Six Frigates

by Ian W. Toll

  An alarm had gone up through the harbor. The Intrepid was taking small arms fire from two xebecs moored nearby, and soon the guns in the castle and harbor batteries came to life. The Americans were fortunate. The enemy cannonade was wildly inaccurate—only one shot came close to hitting the fleeing ketch, and that passed through her topgallant sail. Men laid hold of the oars and rowed her down the channel. Once out of range of the enemy guns, they laughed, joked, sang, and paused to watch the spectacle of the still-blazing Philadelphia.

  None of them would ever forget the sight. The walls of the castle and city were bathed in a warm, orange, spectral light. As the flames reached the frigate’s tar-saturated rigging, they raced up to the mastheads and “presented a column of fire truly magnificent.” At 11:00 p.m., the masts and tops, still burning brightly, fell majestically into the harbor. The cannon, as they were heated by the flames, fired in succession—some casting their shot at the castle. At midnight the cables burned through and the floating inferno drifted in toward shore. By six the next morning, the men on the deck of the Siren, forty miles out to sea, could still see the light of the distant fire on the southern horizon.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  William Bainbridge and the incarcerated officers of the Philadelphia were roused from their beds by “the most hideous yelling and screaming from one end of the town to the other, and a firing of cannon from the castle. On getting up and opening the window which faced the harbour, we saw the frigate Philadelphia in flames.” Bainbridge himself had urged that the ship be destroyed, so he must have welcomed the event. Whatever elation he felt, however, was tempered by his concern for the safety of the officers and crew. Would the Bashaw retaliate against the prisoners?

  Bainbridge had good reason to be anxious. From the windows of his palace, Yusuf was watching in a rage of impotence as the Intrepid retreated to safety amid the inept cannonade of his batteries. Before the Philadelphia had burned all the way down to the waterline, the consular house in which the officers were lodged was surrounded by a heavy guard. Their liberties were summarily revoked, and they were told they would be allowed no more visitors or mail until further notice. Surgeon Jonathan Cowdery, who was treating dozens of Tripolitan patients—including members of Yusuf’s own family—was told he would no longer be permitted to make his rounds. The guards intimated that the officers would soon be moved to a prison within the castle walls. Not daring to strike directly at the officers for fear of retaliation against high-ranking Tripolitan prisoners held in Syracuse, Yusuf took his anger out on the common seamen of the Philadelphia, ordering that they be forced to carry out “an additional portion of labor.”

  Bainbridge protested to Minister Dghies. The Americans had had nothing to do with the raid, he said. They had sent no information to Preble that could be useful in planning or executing the operation. (This was a lie.) The parole of honor signed by the officers, Bainbridge said, was sufficient to guarantee that they would not try to escape. He added that no change in treatment of the American prisoners would “prevent the Commodore’s acting in every Warlike manner…. His Excellency will find the Americans true friends in time of Peace but active Enemies in War.”

  In response, the minister visited Bainbridge and assured him that the officers would continue to be treated as high-ranking prisoners of war. He offered to allow them to send and receive letters from their families and friends, so long as these were first sent to Dghies, who would “peruse them.”

  On March 1, the American officers were taken under guard from the consular house and moved into a securely guarded suite of rooms within the castle. Cowdery described the lodging as “very dark and smoky, having no light but what came through the skylight.” The officers complained of stifling air and “noxious reptiles.” The complaints were probably exaggerated: Bainbridge said only that “our situation is not as comfortable as it has been.”

  In defiance of the tighter net that had been drawn around him, Bainbridge was able to continue his highly effective espionage campaign, which he dryly termed “magical aid.” It is likely that he bribed the drogermen and guards to smuggle his letters. Shortly after the destruction of the Philadelphia, he sent a short note to Preble warning of a potential counterattack on the squadron at Syracuse. Writing in cipher, he warned that the Tripolitan crews planned to disguise themselves as merchantmen from a Christian country. “Our cruisers should examine every description of Vessels…and not trust to any Colours or dress of the Crews and should not consider themselves secured from attack at Anchor. Most may happen when least expected.”

