Miracles and Massacres Read online

  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 sena
tor, 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.

  “Our navy doesn’t have enough ships to win this war,” Eaton continued. “And our commodores don’t have enough boldness. The last commodore spent seventeen months in the Mediterranean but only nineteen days before the enemy’s port! A fleet of Quaker meetinghouses would have done just as well!”

  The president tried to interrupt Eaton, but he was just getting warmed up. Interspersing his passionate plea with lines he had delivered to congressmen a month earlier, Eaton told Jefferson, “There is no limit to the avarice of the Barbary princes. Today Tripoli demands three million dollars. Next year the Pasha will want ten million. Like the insatiable grave, they can never have enough. The solution is not to be found in blockades and bribes but in a change of regime!”

  Jefferson, even in his state of mild inebriation, appeared skeptical. Eaton pushed. “The project is feasible! I have met a man named Hamet Qaramanli, who is the rightful Pasha.” Nine years earlier, Hamet’s younger brother, Yussef, locked Hamet out of his own palace in Tripoli. In one day, he had lost his throne, his country, the loyalty of his brother, and the company of his wife and children, who had become Yussef’s first hostages.

  “He is an enemy of piracy,” Eaton continued. “He is a friend of America. He belongs on the Tripolitan throne. And with your support, I can put him there.”

  “Is that so?” asked a still-doubtful president.

  “I can march with Hamet Qaramanli from Cairo to Tripoli. His people will rally to his flag. With an Arab army, we can attack by land and put a true friend on the throne. He will release the men of the Philadelphia and swear to never kidnap Americans. Nor will he demand a dollar of tribute from the United States. I need only some money and Marines.”

  Jefferson knew the naval war was producing no results and he understood the public’s anger over the capture of the Philadelphia. He was angry, too.

  It might be the alcohol, he thought to himself, but this Eaton fellow is making a lot of sense.

  Tripoli

  May 1, 1804

  William Ray awoke as he had every day for the last seven months: in hell. Damp clothes, a grumbling stomach, and a full day of backbreaking work were ahead. Ray had no way of knowing that this day was different. Help was finally on the way.

  Four days after the cheese party at the Capitol, President Jefferson had given William Eaton the title of “Agent of the United States Navy” and the promise of forty thousand dollars. His mission was to put Hamet Qaramanli on the Tripolitan throne.

  William Ray had never heard of William Eaton or Hamet Qaramanli. The only “Qaramanli” he knew was his captor and torturer: Yussef, the Pasha of Tripoli. Unaware that a rescue plan was in place, Ray and his fellow prisoners remained careful never to offend their guards.

  So far, they’d managed to escape the most extreme forms of torture. Simple beatings, however, were another matter. Today, for their captors’ amusement, one American slave had received the traditional Tripolitan beating: bastinados.

  Ray watched with resignation as the Marine was thrown onto his back, his feet tied and raised above his head so that he was hanging upside down. Then a slave master slammed a wooden rod into the soles of his feet as hard as he could. Then he did it again, and again and again.

  The slave cried out, but his pain only seemed to encourage them.

  Another blow came.

  And then another.

  And then two hundred more.

  How long, William Ray thought, will my country let us languish in this hell?

  Five hundred miles east of Derna

  Ten months later: March 12, 1805

  Five days earlier, William Eaton, Hamet Qaramanli, and their army of approximately four hundred Arabs, European mercenaries, and United States Marines had left Alexandria, Egypt. Their first mission was to march across the desert to the city of Derna, a coastal jewel in the Pasha’s crown located about four hundred miles to the east of the capital, Tripoli City. If they could capture Derna, they knew they would demonstrate their ability to capture the city of Tripoli itself. For that reason, and because Eaton had promised many of the Arabs in his army that they could make money by looting Derna, it was essential to take this city first.

  Derna was still five hundred miles away, but Eaton and his army were already in trouble. “Stop!” he yelled, “I will cut off the head of any man who dares to fire a shot!” Waving his scimitar above his head, Eaton found himself squarely in the middle of a closely packed mass of screaming, angry Christians and Muslims.

