Pike & Cutlass: Hero Tales of Our Navy

The sun dropped down, a ball of fire, into the western sea, and by eight o’clock the towers of the bashaw’s castle loomed dark against the amber of the moonlit sky. To the left the stately spars of the doomed frigate towered above the rigging in the harbor, and floating at her truck was the hated insignia of the enemy.

The piping northern breeze bellied the crazy sail of the ketch and sent the green seas swashing under the high stern, speeding them good luck on their hazardous venture. Catalano, the pilot, stood at the helm, swinging the clumsy tiller to meet her as she swayed. By his side was a tall figure, a white burnoose about his shoulders and a fez set jauntily on his head – Decatur. Four others, in unspeakable Tripolitan costumes, lounged about the deck or squatted cross-legged. But the delusion went no further. For one of them, Reuben James, was puffing at a stubby black pipe, and another spat vigorously to leeward. The others were below, lying along the sides, sharpening their cutlasses.

On they sped, Catalano heading her straight for the frigate. As the harbor narrowed and the black forts came nearer, they could see the dusky outlines of the sentries and the black muzzles that frowned on them from the battlements. Over towards the east faint glimmers showed where the town was, but the wind had now fallen low, and the lapping of the water along the sides alone awoke the silence. A single light shone from the forecastle of the frigate, where the anchor watch kept its quiet vigil. She swung at a long cable, a proud prisoner amid the score of watchful sentinels that encircled her.

As placid as the scene about him, Decatur turned to the pilot and gave a low order. The helm was shifted and the tiny vessel pointed for the bowsprit of the “Philadelphia.” Nearer and nearer they came, until scarcely a cable’s length separated them. They saw several turbaned heads, and an officer leaned over the rail, puffing lazily at a cigarette. He leisurely took the cigarette from his mouth, and his voice came across the quiet water of the harbor, —

“Where do you come from?” he hailed.

Catalano, the pilot, answered him in the lingua Franca of the East, —

“The ketch ‘Stella,’ from Malta. We lost our anchors and cables in the gale, and would like to lie by during the night.”

The Tripolitan took another puff, and an ominous stir, quickly silenced, was heard down in the hold of the ketch. It seemed an eternity before the answer came, —

“Your request is unusual, but I will grant it,” said the Tripolitan, at last. “What ship is that in the offing?”

The officer had seen the “Siren,” which hovered outside the entrance of the harbor.

“The British ship ‘Transfer,’” said Catalano, promptly.

The ketch was slowly drifting down until a grappling-iron could almost be thrown aboard. Right under the broadside she went, and a line of dark heads peered over the rail at her as she gradually approached the bow.

The chains of the frigate were now almost in the grasp of Reuben James, on the forecastle, when the wind failed and a cat’s-paw caught the ketch aback. Down she drifted towards the terrible broadside. But at a sign from Decatur the eager Lawrence and James got into a small boat and carried a line to a ring-bolt at the frigate’s bow. A boat put out from the “Philadelphia” at the same time. But Lawrence coolly took the hawser from the Tripolitan – “to save the gentleman trouble,” he explained – and brought it aboard the “Intrepid.” A moment more, and the ketch was warping down under the “Philadelphia’s” quarter. It was a moment of dire peril. The slightest suspicion, and they would be blown to pieces.

Decatur leaned lightly against the rail, but his hand grasped his cutlass under his robe so that the blood tingled in his nails and his muscles were drawn and tense. Morris and Joseph Bainbridge stood at the rigging beside him, trembling like greyhounds in leash.

Suddenly they swung around and shot out from under the shadow into a yellow patch of moonlight. The watchful eyes above the rail saw the anchor and cables and the white jackets of the sailors below decks as they strove to hide themselves in the shadows. One glance was enough. In an instant the ship resounded with the thrilling cry, “Americano! Americano!”

At the same moment the “Intrepid” ground up against the side of the frigate. In an instant, as if by magic, she was alive with men. Throwing off his disguise, and with a loud cry of “Boarders, away!” Decatur sprang for the mizzen-chains. And now the hot blood of fighting leaped to their brains. The long agony of suspense was over. Lawrence and Laws sprang for the chain-plates and hauled themselves up. Decatur’s foot slipped, and Morris was the first on deck. Laws dashed at a port, pistols in hand. Nothing could withstand the fury of the charge, and over the rail they swarmed, cutlasses in teeth, jumping over the nettings, and down on the heads of the Tripolitans below. Though Morris was first on deck, Decatur lunged in ahead of him, bringing down the Tripolitan officer before he could draw his sword. One of them aimed a pike at him, but he parried it deftly, and Morris cut the fellow down with a blow that laid his shoulder open from collar to elbow.

