Yusef and the Yanks

Why We Can Thank the Barbary Corsairs for the U.S. Navy.

by Sandy Robb Gyll (Steve Argyle)
Published in the March 2004 issue of No Quarter Given

In the spring of 1794, the fledgling government of the United States was in a pickle. Isolationist sentiments and cost cutting furor immediately following the Revolutionary War a decade earlier had disarmed the new nation in naval terms. Believing America no longer needed a navy, the Confederation sold off every combat-capable ship in the Continental fleet. Faced with a crisis ten years later, congressional pundits were rethinking the wisdom of that action. (Some things never change.)

Too busy with their own quarrels to take any punitive action against the Barbary corsairs, the European powers had been in the habit of paying tribute to the North African princes (known variously as Sultans, Beys, Deys, Pachas, Pashas, or Bashaws) to ensure the safe passage of their merchant shipping through the Mediterranean. After the American Revolution, the North Africans shrewdly concluded that American ships were no longer covered under the British tribute umbrella. The first two American ships to suffer were taken in 1785 by Algerian corsairs and held for a ransom of nearly $60,000.

Negotiations for the release of the American seamen dragged on for ten years. Meanwhile, the Algerians had taken 11 more American ships and the other Barbary States (Tripoli, Tunisia, and Morocco) also wanted a piece of the action. Facing increasing pressure from merchants and the families of the captive Americans, Congress passed the Naval Act in March of 1794. This bill created the Department of the Navy and gave the President the power to build and man warships. As always, there was some political baggage attached. To appease the isolationists and pinchpennies, the Naval Act had a clause stating the whole idea of a navy could be scuttled upon “pacification of Algerine pirates”.

Acting swiftly, the Secretary of War commissioned Joshua Humphreys to design and construct the first purpose-built warships in the United States Navy. The beautiful frigates that resulted have become legendary. Maritime enthusiasts are all familiar with the USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS United States, and USS Essex. The lesser known USS Philadelphia and USS President rounded out the order for the first six ships.

It was a good thing Humphreys moved rapidly. In 1796 a treaty was concluded with Algiers that imposed a crippling tribute on the United States and threatened the existence of the infant navy before it launched any ships. At least construction was well under way on the six frigates and could not be undone by the politicians who wanted to kill the effort.

Then in 1800 the Bashaw of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, decided that the tribute due him should be raised from $100,000 a year to $225,000. When the Jefferson Administration refused, Tripoli declared war on the United States. The United States obliged the Bashaw. Captained mostly by a brash pack of young officers under a series of stern commodores, three of the new frigates, along with a few smaller vessels, carried the flag to the Mediterranean.

The first real action of the war came on 1 August 1801. The American squadron had blockaded Tripoli harbor for some weeks but had to break off and sail to Malta to replenish the water butts. Enroute, Lt. Andrew Sterrett in Enterprise, a 12-gun schooner, pursued and attacked the 14-gun Tripoli. Sterrett delivered a devastating broadside and a sharp fusillade of musketry that completely overwhelmed the corsairs on board Tripoli. He captured the ship with no casualties of his own but, because the formal declaration of war had not yet arrived from Washington, he had to content himself with tossing the enemy cannon overboard and letting the survivors skip back to Tripoli licking their wounds.

Returning to a half-hearted blockade duty, the Americans spent a boring and ineffectual year. More interested in the prestige than the business of command, Commodore Richard Morris, accompanied by his wife, cruised round the Mediterranean “showing the flag” (i.e., paying social calls) at major European ports. He claimed to be working on a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

Morris was recalled and dismissed from naval service in disgrace in early 1803. His replacement was peppery Commodore Edward Preble, who knew how to get things done. Unfortunately, Preble’s arrival in the Mediterranean was greeted by disaster.

Tripoli Harbor was not an easy nut to crack. The harbor itself was covered by the guns in the Bashaw’s castle-like fortress. The approaches to the harbor were studded with shoals, only about half of which were noted on the American’s charts. There were only a couple of channels into the harbor that could be used by the deep-drafted American frigates.

On 31 October 1803, William Bainbridge, commanding Philadelphia, spotted a Tripolitan blockade runner coming in from the east hugging the shore. Bainbridge pursued, swinging in parallel to the coast. Perhaps he hoped to follow the Tripolitan through an uncharted channel into the harbor. The runner slipped in under the fortress’ guns before Bainbridge could catch her, so the American veered away north to break off. Unbeknownst to Bainbridge, the Philadelphia had already made it inside the shoals. As she turned and made for open water, she ran suddenly and thoroughly aground on the enemy side of the barrier.

By the time Preble arrived on station off Tripoli, the corsairs had swarmed the Philadelphia in small boats and captured Bainbridge and his crew. They had even succeeded in floating Philadelphia and towing her in under the shore batteries. Yusuf had more hostages to hold for ransom and a fine new frigate for his corsair navy. Things looked grim for the Yanks.

Preble tightened the blockade while negotiating fruitlessly for the release of Bainbridge and his crew. The American squadron succeeding in picking off a few more vessels trying to get in or out of Tripoli. One such prize was the ketch Mastico, captured by Lt. Stephen Decatur, now commanding Enterprise. Mastico was renamed and pressed into service as the USS Intrepid.

Concern over leaving the Philadelphia in Tripolitan hands resulted in a desperate plan and a daring mission. On 16 February 1804, Lt. Decatur and a picked crew of volunteers sailed the Intrepid into the harbor under cover of darkness. Only Decatur, a Sicilian pilot, and a couple of hands were on deck and all were disguised at North Africans. The remainder of the Yankee seamen were concealed below. The Americans slid quietly up to Philadelphia’s side and boarded her. Surprise was complete. Decatur routed the Tripolitan crew, killing 20 and tossing the rest over the side.

