Miracles and Massacres (10 page)

For the first time in its history, America found itself at war in a foreign land.

William Eaton could not have been happier.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Two years later: June 13, 1803

William Ray was having a bad run of luck. Over the past few years, he had lost a string of jobs as a newspaper editor, schoolteacher, and general-store owner. Then, to top it all off, he'd found his girlfriend in the arms of a stranger—a Frenchman who, unbeknownst to Ray, was her husband.

After heavy drinking at a succession of pubs, the morose, frail thirty-four-year-old stumbled down to the banks of the Delaware River. His life a mess, he was ready to drown himself in the river's muddy waters but something made him pause. It was a noise, distant but steady: the beating of a drum.

His curiosity piqued, Ray looked down the river in the direction of the sound. Through the fog he saw the hulking outline of the largest warship he had ever seen. Perhaps because he could think of nothing better to do, or perhaps because he wasn't yet ready to meet his maker, Ray staggered along the riverbank toward the ship.

When he neared his destination—a thirty-eight-gun frigate with
U.S.S. PHILADELPHIA
stenciled in large letters on its side—he discovered a man in a blue and red uniform standing on the dock looking for recruits. “See the world!” shouted the Marine over the banging of the recruiting drum. “Serve your country and see the world!”

At the time, there were fewer than five hundred United States Marines, and it was not difficult to see why. Their pay was the lowest in the American military; their duties—mainly policing sailors and preventing mutiny—were the least glamorous; and their nickname was curious:
leathernecks
. The term had come from their dress uniforms, which included tall, stiff leather collars that made it difficult for a Marine to turn his head, or, more important, to lose it to the blade of a Barbary pirate's saber.

At that moment, however, none of those things really mattered to William Ray. Guaranteed meals, shelter, and a distraction from his duplicitous girlfriend were all the compensation he needed.

What do I have to lose?
he thought as he shook hands with the Marine and boarded the ship for a personal tour.

Washington, D.C.

July 1, 1803

Thomas Jefferson rubbed his temples. The candles didn't shed enough light to prevent his aging eyes from straining, and it was starting to give him a headache. Everyone else in the executive mansion had already gone to bed.

Jefferson had spent the day wrangling with the domestic problems of state, but by evening he had turned his attention to international troubles. Chief in his mind was the situation on the Barbary Coast. It had been more than two years since the Pasha attacked the U.S. consulate in Tripoli and declared war on them, and, so far, the American war effort was going nowhere.

The first squadron Jefferson sent to blockade the enemy port had returned before its timid leader even put up much of a fight. The second squadron's leader, a dilettante named Commodore Richard Morris, had spent more time at parties than at sea. All the while, gold and hostages kept disappearing into the black hole that was Tripoli.

Now what?
Jefferson heard the advice of his bitterly divided cabinet members in his head. Robert Smith, his hawkish Secretary of the Navy: “Nothing but a formidable force will effect an honorable peace with Tripoli.” Albert Gallatin, his dovish Secretary of the Treasury, had the opposite view: “I sincerely wish you could empower our negotiators to give, if necessary for peace, an annuity to Tripoli.”

Jefferson rubbed his temples again.
Damned pirates
, he thought.
We have enough problems to worry about here
. From debates over the size of the national debt and tensions with some American Indian tribes, to congressional ratification of the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson already had his hands full domestically.

After a few more torturous minutes Jefferson made a decision: He'd send one more squadron. He had heard good things about a frigate christened the USS
Philadelphia
. The name was a good sign: Philadelphia was where the colonies had voted to take a stand against tyranny; perhaps the
Philadelphia
would finally take a stand against piracy. In either case, Jefferson was determined to not go down in history as the first American president to lose a war.

Mediterranean Sea

Off the North African Coast

Aboard the USS
Philadelphia

October 31, 1803

The wooden decks were bleached white from the hot Mediterranean sun. The sails on the three masts strained against the riggings in the stiff breeze off the Sahara. The yellow sands of North Africa that stretched endlessly south were now just a mile or two away.