  Earlier that week, Eaton—who had started to call himself “General” Eaton even though no one in his chain of command had approved the promotion—had lost an entire day trying to persuade his camel drivers, who continually asked for more money, to stay with the expedition. Without them there would be no way to bring along the food and supplies necessary to make the rest of the trip.

  Money, however, was becoming an issue. The self-proclaimed general had already pledged $100,000 to the ninety Tripolitans, sixty-three European soldiers of fortune, 250 Bedouin accompanying Hamet, eight leathernecks, and a lone navy midshipman on the journey. These promises more than doubled the budget President Jefferson had authorized, but Eaton was sure he could pay his bills once Derna and Tripoli were captured and looted.

  Today’s crisis began with a rumor that the citizens of Derna had rebelled against the Pasha and were waiting for Hamet to arrive and seize power. Excited by the news, Hamet’s Tripolitans fired their guns into the air in celebration. The Bedouin camel drivers, who lagged behind the rest of the group, heard the gunfire and assumed the makeshift army was under attack by other Bedouin. Rather than coming to their defense, the camel drivers rushed ahead, intending to grab a share of the loot. Eaton’s European soldiers of fortune, unsure why they were being attacked, formed a defensive line to fend off the charging camel drivers.

  In the midst of the confusion and chaos, Eaton ran out between his camel drivers and soldiers, waving his scimitar and demanding they hold their fire. As he explained the situation—a false rumor and a misguided celebration—silence fell over his army. The Bedouin drivers backed away and catastrophe was temporarily averted. This dysfunctional group of Marines and mercenaries had survived to march another day.

  Three hundred miles east of Derna

  March 18, 1805

  William Eaton’s army had now been marching for eleven days. Their supply of food was ample, and the water wells in this region were plentiful, but so, unfortunately, was his men’s distrust of each other.

  This night, it was about to get even worse.

  A pilgrim traveling from Morocco to Mecca brought news that the Pasha was sending an eight-hundred-man army to defend Derna. The garrison at Derna was already more than twice the size of Eaton’s army. If the Pasha’s reinforcements beat them to the city, its fort and barricades would be virtually impregnable. If Eaton’s army couldn’t get in, it
wouldn’t be able to loot the city, and his Arab soldiers would likely quit.

  Eaton’s instinct was to march faster, but his Arab allies refused. They’d been promised that the U.S. Navy would support the attack on Derna with a bombardment. Now they demanded that Eaton send an advance scout ahead to see if the American ships had arrived. When Eaton refused, the Bedouin camel drivers left.

  Eaton was livid. We have marched a distance of two hundred miles, he lamented in his journal, through an inhospitable waste of a world. Over burning sands and rocky mountains, Eaton had held together his band of misfits by begging, borrowing, and bribing. Earlier that day, he had met the Bedouin’s latest demand for more money by borrowing $673 from the Marines and European mercenaries, promising to repay them when they rendezvoused with the U.S. Navy. Now, despite having been paid, they were gone.

  Once again, Eaton had no choice but to comply with their demands. Reluctantly, he sent a scout ahead to look for American ships. The next day, enough of the camel drivers returned to allow the ragtag army to continue its march toward Derna.

  Tripoli

  March 29, 1805

  William Ray was in his seventeenth month of captivity. His living conditions remained foul. His daily labor remained backbreaking. His captors remained merciless.

  As Ray walked by the gates of Tripoli, daydreaming of a rescue that seemed to grow more unlikely by the day, he spotted two African slaves, straw rope wrapped around their necks, still alive, swinging from the city gates.

  “What was their crime?” he asked a fellow captive.

  “Accused of murder and robbery. But they probably didn’t do anything worse than anger the Pasha.”

  Ray didn’t doubt this. The Pasha seemed to be in control over everything except his own erratic and violent whims. “How long have they been hanging there?”