The bombardment caused little damage, but Preble was pleased by the behavior of his crews who had taken on the pirates at their own game. The corsairs were supposed to be invincible at hand-to-hand fighting, but never again would they attempt this, their favorite method of attacking and boarding on an American ship. The "fat ducks" had turned into fierce seahawks. American sailors led by men like Lieutenant John Trippe, outnumbered three to one, killed twenty-one of the pirates and captured fifteen in one engagement alone. Trippe himself took eleven wounds from a Turkish captain before ending the combat with a pike thrust. Three Tripolitan gunboats were captured, and one sunk (Castor, 1971).
Only one American was lost; Decatur's younger brother, James, had been treacherously murdered by the captain of a pirate ship after its surrender. Stephen Decatur avenged his brother by killing the murderer in a savage man-to-man encounter before witnesses (Castor, 1971).
Preble returned five times to harass and bombard Tripoli, but without troops to affect a landing, they were basically ineffectual. His tour of duty over, Preble returned home in modest triumph, to be commended by the President, to receive a gold medal from Congress, and to die of tuberculosis a year later. Pope Pius VII said that under Preble's orders Americans "had done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christendom have done for ages" (Castor, 1971).
Preble's successor, Captain Samuel Barron, led the largest flotilla assembled under the American flag up to that time: six frigates, seven brigs, and ten gunboats. Barron had another weapon on his flagship, William Eaton, former Consul of Tunis (Irwin, 1970).
Eaton knew that Tripoli could be taken if ground troops were committed or if the political climate of the city could be altered. Eaton planned to do both. His scheme called for fomenting rebellion to supplant Yusuf with his brother Hamet (Channing, 1968).
To achieve his design Eaton had at his disposal $20,000 in cash, the little brig Argus, and a cadre of nine men. One of the latter was a midshipmen-man by the name of Pascal Paoli Peck, and the other eight were United States Marines led by Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon. This handful of men would share in an incredible adventure little recalled today except in the Marine Corps Hymn (Pike, 2001).
Eaton and the puppet Hamet met at Alexandria, Egypt and agreed to attack Yusuf's port of Derna. In that city Hamet had some support. To avoid an exhausting 500-mile march Eaton wanted to transport the American force by sea, but Hamet insisted that his flighty followers might disappear if the Americans did not march with him.
By promising riches and plunder after victory, "General" Eaton, as Hamet dubbed him, recruited probably the strangest army to march under the stars and stripes. The men were mostly Arabs and Levantine brigands, with some Greeks and other European soldiers of fortune. There were about six hundred in all (Bobby-Evans, 2001).
The expedition would be supplied by sea, and the Argus would pace the marchers just offshore. The Argus' cannon would provide Eaton with minimal naval support, and her eight marines were added to the rabble army.
The motley force moved out of Alexandria on March 8, 1805, along a route now made famous during World War II. Two of Eaton's rest stops were at Tobruk and El Alamein. Eaton's army, like those of the future would suffer from the sandstorms of the khamsin wind, which brings darkness at midday (Castor, 1971).
On the march Eaton's Arab cavalry threatened to mutiny. Eaton outfaced the horde with a show of bayonets from his squad of eight marines. Eventually Eaton's $20,000 was drained, and at times, he had to borrow money from his marines and Greek mercenaries to keep the expedition going (Irwin, 1970).
The Argus lost contact with the march about 90 miles from Derna, just as the land forces' food gave out. Some of the mercenaries vowed to quit, but Eaton coaxed them to eat a pack camel and wait a day or so. Fortunately the Argus reappeared on April 16, followed by the Hornet, with food and munitions. After a few days rest, Eaton resumed his advance, and arrived outside of Derna on April 25 (Irwin, 1970).
To Eaton's demand for surrender, the captain of Derna's defenses replied, "My head or yours!" After two days of maneuvering, Eaton's lone cannon opened on Derna's stonewalls and houses. The noise was impressive, dust flew, and in their excitement the Greek artillerymen burst the cannon by firing it with the rammer still in the tube (Castor, 1971).