Though surprised, the Tripolitans fought fiercely. They had won their title of “the best hand-to-hand fighters in the world” in many a hard pirate battle in the Mediterranean. Around the masts they rallied, scimetars in hand, until they were cut or borne down by the fury of their opponents.

After the first order, not a word was spoken and not a shot was fired. The Americans needed no orders. Over the quarter-deck they swept – irresistible, clearing it in a trice. Overwhelmed by the fierce onslaught, the Tripolitans fled for life, the sailors driving them up on the forecastle and overboard in a mass, where their falling bodies sounded like the splash of a ricochet.

So swift was the work that in ten minutes no Tripolitans were left on the deck of the frigate but the dead. Not a sailor had been killed. One man had been slashed across the forehead, but he grinned through the blood and fought the more fiercely. Then the watchers out on the “Siren” saw a single rocket go high in the air, which was Decatur’s signal that the “Philadelphia” was again an American vessel.

In the meanwhile the combustibles were handed up from the ketch with incredible swiftness, and the work of destruction began. Midshipman Morris and his crew had fought their way below to the cock-pit and had set a fire there. But so swiftly did those above accomplish their work that he and his men barely had time to escape. On reaching the upper deck, Decatur found the flames pouring from the port-holes on both sides and flaring up red and hungry to seize the tar-soaked shrouds. He gave the order to abandon, and over the sides they tumbled as quickly as they had come. Decatur was the last to leave the deck. All the men were over, and the ketch was drifting clear, while around him the flames were pouring, their hot breath overpowering him. But he made a jump for it and landed safely, amid the cheers of his men.

Then the great oars were got out, eight on a side, and pulling them as only American sailor-men could or can, they swept out towards the “Siren.”

The Tripolitans ashore and on the gunboats had hastened to their guns, and now, as the ketch was plainly seen, their batteries belched forth a terrific storm of shot that flew across the water. The men bent their backs splendidly to their work, jeering the while at the enemy as the balls whistled by their heads or sent the foam splashing over them. Out they went across the great crimson glare of the fire. It was magnificent. The flames swept up the shrouds with a roar, catching the woodwork of the tops and eating them as though they were tinder. She was ablaze from water to truck, and all the heavens were alight, – aglow at the splendid sacrifice. Then to the added roar of the batteries ashore came the response from the guns of the flaming ship, which, heated by the fierce flames, began to discharge themselves. But not all of them were fired so, for in a second all eyes were dazzled by a blazing light, and they saw the great hull suddenly burst open, with huge streaks of flame spurting from between the parting timbers. Then came a roar that made the earth and sea shudder. The fire had reached the magazine.

The waves of it came out to the gallant crew, who, pausing in their work, gave one last proof of their contempt of danger. Rising to their feet, they gave three great American cheers that echoed back to the forts while their guns thundered fruitlessly on.

Decatur and his men were safe under the “Siren’s” guns.

Is it any wonder that Congress gave Decatur a sword and made him a captain, or that Lord Nelson called this feat “the most daring act of any age”?

THE BIGGEST LITTLE FIGHT IN NAVAL HISTORY

It should have been renown enough for one man to have performed what Nelson was pleased to call “the most daring act of any age.” But the capture of the “Philadelphia” only whetted Decatur’s appetite for further encounters. He was impetuous, bold even to rashness, and so dashing that to his men he was irresistible. But behind it all – a thing rare in a man of his peculiar calibre – there was the ability to consider judiciously and to plan carefully as well as daringly to execute. His fierce temper led him into many difficulties, but there was no cruelty behind it; and the men who served with him, while they feared him, would have followed him into the jaws of death, for they loved him as they loved no other officer in the American service. Once while the frigate “Essex,” Captain Bainbridge, lay in the harbor at Barcelona, the officers of the American vessel suffered many petty indignities at the instance of the officers of the Spanish guardship. Having himself been subjected to a slight from the Spanish commander, Lieutenant Decatur took the bull by the horns. He bade his coxswain pull to the gangway of the Spaniard, and he went boldly aboard. His lips were set, for he had resolved upon his own responsibility to make an immediate precedent which would serve for all time. The Spanish commander, most fortunately, was absent. But Decatur none the less strode aft past the sentry to the gangway and, lifting his great voice so that it resounded from truck to keelson, he shouted, —

“Tell your comandante that Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, of the ‘Essex,’ declares him to be a scoundrelly coward, and if Lieutenant Decatur meets him ashore he will cut his ears off.”