  In the days after the raid, the bodies of three slain guards washed up on shore between Tripoli and Mesurat. They were riddled with stab wounds. The Bashaw and his ministers were convinced Decatur’s raiding party had executed the men after they had surrendered. On March 5, Dghies wrote Bainbridge to lodge a protest, asking: “How long has it been since Nations massacred their Prisoners?”

  Bainbridge promised to inquire with the commodore about the circumstances of the killings, but added that he was sure they would “not merit the appellation of Massacre.…You may be assured, Sir, that it is an incontrovertible fact, that the Americans always treat their Prisoners with the greatest humanity and give quarters the moment opposition ceases.”

  Was there any truth in the charge of a prisoner massacre? The allegation is corroborated in an affidavit given in April 1828 by a member of the raiding party, Surgeon’s Mate Lewis Heermann. Heermann testified that after the attackers had gained possession of the Philadelphia, but before setting her ablaze, lookouts were posted on her starboard bow to watch for any attempt to recapture the frigate. The lookouts reported “in quick succession the approach of enemy’s boats, and their retreat, with an interval of time just sufficient to execute the order which grew out of it—of killing all prisoners, and draw from the ketch part of a supply of ammunition, small arms, and pikes, for the defence of the ship.”

  In subsequent letters to Bainbridge and Dghies, Preble categorically denied the charge. The Tripolitans, he said, had “a right to expect their fate from the opposition they made, and the alarm they endeavoured to create…. People who handle dangerous weapons in War, must expect wounds and Death, but I shall never countenance or encourage wanton acts of Cruelty.” He invited Dghies to send a representative under flag of truce to interview the one Tripolitan prisoner taken alive from the raid, who was wounded badly in the action, “but from the kindness and attention he has received is now well in health.”

  PREBLE WAS OVERJOYED by Decatur’s success. The surrender of the Philadelphia and her crew the previous November had almost convinced him to sue for peace. Now he spoke with renewed bravado about forcing Yusuf to terms. “I hope before the end of next summer to make him give me the Officers & Crew of the late frigate Philadelphia without a ransom,” he told Smith. Preble planned to attack the city in late June or July, when milder weather would enable the squadron to cruise safely in the offing. Throughout March and April 1804, the Constitution and her smaller consorts lay at their moorings in Syracuse as the commodore planned the summer campaign.

  Preble was convinced that Syracuse was perfectly suited as a naval base for the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron, but his officers were no great admirers of the ancient city. Midshipman Ralph Izard told his mother he found Syracuse so “detestable” that he had not set his foot on shore for six weeks. Washington Irving, who visited the following winter, recorded his impressions: “Streets gloomy and ill-built, and poverty, filth, and misery on every side. No appearance of trade or industry…. All is servility, indigence, and Discontent.” When the officers walked the streets, they were trailed by a parade of beggars; after dark they had to fight off would-be thieves. Even the aristocracy was impoverished. A high-ranking nobleman, Baron Cannarella, was caught trying to pocket two silver spoons at a dinner party given by Stephen Decatur. A watchful steward held out a tray and said: “When you have done looking at them, Sir?”

  Because the classics were held to be th
e bedrock of every young man’s education, most of the American officers had at least a nodding acquaintance with Latin and Greek, and none could fail to be impressed by the city’s magnificent ancient ruins. The Constitution filled her freshwater casks at the ancient spring-fed Fountain of Arethusa on the edge of the harbor. Officers on liberty visited the famous Temple of Minerva, transformed into a Roman Catholic cathedral; the remains of Diana’s temple; the Roman amphitheatre; and the sites of Tyche, Neapolis, and Achradina. They found fragments of broken marble apparently scavenged from ancient sites, many “full of engravings and inscriptions, but most of them defaced and spoiled.” The legendary Mount Etna, encrusted in snow from summit to base, dominated the view to the north. Preble, who was a bit of a history buff, regretted that his workload did not allow him more leisure for sightseeing. He told his wife he hoped to return someday as a tourist.

