Jefferson's War

by Joseph Wheelan

  Eaton responded to the refusals by stopping the Arabs’ rations and threatening to order his Christian troops to occupy the castle and hold out against the Arabs until he could summon a U.S. relief force. The Arabs’ resolve melted. Fifty drivers returned to the caravan with their dromedaries, and the column marched 13 miles to a plateau where they found good cistern water. The next day, they arrived at the desert Arabs’ camp, and 80 mounted warriors joined Hamet, followed a few days later by 150 foot soldiers, with their families and movable goods.

  The tribesmen thought the Americans “curiosities ... [and] laughed at the oddity of our dress; gazed at our polished arms with astonishment:—at the same time they observed the greatest deference toward us as bore any distinctive marks of office.” They offered to barter young gazelles and ostriches, but Eaton could offer only rice in exchange. The expedition moved on, its larder reduced to hard bread and rice. Water was scarcer, available only in rock cavities and cisterns now. “From Alexandria to this place there is not a living stream, nor rivulet, nor spring of water.”

  A fresh crisis arose. A report that Yusuf’s cavalry was but a few days from Derna caused Hamet and the Arabs to announce they were abandoning the expedition. Eaton, resolute as always, again cut off their rations and met with the Arab chiefs and Hamet. “Despondency sat in every countenance.” Hamet said he would continue, but Sheik il Taiib said he would not until he received assurances that the U.S. vessels were waiting at Bomba.

  Until this point, Eaton had shown remarkable restraint in the face of the Arabs’ continual complaints and threats, but now he exploded. “I could not but reproach that chief with want of courage and fidelity.—He had promised much and fulfilled nothing.—I regretted having been acquainted with him:—and should be well satisfied if he would put his menace in execution of returning to Egypt, provided he would not interfere with the dispositions of the other chiefs.” Unaccustomed to being dressed down like this, the stunned sheik stormed from the meeting, “swearing by all the force of his religion to join us no more.” Eaton stopped Hamet from sending an officer after il Taiib to paper over their breach.

  The next day, March 27, the sheik left the expedition with half the Arabs. Eaton again rejected Hamet’s pleas to send a messenger after them. “The services of that chief were due to us:—We had paid for them:—and he had pledged his faith to render them with fidelity.” Hamet said he feared the sheik would now support Yusuf. “Let him do it,” Eaton replied. “I like an open enemy better than a treacherous friend.” However, the sheik had second thoughts and returned sheepishly. “You see the influence I have among these people!” he told Eaton, showing him he had brought back all of his men. “Yes,” Eaton wrote in his journal, “and I see also the disgraceful use you make of it.”

  Hamet balked now. He retrieved the horses he had given to the expedition’s officers, distributed them among his footmen, and drew off with the Arab cavalry. “Joseph Bashaw’s forces had siezed on all his nerves.” After reproaching Hamet for disloyalty and for flinching from adversity, Eaton marched off with the Europeans and the baggage. Two hours later, Hamet caught up with Eaton, full of praise for Eaton’s firmness and claiming his irresolution had been only a show to appease his followers. Hamet might have overcome his fears temporarily, but the tribal Arabs who had joined the caravan were marching in the other direction to Egypt. Sheik il Taiib had persuaded them to desert. Hamet sent one of his officers, Hamet Gurgies, after them with a detachment, and he returned with the deserters a day later.

  Sheiks il Taiib and Mahomet squabbled over $1,500 given them by Hamet, Mahomet swearing he would not continue until he got his money, and then departing with his men. Weary of the sheiks’ querulousness and greed, Eaton spent the day visiting a desert tribe that lived in a nearby castle. The tribesmen examined with amazement the clothing, epaulets, arms, and spurs of the Americans and Europeans. “They were astonished that God should permit people to possess such riches who followed the religion of the devil!”

  The expedition wasn’t all hardships, threats, and thievery. The Arabs sometimes staged horsemanship exhibitions, and from O‘Bannon’s tent wafted the cheerful sound of a mountain fiddle. O’Bannon was a native of Faquier County in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills of northern Virginia, and was married to the former Matilda Heard, the granddaughter of the great Revolutionary War hero, General Daniel Morgan, the victor at Cowpens. A Marine for four years, O‘Bannon was twenty-nine, tough and resourceful. He believed in discipline. On the Adams at Gibraltar in 1802, he had expressed disgust with Captain Hugh Campbell’s laxness, reporting to Marine Commandant William Burrows that he “has conducted himself in such a manner as to forfeit the respect of the Officers on Board his own Ship and I believe it extends to all who know him.”

