A TYPICAL DAY IN THE BARBARY WARS

Official Navy records show that March 18^th, 1804, was a typical day for the vessels blockading the Barbary state of Tripoli.  This power had been holding American merchant crewmen and cargoes for ransom.  The problem had been simmering for a decade, since our independence from England had removed American ships from the protection of the Royal Navy–a force the States of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis respected.  Earlier treaties under which our government paid indemnities in exchange for the free passage of our ships, had been abrogated, not surprisingly, by the profit-hungry North Africans.

The business of this day might be usual in any Navy and included Midshipman Henry Wadsworth aboard USS CONSTITUTION, 44, posting a letter to his cousin in the States, Nancy Doane.  In it he expressed that months of Mediterranean duty had engendered in him a dislike for the Bashaw of Tripoli, whose actions were the reason for this deployment.  His fervent hope was for peace, perhaps to be achieved without having to bombard Tripoli!  He praised USS ARGUS, 16, and the fine maneuvering of his shipmates in her crew, which had been noticed by Royal Navy sailors.  He had recovered from an illness that complicated his participating in the harrowing adventure of a month earlier, in which LT Stephen Decatur had burned the captured American frigate PHILADELPHIA, 36, in Tripoli harbor.  He concluded with a plea for a letter from her, via any ship bound for Europe.

CONSTITUTION then lay at Syracuse, Sicily, where skipper CAPT Edward Preble was occupied with the problem of obtaining gunboats for the blockade.  His entreaties to the US Consul in Messina related his suspicions that to accomplish that task, a personal visit to Naples would be necessary.  He was heartened with a letter from LT Charles Stewart, then commanding USS SYREN, 16, relating the capture the day before of the Tripolitan brig Transfer.  A survey of her hull, rigging, cables, anchors, sails, boats, and cargo of military stores had proven her to be a legitimate prize.

Elsewhere, US Consul James Simpson in Tangier received a letter from Mulai Suleiman, Emperor of Morocco, with whom a treaty of amity had been ratified five months earlier.  The letter thanked the United States for gun carriages received by the Emperor as partial fulfillment of the treaty obligations, describing the gift as, “fresh proof of your diligence and of the friendship of your Nation towards us, which we will at all times bear in mind.”  The Emperor concluded with thanks to the “only God,” on “this 28^th day if Dulkaada the Blessed, 1218,” (corresponding to 18 March 1804 on the American calendar).

Apparently little has changed in two centuries of Navy life!

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  24 MAR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965, p. 26.

“Letter to CAPT Edward Preble, U.S. Navy, from LT Charles Stewart, U.S. Navy.”  IN: Naval Documents Related to the United States War with the Barbary Powers, Vol III, Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background from September 1803 through March 1804.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1941, p. 495-96.

“Letter to James Simpson, U.S. Consul, Tangier, Morocco, from the Emperor of Morocco.”  Op. cit., p. 498.

“Letter to Nancy Doane from Midshipman Henry Wadsworth, dtd. 17 March, 1804.”  Op. cit., p. 495.

“Letter to Secretary of the Navy from CAPT Edward Preble, U.S. Navy.”  Op. cit., p. 496-97.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Transfer had formerly operated as a French and British privateer and carried 10 guns at the time of her capture.  She was taken into the US Navy and placed in service under the name USS SCOURGE, 16.

          ARGUS had been dispatched on a solo mission to Gibraltar to keep an eye on another Barbary State, Morocco, and her conduct thereon had earned the praise of British in Gibraltar.  Though at various times Sicily had been an independent kingdom, at this time Sicily was under the rule of King Ferdinand IV and Queen Maria Carolina, the regents of the Kingdom of Naples.  Bombardment of Tripoli (for the third time) did ultimately become necessary in August 1804, in yet another effort to compel the release of ransomed sailors.