  In the eyes of many of the officers, however, the city’s glorious past only emphasized how far it had fallen. Ancient history recorded that Syracuse had once been home to a quarter of a million people. In 1804, its population was just twelve thousand. “It is truly melancholy to think of the dismal contrast that [Syracuse’s] former magnificence makes with its present meanness,” wrote Purser John Darby of the John Adams. What had once been a powerful and opulent city-state, possessing “fleets and armies that were the terror of the world,” was now despoiled and forgotten, and did not “deserve the name of a nation.”

  The U.S. Navy had dollars to spend—a lot of dollars. The squadron’s presence was a powerful boost to the local economy. New inns, taverns, and shops opened. Cash circulated. Merchant vessels from other ports in the Mediterranean crowded into Syracuse in the hope of unloading their cargoes. Syracusian women were fond of the American officers and their money, and they were not shy. John Darby observed that in Sicily “a breach of the marriage vow is no longer looked upon as one of the deadly sins”—and Sicilian women, whether married or not, preferred “the American officers to any other nation in the world, their own not excepted.” Officers frequented the opera, said to be the best in Sicily, and threw money on the stage as a gesture of appreciation to their favorite performers. It was said that the prima donna Cecilia Fontana Bertozzi was provided for “in a very handsome manner” by Lieutenant John H. Dent, commander of the Scourge.

  The American officers were high-handed and arrogant toward the Syracusian civil authorities. All understood that Syracusian prosperity depended upon the continued presence of the squadron. “We do as we please,” boasted one young midshipman. Objecting to a public health law that required vessels inbound from Malta to perform an eight-day quarantine, officers either bribed the quarantine authorities to turn their heads or brusquely refused to comply at all. In April, Stephen Decatur sent an armed boat to seize a deserter off the deck of a French privateer anchored in the harbor. Protesting that the act violated Sicilian neutrality, Governor Marcello de Gregorio ordered the city gates closed, detaining nine American officers who were in Syracuse that night. Two Neapolitan officers put out from the harbor in boats to the Constitution to inform Preble that the gates would not be opened until the disputed sailor was restored to the French. When told what the governor had done, the commodore exploded. “You know he is not a man who commands his temper,” wrote Henry Wadsworth. “So in the rage the tables and chairs and Neapolitan officers’ hats flew about the cabin, and when the light was again brought in it was some time before these unfortunate messengers could be found. They were detained on board all night frightened out of their senses.”

  Gregorio reversed himself and opened the gates without insisting upon the return of the deserter. His capitulation confirmed that the Americans could impose their will on the civil authorities. They grew steadily more haughty and abusive. “Although we had great power at Syracuse before, yet now we are uncontrolled,” Wadsworth boasted. “We disarm their guards, and open their gates, and break their laws with impunity.” When Preble was absent in Malta for several weeks, Gregorio begged him to return: “It is with the utmost regret I am constrained to acquaint you that the discipline which you enforced is no longer maintained, for which reason continual applications of the inhabitants here are made to me for redress.”

  Preble realized that his manhandling of the governor had set a bad example for the younger officers. He was concerned for the reputation of the navy and its officers, and later warned his successor, Commodore Samuel Barron, to crack down on the worst abusers. “I suspect you will find it necessary to make an example, and the sooner the better.”

  YOUNG HOTHEADS WITH GUNS, uniforms, and an overcharged sense of personal honor: in 1804, it was a formula for frequent “affairs of honor” or “interviews”—the favorite euphemisms for the practice of dueling.

  Dueling was rife among aristocratic men in society at large—this was the same year Alexander Hamilton would be shot dead by Aaron Burr in Weehawken—but among the officers of the navy and marines it approached the proportions of an epidemic. By one historian’s count, there were thirty-six naval officers killed in eighty-two duels between 1798 and 1848, and half of these killings occurred in the period before 1815. The U.S. Congress passed a law outlawing duels among army officers in 1806—but perhaps because most naval duels occurred overseas, out of American civil jurisdiction, the ban was not extended to the navy until almost sixty years later. Powerful figures in the naval establishment and Congress held the view that dueling, though deplorable, was an essentially private affair that the government had no business regulating. Official acquiescence allowed the custom to take root in the culture of the officer corps. The predictable result was almost constant gunplay, especially among the midshipmen and young lieutenants who represented the navy’s future.