These were the shores of Tripoli.

William Ray had heard all the stories about the desolation, the punishing climate, and the inhospitable people—many of whom were Muslim holy warriors who made no secret of their hostility to infidels.

Three months at sea had taken a toll on the crew of the
Philadelphia
. Morale was dragging and brotherly love was in short supply. The salt tack was mealy and the grog perilously low. The holds emanated a pungent stench of old seawater, rotten fish, and body odor, all tinged with excrement. The smell generated by 307 men crammed into three decks on a 157-foot vessel made many sailors retch and heave. They grumbled in hushed tones about making it back home before Christmas and before the winter gales off Greenland made the long voyage even more hellish.

Making matters worse, the men felt useless. Like all the troops fighting in the war against Tripoli, they had done little to assert American power, free American hostages, or protect American ships. The men of the
Philadelphia
were fighting in a war stuck in the mud.

Ray, lost in thought as he stared off at the distant shore, heard a shout from the crow's nest. “Enemy ship ahead, port side!” He looked to the left, and saw, a mile or so in the distance, the
Philadelphia
's prey: a small ship flying the colors of Tripoli. This, no doubt, was one of the marauders guilty of harassing merchant vessels in the area. There had been little fighting during the
Philadelphia
's three months at sea. Now, William Ray thought, adrenaline coursing through his veins, perhaps that was about to change.

The eighteen cannons along the leeward side were locked into
position as the
Philadelphia
quickly closed the distance to the enemy ship. “Full speed ahead!” ordered the captain.

They were close enough for Ray to now make out the panicked faces aboard the Tripolitan vessel ahead. These pirates knew what was about to happen next: the
Philadelphia
would pull alongside and unleash a fierce volley of cannonballs that would tear into them and likely send their ship to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

A smile formed on William Ray's face as he thought of all the terror these pirates had inflicted on his countrymen. This would be payb—CRACK! His thoughts were interrupted by the piercing sound of splintering wood. The
Philadelphia
lurched to a stop, Ray and the sailors around him spilling forward from the sudden reversal of momentum, some falling over onto the deck and into the ocean below.

Ray looked over the side of the warship and saw a vast reef in the shallow water. They were stuck—dead in the water.

The Tripolitan pirates in their smaller, lighter ship had known the reef was there and had baited the
Philadelphia
right into it.

Ray looked back at the pirates and realized instantly that he'd been wrong: It wasn't panic he had seen on their faces.

It was anticipation.

Tripoli

Two months later: December 25, 1803

After the
Philadelphia
had beached itself on the reef, Tripolitan ships had surrounded it, leaving the captain no option except surrender. Relieved of their uniforms, the sailors and Marines were brought, naked and shivering, into port and jailed. The Pasha of Tripoli renamed the ship
The Gift of Allah
.

William Ray and hundreds of other U.S. sailors and Marines were his prisoners.

Now, almost two months into their captivity, Ray stood with an empty stomach in the bitterly cold ocean, shoveling sand from the seafloor. The Pasha's cruel slave masters seemed to take joy in the prisoners' suffering. Each day, from sunrise through midafternoon, the Americans were kept in the ocean without so much as a morsel of bread. When
men fainted from exhaustion, the guards beat them until they somehow found the strength to rise again.

In the afternoon, the sailors and leathernecks were usually given some water and black bread. As they ate, Ray and the others tried everything possible to get warm, from clapping their hands to running in place. They were then returned to the freezing water to work until sunset. Bed was a stone floor covered in tiny rocks. They slept in the same cold, wet clothes they worked in.

William Ray had not always been a praying man, but on this night his plea was solemn and sincere. “Dear God,” he whispered, “I pray that I might never experience the horrors of another morning.” Ray thought back to that night on the bank of the Delaware River and wished that instead of turning his head toward the sound of the drum, he'd stuck it under the rushing water.