At four in the afternoon, Eaton ordered a frontal attack, and with his tiny force of eight marines and fifty Greeks charged the walls. The town was won but at a high cost of fourteen dead, two of them marines. Eaton took a musket ball through the wrist in the assault, which captured the first city in the Old World by Americans (Bobby-Evans, 2001).
The victors were besieged in Derna throughout the month of May, but Hamet's cavalry repulsed the attacks. Eaton begged Commodore Barron to proclaim Hamet the new ruler of Tripoli, and to reinforce his troops for the 700-mile march on the Pasha's capital. Barron refused both requests because Yusuf had reopened negotiations with the American consul for the release of the Philadelphia's crew (Bobby-Evans, 2001).
An agreement was reached. Eaton and Hamet fled from the shores of Tripoli with the marines and Christian mercenaries to escape certain death at the hands of their angry followers, for whom peace would end all prospects of loot. What the fearless Eaton might have accomplished with the one hundred or more marines who were idle aboard Barron's squadron is tantalizing to imagine (Bobby-Evans, 2001).
The negotiated treaty with Yusuf called for the release of all prisoners, an end to slave taking and ship seizure, and a final ransom of $60,000. Yusuf was more than eager to sign. American naval presence had destroyed his normal source of revenue, and he had been alarmed at the success of Eaton's ragtag army (Irwin, 1970).
The Dey of Tunis, seeing what had happened to Tripoli, sent a blooded horse to Jefferson as a sign of peace and the end of tribute. Jefferson, a horseman, refused the gift. The Americans now thought that the Mediterranean was safe for United States' shipping, and brought Barron's squadron home (Castor, 1971).
However, in the fall of 1807, Algiers detained three vessels. Freedom was bought for the ships and crew for a mere $18,000 but it signaled the resumption of two bad habits, pirate terrorism and tribute. The renewal of these would last for many years and cause the American navy to once again sail against Barbary.
The war with England during 1812-14 pushed the Barbary pirates into the back of American concerns. In any event, retaliation against the corsairs would have been impossible, for after 1812 the American navy was swept from the seas by the British.
As soon as the American navy was no longer a threat, the Dey of Algiers announced a "policy to increase the number of my American slaves," whereupon he captured the brig Edwin and its crew in August 1812. This situation lasted until the end of the war with England (Irwin, 1970).
On March 2, 1815, ten weeks after the end of the War of 1812, the United States formally declared hostilities against Algiers. Retribution, long delayed but richly deserved, was dispatched in the form of ten tall ships under the command of the scourge of Barbary, Stephen Decatur (Pike, 2001).
The punitive expedition arrived off Algiers in June. Decatur promptly shot up the flagship of the Dey's fleet, capturing it with 486 prisoners. He then sent an ultimatum to the Dey: Free every slave at once, pay an indemnity of $10,000 to the survivors of the brig Edwin, and cease all demands for tribute forever.
Numbed by Decatur's ferocity, the Dey whined that perhaps there had been a "misunderstanding" which he would like to correct with "the amiable James Madison, the Emperor of America" (Castor, 1971).
Tunis and Tripoli were next on Decatur's list. The Dey of Tunis groomed his beard with a diamond-encrusted comb and complained, "Why do they send wild young men to treat for peace with the old powers?" Still, he paid the Americans $46,000 to go away. In its turn, Tripoli felt Decatur's wrath, paying him a $25,000 indemnity and freeing its slaves (Castor, 1971).
The "old powers" never again molested any American ships. Decatur's swift and firm action impelled the other European powers to follow the American example. The degrading yoke of tribute and the raiding of the Barbary corsairs were over.
America's involvement in the Tripolitan War suppressed pirate terrorism in the Mediterranean only after resolute action. It also saw the development of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps with their proud traditions, and for the first time America made its presence known, not as a "fat duck" but as an eagle in the world of the old empires