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                                            BOMBSHIP INTREPID

One of the first missions assigned to our fledgling Navy around the turn of the 19^th century was the protection of US merchant shipping from the piracy of the southern Mediterranean Barbary States of Tripoli, Algeria, and Morocco.  In October of 1803, CAPT William Bainbridge in the frigate USS PHILADELPHIA, 36, ran aground while chasing a corsair near Tripoli.  His ship and crew were captured; the Tripolitans anchored the frigate in that city’s harbor, under the guns of the fort.

When CDORE Edward Preble, in command of President Jefferson’s Mediterranean Squadron, learned of PHILADELPHIA’s capture he set out for Tripoli with the rest of his Squadron.  On the way, Preble encountered the Tripolitan ketch Mastico, one of the vessels that had participated in the capture of PHILADELPHIA.  Preble seized the ketch and on 23 December 1803, assumed her into the US Navy under the new name INTREPID.  Her Mediterranean rigging allowed INTREPID to blend unnoticed with the local sea traffic, a virtue that was to prove invaluable to Preble.  Unable to negotiate the release of the frigate, Preble sent LT Stephen Decatur on a daring raid to destroy her.  On the evening of 16 February 1804 Decatur dressed his crew in Arab garb and used INTREPID to slip into the harbor unobserved.  Here his crew massed upon PHILADELPHIA and set her ablaze.  She burned to the waterline.

Throughout the Summer of 1804 Preble made other efforts to force the release of Bainbridge, including several naval bombardments of Tripoli.  The Pasha, however, proved unrelenting, and with the approaching end of the good weather season, Preble approved one more daring plan.  INTREPID was packed to the gunwales with five tons of gunpowder, converting her to a floating bomb.  She would once again slip into the harbor after nightfall, where her crew would light the fuses and escape.  Her detonation would potentially breach the seaside wall of the Pasha’s fortification.  Ten volunteers led by Master Commandant Richard Somers, LT Henry Wadsworth and Midshipman Joseph Israel quietly sailed INTREPID toward the harbor on the evening of September 3^rd.

We will never know for certain what happened, but something went seriously amiss.  Before she had gained the inner harbor, INTREPID ignited prematurely in a fantastic blast.  All her hands were lost.  Her demise may have been accidental, or historians have suggested the crew may have intentionally detonated the ship when her capture seemed evident, an obvious act of selfless sacrifice.  The gallant memory of this brave ship and her 13 sailors has been perpetuated with the naming of five US Navy warships, most recently the planned Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, DDG-145

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 SEP 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Beach, Edward L.  The United States Navy:  200 Years.  New York, NY: Henry Holt Co., 1986, p. 47-48.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 548.

Maclay, Edgar Stanton.  A History of the United States Navy:  From 1775-1893, Vol I.  New York, NY: D. Appleton and Co., 1893, pp. 286-93.

Miller, Nathan.  The U.S. Navy:  An Illustrated History.  Annapolis, MD: American Heritage and USNI Press, 1977, p. 60.

Potter, E.B. and Chester W. Nimitz.  Sea Power:  A Naval History.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1960, pp. 202-03.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, pp. 22-23.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Somers was the author of the bombship scheme.  A Decatur protégé, at the time Somers was commanding the schooner NAUTILUS, 12.  His conduct earlier in the Tripolitan campaign earned him the promotion from Lieutenant to Master Commandant in May of 1804.  The heroism of the 13 men lost with INTREPID has been a continuing source of honor within the US Navy.  A total of six Navy warships have borne the name SOMERS, most recently the Hull-class destroyer DD-947, who saw significant action in the Vietnam War.

About this same time, Henry Wadsworth’s sister, Zilpah, married Stephen Longfellow of what is now Portland, Maine.  Their second child of eight, born in 1807, was named for his uncle—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Ironically the INTREPID ploy backfired.  Nothing in the harbor of consequence was damaged, and loss of the ketch weakened Preble’s blockading fleet.  No less damaging, the failed attempt caused Preble to lose “face” with the Pasha, who hardened his position and upped the ransom demand for Bainbridge’s release.

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