So among the men of the squadron Decatur came to be known as a man who brooked nothing and dared everything.

But when the crusty Preble took command in the Mediterranean he was not over-impressed with the under-officers of his command. Not one of the lieutenants was over twenty-four and none of those higher in authority had turned thirty. Decatur and Somers were twenty-five; Charles Stewart was only twenty-six, and Bainbridge the younger; Morris and Macdonough were barely out of their teens.

It was not the custom of the commander-in-chief to mince his words. So sparing himself the delicacy of secluding himself behind the saving bulkheads of the after-cabin he swore right roundly at his home government for sending him what he was pleased to call “a parcel of d – school-boys.” He was a martinet of the old style, and believed in the school of the fo’c’s’le, and not in young gentlemen whose friends at home sent them in by the ports of the after-cabin. He held the youngsters aloof, and not until he had tried them in every conceivable fashion would he consider them in his councils. A year had passed, and Decatur, Morris, Bainbridge, Macdonough, and Somers had helped to add glorious pages to naval history, before the old man, with a smile to Colonel Lear, the consul, consented to say, —

“Well, after all, colonel, they are very good school-boys!”

Although Decatur’s success in the destruction of the “Philadelphia” had removed a dangerous auxiliary battery from the harbor of Tripoli, the bashaw was far from overawed, and, with the officers and crew of the “Philadelphia” as hostages, declined to consider any terms offered by the Americans; and so it was resolved by Commodore Preble to make an attempt upon the Tripolitan batteries and fleet. The Americans had the “Constitution,” – “Old Ironsides,” – Commodore Preble, and six brigs and schooners mounting twelve and sixteen guns each. Preble had also succeeded in borrowing from “the most gracious king of the Sicilies,” who was then at war with the bashaw, two bomb-vessels and six single gunboats, – quite a formidable little force of a hundred and thirty-four guns and about a thousand men.

It was not until the morning of the 3d of August, 1804, that the weather, which had been very stormy, moderated sufficiently to allow the squadron to approach the African coast. The gunboats were unwieldy craft, flat-bottomed, and, as the sea made clean breeches over them, they were a dozen times in danger of sinking. But by ten o’clock the sky to the southward had lightened, and the heavy storm-clouds were blowing away overhead to the westward. “Old Ironsides” shook the reefs out of her topsails and, spreading her top-gallant-sails, she beat up for the entrance of the harbor of Tripoli with two of the gunboats in tow. Her tall spars, seeming almost to pierce the low-rolling clouds, towered far above the little sticks of the “Siren” and “Nautilus,” which bore down directly in her wake. The sea had lashed out its fury, and, before the little fleet had reached the reef, the gray had turned to green, and here and there a line of amber showed where the mid-day sun was stealing through.

Stephen Decatur, on gunboat No. 4, had been given command of the left division of three gunboats. Casting off the tow-lines from his larger consorts, he got under weigh, and bore down for a rift between the reefs at the eastern entrance to the harbor, where the Tripolitan fleet, cleared for action, lay awaiting him. The wind was on his bow, and he was obliged to hold a course close to the wind in order to weather the point.

The gunboat lumbered uncertainly in the cross-sea, for she had no longer the steady drag of the “Constitution’s” hawser to steady her. The seas came up under her flat bottom, and seemed to toss rather than swing her into the hollows. She was at best an unsteady gun-platform, and nice sail-trimming was an impossibility. But they got out their sweeps, and that steadied her somewhat. Great volumes of spray flew over the weather-bow as she soused her blunt nose into it, and the fair breeze sent it shimmering down to leeward.