Unable to take her out through the shoals in darkness, Decatur and his band torched the unfortunate frigate. They barely made their escape in Intrepid as the flames rising from Philadelphia’s pyre lit the harbor and the furious corsairs shrieking on the waterfront. Lord Nelson, himself involved in a tedious blockade of Napoleon’s fleet in Toulon, called Decatur’s exploit “…the most bold and daring act of the age.”

Yet the stalemate continued. Preble couldn’t get his frigates through the shoals to properly bombard the fortress and the Tripolitans couldn’t get goods through the blockade. Negotiations were going nowhere.

Later that summer, Preble had managed to beg, borrow, and steal a number of smaller boats and barges that could go in over the shoals. He equipped them as gunboats and sent them in at the beginning of August, 1804. One hundred and fifty six cannons and mortars began the bombardment of Tripoli. Soon an answering flotilla of Tripolitan gunboats pulled away from the quay. Fierce close-quarters combat ensued as the little fleets came together. Before long, the fighting had closed to knife range.

Stephen Decatur, promoted as the Navy’s youngest captain for his Intrepid adventure, led a squadron of Yankee gunboats, and his younger brother commanded one of the boats. A huge corsair commanding one of the Tripolitan boats led his men onto the younger Decatur’s boat and killed the Yank. Captain Stephen rammed the Tripolitan and sprang to avenge his brother. Although wounded, Decatur wrestled the corsair captain to the deck. There he pressed a pistol to the North African’s side and killed him as one of the American seamen jumped in to take a cutlass stroke aimed at his captain.

Although the Americans captured several Tripolitan gunboats and came out the victors of the skirmish in the middle of the harbor, the bombardment was ineffectual. The Tripolitans still had enough gunboats to interfere with the operations, and the stone walls of the fortress were proving exasperatingly tough. In the face of the frustrations, Decatur proposed another bold scheme.

On the foggy night of 3 September 1804, the gallant ketch Intrepid stole once more into Tripoli harbor. Captain Decatur was not aboard this time. Instead, a small crew was steering an armed bomb toward the ranks of the corsair gunboats. The Intrepid had been rigged as a fireship.

She never made it to her destination. Blockading seamen and shorebound corsairs alike were startled by the sound of a tremendous explosion in the mist. No one knows exactly what happened, but Intrepid was lost with all hands without doing any damage to the enemy.

Shortly after the Intrepid was lost, Commodore Samuel Barron arrived on station to relieve Commodore Preble. Barron and William Eaton (the U.S. consul at Tunis) had a plan to bring the crisis to a conclusion. They had learned that Yusuf Karamanli had usurped the throne of Tripoli from his older brother Hamet some years earlier. They had located the elder Karamanli in Alexandria and engaged with him in a plot to overthrow Yusuf.

While Barron continued the blockade of Tripoli, Eaton and a contingent of U.S. Marines landed on the North African shore and joined Hamet Karamanli’s force marching west from Alexandria. (You know that line in the Marine’s Hymn about “the shores of Tripoli”? This is where it comes from.) On 16 April 1805 the expeditionary force took Derna, a fortress town on Tripoli’s eastern border. With big brother closing in and his economy feeling the pinch from the blockade, Yusuf decided to take the negotiations seriously. Peace was concluded and the American captives released before Hamet Karamanli was able to consolidate his hold on Derna and advance.

Like most true historical stories, this one does not have a neat ending. Eaton was left with the unsavory task of explaining to Hamet why the United States was no longer interested in backing his bid to reclaim the throne.* The United States and European nations continued to pay tribute to the Barbary States for several more years. Although Bainbridge and his crew suffered few ill effects from their captivity, other Americans captured in earlier years from merchant vessels had suffered horribly in prison or in slavery. Over half did not survive.

On the other hand, the group of young officers, known to history as “Preble’s Boys”, who received their baptism of fire in the Mediterranean went on to become the naval heroes of the War of 1812. As a footnote, Stephen Decatur returned to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1815 to put the fear of God into the Algerians, who were beginning to play fast and loose with the terms of the tribute. Within a week of arriving at Gibraltar, Decatur had captured two Algerian vessels, one of which was the Algerian flagship Mashuda. When he sailed into the harbor at Algiers, the Dey promptly made concessions and promised to behave.

A year later a combined Anglo-Dutch fleet, freed at last from years of European conflict, bombarded Algiers into submission and put the final period to three and a half centuries of corsair activity.

*Note of Interest: The treaty with Hamet Karamanli included a secret clause stipulating that Yusuf Karamanli and his family were to be held by the United States as hostages for Hamet’s future good behavior. I wonder how that would have worked out? You just never can tell with diplomats and politicians.

Bibliography

Gruppe, Henry B. 1979. The Frigates, The Seafarers Series. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books

Love, Robert W. Jr. 1992. History of the US Navy, Volume One. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books

Symonds, Craig L. 1995. Historical Atlas of the US Navy. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press,

Naval Documents Related to The United States Wars with the Barbary Powers: Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background from 1785 through 1807 United States Office of Naval Records and Library Government Printing Office Washington DC 1939-44

[Steve writes, "My first effort for No Quarter Given was in response to a call Jamaica Rose Barton put out for articles on the Barbary pirates. This one got me a free year’s subscription to the pirate newsletter."]