Mediterranean Sea

Off the North African Coast

Aboard the USS
Essex

February 16, 1804

Stephen Decatur paced from starboard to port and back, unable to hide his anxiety. His commodore had asked him to undertake a suicide mission. Always the loyal officer, Decatur hadn't hesitated to accept. When he asked his crew for volunteers, none of them had hesitated, either.

“We are now about to embark on an expedition which may terminate in our sudden deaths, our perpetual slavery, or our immortal glory,” he said to the sixty-seven men gathered on the deck of the USS
Essex
.

At sunset that evening, Decatur and his men—all dressed as Maltese sailors—left their frigate and boarded an aptly named ketch called the
Intrepid
. The
Intrepid
would attract less notice than the
Essex
both because of its smaller size and because, as a ketch that had been previously captured from the enemy, it would not look to the Tripolitans like a threat.

The course was set for the port of Tripoli, only a few miles in the distance. At nine thirty the silhouette of the city's ramparts, dimly lit by
lanterns, appeared on the horizon. A few minutes after that, the three masts of the captured USS
Philadelphia
, now
The Gift of Allah
, came into view. They glided silently forward, knowing that if Tripoli's sentries were alerted they didn't stand a chance.

“Man hua?” a voice cried out. Who goes there?

Decatur didn't speak any Arabic, but his helmsman did. He yelled back that they were Maltese traders seeking port for the night.

“Tayyib.” Very well.

With the wind dying down in port, the sixty-foot ketch coasted on its own momentum toward the docks. Its destination was not, however, any slip.

It was the
Philadelphia
.

Silent, except for the heavy breathing of the crew and the lapping of water against the hull, the ketch maneuvered alongside the great warship.
It's a shame it has come to this
, Decatur thought.

His men grabbed the cannon nozzles of the
Philadelphia
and affixed ropes to the hull.

“Board now,” Decatur whispered. The sailors clambered over the gunnels.

“Amreeki!” Shouts rang out from ship—Americans! Twenty Tripolitan guards on board the
Philadelphia
had seen Decatur's men. They were swiftly silenced with muskets, but the secret was out.

Decatur's men turned the
Philadelphia
's great cannons toward the city, launching volley after volley and making quick work of the clay and brick buildings in port. Then they lit a fuse to the ship's store of gunpowder and jumped back aboard the ketch.

Whether it was called the
Philadelphia
or
The Gift of Allah
, the once-mighty warship, now burning from bow to stern, would soon be of no further use to anyone.

U.S. Capitol

Washington, D.C.

March 26, 1804

The president appeared to be enjoying himself at this most unusual party. Two years ago, supporters had sent Thomas Jefferson
a twelve-hundred-pound block of cheese. Today, starting at noon, Jefferson—with the help of an equally massive loaf of bread and an open invitation to the public—expected to finally finish it off.

Guests at the Capitol ranged from farmers to fishermen, politicians to proletarians, and slaveholders to, according to one senator, their slaves. Some came for the cheese, which had become famous, others came for the alcohol, which was in great supply, but William Eaton was there for something else.

“Mr. President,” said the former consul to Tunis, several hours into the festivities, “if I could just have a moment of your time.”

Jefferson, Eaton knew from watching closely, had already enjoyed a few drinks. Maybe a few too many. But perhaps, he thought, the president's temporary reduction in inhibitions might work to Eaton's advantage. Perhaps he had caught Jefferson at just the right time.

“Of course,” said the self-styled president of the common man. Hearing from his people was, along with the consumption of the large block of cheese, the purpose of today's party. If he was looking down on Eaton, it was only because his excitable guest was six inches shorter.

After a brief introduction, Eaton jumped right into the matter on his mind. “Sir, the capture of the
Philadelphia
is the latest outrage in a war we are losing.” If Jefferson was taken aback by Eaton's abruptness, he didn't show it. He had, after all, read equally blunt appraisals of the war effort.