Decatur stood aft by the helmsman, watching the quivering leeches, and keeping her well up into the wind. Beside him stood his midshipmen, Thomas Macdonough – afterwards to win a great victory of his own – and Joseph Thorn. Both of them had smelt powder before, and Macdonough had been one of the first on the deck of the ill-fated “Philadelphia.” This was to be a different sort of a fight from any they had seen. It was to be man to man, where good play of cutlass and pike and youth and American grit might mean victory. Defeat meant annihilation. But youth is good at a game of life and death, and as they looked at Decatur there was never a moment’s fear of the result. They leaned against the rail to leeward, looking past the foam boiling on the point to the spars of the African gunboats, and their eyes were alight with eagerness for battle.

The men were bending steadily to their sweeps. Most of them were stripped to the waist, and Decatur looked along the line of sinewy arms and chests with a glow of pride and confidence. There was no wavering anywhere in the row of glistening faces. But they all knew the kind of pirates they were going to meet, – reckless, treacherous devils, who loved blood as they loved Allah, – the best hand-to-hand fighters in the Mediterranean.

The ring of the cutlasses, loose-settled in their hangers, against the butts of the boarding-pistols was clear above the sound of the row-locks and the rush of the waters, while forward the catch of a song went up, and they bent to their work the more merrily.

As they came under the lee of the Tripolitan shore and the sea went down, Decatur ordered the long iron six-pounder cast loose. They had provided solid shot for long range at the batteries, and these were now brought up and put conveniently on the fo’c’s’le. But for the attack upon the vessels of the fleet they loaded first with a bag of a thousand musket-balls. At point-blank range Decatur judged that this would do tremendous execution among the close-ranked mass of Tripolitans on the foreign vessels. His idea was not to respond to the fire of the enemy, which would soon begin, until close aboard, and then to go over the rail before they could recover from their confusion. He felt that if they did not make a wreck of him and batter up his sweeps he could get alongside. And once alongside, he knew that his men would give a good account of themselves.

But as they came up towards the point the wind shifted, and the head of the gunboat payed off. Even with their work at the sweeps, he now knew that it would be no easy matter for all the Americans to weather the point, for two of them were well down to leeward. But his brother, James Decatur, in gunboat No. 2, and Sailing-Master John Trippe, in gunboat No. 6, had kept well up to windward, and so he felt that he should be able to count on at least these two. As they reached the line of breakers, one of the gunboats to leeward, under Richard Somers, was obliged to go about, and in a moment the two others followed. Then the young commanders of the windward gunboats knew that if the attack was to be made they alone would have the glory of the first onslaught.

What Decatur feared most was that Preble, on the “Constitution,” would see how terribly they were overmatched and signal the recall. But as they reached the point, Decatur resolutely turned his back to the flagship, and, putting his helm up, set her nose boldly into the swash of the entrance and headed for the gray line of vessels, three times his number, which hauled up their anchors and came down, gallantly enough, to meet him.

There was very little sound upon the gunboat now. The wind being favorable, the Americans shipped their sweeps, and sat watching the largest of the Tripolitan vessels, which was bearing down upon them rapidly. They saw a puff of white smoke from her fo’c’s’le, and heard the whistle of a shot, which, passing wide, ricochetted just abeam and buried itself beyond. Thorn stood forward, waiting for the order to fire his long gun. But Decatur gave no sign. He stood watching the lift of the foresail, carefully noting the distance between the two vessels. Trippe and James Decatur had each picked out an adversary, and were bearing down as silently as he, in spite of the cannonade which now came from both the vessels and batteries of the Turks. The shots were splashing all around him, but nothing had been carried away, and the American jackies jeered cheerfully at the wretched marksmanship. As the Tripolitans came nearer, the Americans could see the black mass of men along the rails and catch the glimmer of the yataghans. Then Decatur ordered his own men to seize their pikes and draw their pistols and cutlasses.

At the word from Decatur, Thorn began training the fo’c’s’le gun, which in the steadier sea would have a deadly effect. The distance was a matter of yards now, and a shot came ploughing alongside that threw spray all along the rail and nearly doused the match of the gunner of the fo’c’s’le. But not until he could see the whites of the eyes of his adversaries did Decatur give the order to fire. As the big gun was discharged point-blank into the thick of the crowded figures, Decatur shifted his helm quickly and lay aboard the Tripolitan. So tremendous had been the execution of the musket-balls, and so quickly had the manœuvre been executed, that almost before the Tripolitans were aware of it the Americans were upon them. The few shots from the Turkish small arms had gone wild, but a fierce struggle ensued before the Americans reached the deck. At last Decatur, followed by Thorn, Macdonough, and twenty-two seamen, gained the fo’c’s’le in a body, and the Tripolitans retreated aft.

