked in the port of Tripoli with enough firepower to turn the city into rubble. One ship brought a personal message for the Pasha from James Madison himself. “The United States,” the president had written, “while they wish for war with no nation, will buy peace with none.”

The American captain who delivered the president's message was Stephen Decatur, the same man who'd led the daring mission to destroy the USS
Philadelphia
. Decatur, at Madison's behest, had also delivered the same ultimatum to the Barbary states of Algiers and Tunis.

After the capture of thirty-five American ships and seven hundred American hostages, the United States' thirty-year war with the Barbary pirates was finally over. It had not ended with a bribe, or a treaty, but with a demand for peace, backed by a credible threat of overwhelming force.

Today, a scimitar modeled after the one given by Hamet to Presley O'Bannon hangs at the side of every United States Marine officer in dress uniform. The “Marines' Hymn,” which is the oldest official song in the military, contains a reference to the war where American leathernecks first proved their incredible resilience:

To the shores of Tripoli
.

New York City

Spring 1885

“Fifty thousand dollars? You
are
mad.”

Nikola Tesla straightened his shoulders. His eyes never wavered from Thomas Edison. He responded, “You promised me fifty thousand dollars if I resolved those engineering problems.” He lifted his chin slightly. “The designs are complete.”

Edison wondered if he had made a mistake hiring this strange young Serb from Continental Edison, his subsidiary in Paris, nine months earlier. Edison had tasked him with designing an improved method of power transmission, but instead of working with direct current distribution—the technology that Edison had championed—he'd concentrated on alternating current. Tesla insisted that alternating the direction of electrical charges was better than a constant flow in a single direction because it allowed electricity to be transmitted from great distances with less power loss. Edison—both for practical and financial reasons—vehemently disagreed.

Edison rose from his chair so he was level with the standing Tesla. “You misunderstood. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work.”

“I won't leave without my money.”

Edison knew Tesla was odd, but he never expected to be confronted in this fashion. Tesla counted every step he took, worked only with objects and numbers divisible by three, seldom shook hands, and refused to touch another person's hair. His fastidious attire and precise English annoyed the untidy Edison.
Does Tesla really believe that being neat makes him a better man?
Edison thought to himself.
A better inventor?

“This is absurd, Nikola. You earn eighteen dollars a week, a generous salary. Didn't we just deny your request for a seven-dollar-per-week raise? How could you possibly believe those designs were worth fifty thousand dollars?”

“Because you promised.”

Edison stared disapprovingly at him, a practiced look that was sufficient to dissuade most employees.

Tesla was not so easily put off. “And because I need the money for my work with alternating current.”

Edison chewed his unlit cigar. This last statement irritated him to no end. Edison had reservations about direct current technology, but he was deeply committed to it. Most of his inventions, the expertise of his companies, and his factory tooling were all aimed at direct current. Was Tesla trying to wreck everything Edison had built?

“Nikola, you have splendid ideas, but alternating current is utterly impractical. I need your mind on your assigned work.”

“Yes, and I've completed my assigned work. Now I've come for the bonus you offered me to improve the electrical distribution system.”

“To finance work on alternating current?”

“How I use the money is not your business.” The dapper, twenty-eight-year-old engineer looked down for a moment, as so many others had done when coming face-to-face with Edison. But then he quickly lifted his head back up. “Mr. Edison, with deference to your grand accomplishments, the future is alternating current. It's the only way to transmit high-voltage energy over long distances.”

“You're wrong Nikola. Now good night.”

“You are not going to pay me?”

“I
already
paid you—the eighteen dollars a week we agreed to.”

“Then you leave me no alternative but to resign.”

Edison removed the cigar from his mouth and, after a heartbeat, waved it dismissively. “Then go.”

Edison stood by the window and watched Tesla leave his office. He was sure that Tesla would reconsider the second he stepped out of his headquarters and onto Fifth Avenue. But Edison, his mind always racing, quickly realized the flaw in his thinking: Tesla was far too stubborn and fanatical; he would never be dissuaded from pursuing alternating current. Edison wondered if he should run downstairs and stop Tesla from leaving the brownstone.
Perhaps,
he wondered,
the old adage about keeping enemies close might apply here.