  Dueling had its roots in the medieval practice of “judicial combat,” and had evolved through the centuries as a means of resolving disputes between individual members of the gentry. The actual face-off between men armed with swords or pistols was not an end in itself, but a final resort after all non-violent alternatives had been exhausted. It was preceded by a ritualistic process of negotiation carried on through intermediaries, or “seconds.” Purported insults might be parsed, elucidated, or otherwise explained in a manner that satisfied the aggrieved party. If no such resolution was possible, the seconds negotiated the time, place, weapons, and conditions of the duel. They acted as coaches, advocates, witnesses, and referees.

  Duels were governed by principles that had changed very little over the centuries, known collectively as the code duello. The version most widely adopted in America was the “Clonmel Code,” a set of twenty-six specific rules that had been published by a group of Irishmen in 1777 and “prescribed for general adoption throughout Ireland.” The rules specified when and in what cases a challenge could be made; how weapons and distances were to be chosen; how many shots must be fired for each type of offense; and in what cases it was permissible to avert a duel. Among the rules were the following: challenges were to be delivered on the morning after an insult—not on the same evening, “for it is desirable to avoid all hot-headed proceedings.” When one gentleman calls another a liar, the accuser “must either beg pardon in express terms; exchange two shots previous to apology; or three shots followed up by explanation; or fire on till a severe hit be received by one party or the other.” In certain cases, according to the Clonmel rules, a duel must take place, as when one man strikes another: “As a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen, no verbal apology can be received for such an insult.”

  Dueling was the target of criticism and even ridicule by Enlightenment-era philosophers. Nearly all of the major American political figures of the founding era deplored the practice as a relic of the medieval past. Benjamin Franklin said duels were a “murderous practice…they decide nothing,” and Jefferson condemned them as “the most barbarous of appeals.” Washington’s distaste for the custom was more influential because he was a military man: he discouraged dueling among
his subordinate officers in the Continental Army, and for the most part his wishes were respected. Even Alexander Hamilton, the most notorious dueling casualty in American history, professed to take a dim view of the practice. Hamilton had lost his oldest son, Philip, to a duel in 1802; the young man had fought, poignantly, to avenge an insult against his father. When challenged to a duel in June 1804 by his political rival, Aaron Burr, Hamilton avowed a reluctance to fight, considering himself “strongly opposed to the practice of Duelling.” He agreed to the meeting after concluding that it was “impossible to avoid” without bringing on himself the contempt of his peers. To resolve the dilemma, he wrote, he planned “to reserve and throw away my first fire.” Burr, on the other hand, did not miss.

  Leading political figures seemed to unite in professing their aversion to dueling, but the message transmitted to the young officers of the navy and marines was, at best, a mixed one. Old war heroes like Washington might have deplored the practice, but they had earned the privilege of doing so because they had already proven their personal courage in battle. And deploring the practice was not the same as denouncing it, much less forbidding it. Rarely did a duelist who had killed his adversary find himself prosecuted. A typical view was expressed by Captain Arthur Sinclair when he referred to the killing of one of his subordinates as “one of those imperious cases which frequently occurs among military men, where life must be hazarded to save what is far more valuable, his reputation.” A naval officer who engaged in duels did not suffer negative career consequences; in fact, the reverse was often true, because a man who had proven that he could “stand fire” without flinching was enhanced in the eyes of his colleagues and superiors.

  Predictably, it was the youngest and lowest ranking of the commissioned officers who did most of the dueling in the Mediterranean. Among the eighteen dueling fatalities in the pre-1815 navy, twelve were midshipmen and four were lieutenants. Many of the young men who entered the U.S. Navy—or were pushed into it by their families—were restless, defiant characters who seemed unlikely to thrive in a more sedentary, landlocked career. Like the eighteen-year-old who sought a midshipman’s commission because he was “tired of the inactivity of the business…as unsuitable to the energy of his desires,” many officers were drawn into the service by a deep yearning for a life of adventure. Once aboard, however, they found the routine even more monotonous than life ashore. Close confinement, hard work, boredom, lack of privacy—the wardroom was an environment that provided few outlets for supercharged adolescent hormones.