The Tripolitan boat was divided amidships by an open hatchway, and for a moment the opposing forces stopped to catch their breath, glaring at one another across the opening. Decatur did not pause long. Giving them a volley of pistol-bullets at close range, he dashed furiously down one gangway, while Macdonough and Thorn went down the other, and, with a cheer, cut down the remaining Turks or drove them overboard. A half-dozen went down a forward hatch, and these were made prisoners.

It was a short fight, with an inconsiderable loss to Decatur, but the Tripolitan dead were strewn all over the decks, and the Turkish captain was pierced by fourteen bullets. The Tripolitan flag was hauled down, and, taking his prize in tow, Decatur put his men at the sweeps again, to move farther out of the reach of the batteries.

By this time James Decatur and John Trippe had got into the thick of it. Following Stephen Decatur’s example, they dashed boldly at the larger of the bashaw’s vessels, and, reserving their fire for close range, they lay two of them aboard. John Trippe, Midshipman Henley, and nine seamen had gained the deck of their adversary, when the vessels drifted apart, and they were left alone on the deck of the enemy. But Trippe was the man for the emergency. So rapidly did they charge the Turks that their very audacity gave them the advantage, and Trippe finally succeeded in killing the Tripolitan commander by running him through with a boarding-pike. They fought with the energy of despair, and, although wounded and bleeding from a dozen sabre-cuts, struggled on until their gunboat got alongside and they were rescued by their comrades.

But the story of the treachery of the Turkish captain and Stephen Decatur’s revenge for the death of his brother makes even the wonderful defensive battle of Trippe seem small by comparison.

James Decatur, having got well up with one of the largest of the Tripolitan vessels, delivered so quick and telling a fire with his long gun and musketry that the enemy immediately struck his colors. He hauled alongside and clambered up and over the side of the gunboat to take possession of her personally. As his head came up above the rail his men saw the Turkish commander rush forward and aim his boarding-pistol at the defenceless American. The bullet struck him fairly in the forehead, and Decatur, with barely a sound, sank back into his boat.

In their horror at the treachery of the Tripolitan, the Americans allowed the boat to sheer off, and the Turk, getting out his sweeps, was soon speeding away toward the protection of the batteries.

Stephen Decatur, towing his prize to safety, had noted the gallant attack, and had seen the striking of the Turkish colors. But not until an American boat darted alongside of him did he hear the news of the treacherous manner of his brother’s death. The shock of the information for the moment appalled him, but in the place of his grief there arose so fierce a rage at the dastardly act that for a moment he was stricken dumb and senseless. His men sprang quickly when at last he thundered out his orders. Deftly casting off the tow-line of the prize, they hoisted all sail and jumped to their sweeps as though their lives depended on it. Macdonough’s gun-crew were loading with solid shot this time, and, as soon as they got the range, a ball went screaming down towards the fleeing Tripolitan. The men at the sweeps needed little encouragement. They had heard the news, and they loved James Decatur as they worshipped his brother, who stood aft, his lips compressed, anxiously watching the chase. The water boiled under the oar-blades as the clumsy hulk seemed to spring from one wave-crest to another. Again the long gun spoke, and the canister struck the water all about the Turkish vessel. The Tripolitans seemed disorganized, for their oars no longer moved together and the blades were splashing wildly. Another solid shot went flying, and Decatur smiled as he saw the spray fly up under the enemy’s counter. There would be no mercy for the Tripolitans that day. Nearer and nearer they came, until the Turks, seeing that further attempts at flight were useless, dropped their sweeps and prepared to receive the Americans. They shifted their helm so that their gun could bear, and the shot that followed tore a great rent in Decatur’s foresail. But the Americans heeded it little more than if it had been a puff of wind, and pausing only to deliver another deadly discharge of the musket-balls at point-blank range, Decatur swung in alongside under cover of the smoke.