  But O‘Bannon had a fun-loving side that reflected his Irish ancestry, and whose outlet was his fiddle. “O’Bannon [is] one of the Happiest fellows Living,” especially when performing for the Spanish ladies at Gibraltar, the same Campbell reported to Burrows. A favorite, whose strains could be heard coming from O‘Bannon’s tent on desert nights, was “Hogs in the Corn.” He also played Irish jigs, and Private Bernard O’Brian sometimes danced to them.

  Eaton’s volcanic relationship with the Arab sheiks edged toward an explosion when a delegation of six sheiks demanded more food. The entire army was down to a daily rice ration. Delegation leader Sheik il Taiib warned Eaton that a mutiny was imminent unless he opened up the larder. Eaton ordered them out of his tent and threatened to execute Taiib if there were an uprising. Later, the sheik returned in a conciliatory mood that Eaton reciprocated. “I replied that I required nothing of him by way of reconciliation but truth, fidelity to the Bashaw, pacific conduct among the other chiefs, uniformity and perseverance in this conduct,” Eaton wrote. “These he promised by an oath; and offered me his hand....”

  Meanwhile, Hamet was pursuing Sheik Mahomet, who had abandoned the expedition and was on his way back to Egypt. Absent several days, Hamet rode up with the sheik and his party on April 2 after riding 120 miles. The rare display of energy and force by Hamet pleased Eaton immensely. “He rode all night of the 31st and succeeding day in an uncomfortable fall of rain and chilly winds,” Eaton wrote with avuncular pride, and “subsisted his party during the expedition on milk and dates which were occasionally brought him by the desert Arabs.”

  The expedition crossed Tripoli’s border, and Eaton felt the need to proclaim his army’s intentions to the Tripolitan people. He was keenly aware that if his message were properly presented, it might swing popular support to Hamet. This was crude psychological warfare. In the twentieth century, it would become an art and science, and U.S. psy-ops officers would leaflet Europe, Vietnam, Kuwait, and Iraq, urging the enemy to give up. But in 1805, psy-ops did not appear in warfare manuals; it was left to the initiative of individual officers. How Eaton came up with the idea isn’t known for certain—perhaps from his infiltration of the Miami tribe, or when he matched wits with the Spanish on the Georgia—Florida frontier.

  The proclamation began with Eaton playing the religious card that had worked so well with the Cairo viceroy. American Christianity, he said, was a peaceful religion, “the orthodox faith of Abraham,” and thus a sister faith to Islam. With common ground established, he launched his attack on Yusuf. The bashaw was “a bloodthirsty scoundrel” who had killed one brother “even in his mother’s arms,” and had driven out his other brother, Hamet, while surrounding himself with “hypocrites” and “vagabonds.” Yusuf, he said, had spurned America’s peace overturns and attacked U.S. shipping with pirate ships commanded byscoundrels who had just escaped from certain Christian countries to evade the punishment which their crimes merited ...

  He leads you into war with no advantage to you whatever. He does not hesitate to drench his shores with your blood, provided that he be able to gain money by it! Yes, he scoffs at your sufferings, saying: O what value are these Moors and these Arabs! They are just beasts which belong to me
, worth a great deal less than my camels and my asses ...

  God has stamped upon his forehead the mark of Cain, the first murderer ... the end of his usurpation and of his cruelty approaches ... The wrath of God has been aroused against the said Joussuf, the treacherous scoundrel.

  The United States was committed to Hamet, “a just and merciful prince, who greatly loves his subjects” and who wished to return to the throne and bring peace to Tripoli.

  Promising weapons, food, money, and soldiers to help the people of Tripoli overthrow Yusuf, Eaton pledged unwavering personal support: “I shall be always with you until the end of the war and even until you have achieved your glorious mission, in proof of our fidelity and our goodwill.”

  It isn’t known how the proclamation was received in Tripoli, but the caravan attracted more desert Arabs now that Hamet was in his native land. By early April, there were 600 to 700 fighting men, with another 500 camp followers and Bedouin families.

  Eaton’s feud with the Arab sheiks reached a roaring climax on April 8, when they refused to budge from camp until a courier was sent to Bomba to determine whether Hull had arrived with food. Only six days’ rice ration remained. Eaton argued that with Bomba that many days away, it would be foolhardy to use up their remaining food idly awaiting the courier’s return; they then would have to march to Bomba anyway, and on empty stomachs. The sheiks were unmoved. “If they preferred famine to fatigue they might have the choice,” Eaton told Hamet. He ordered their ration stopped.

  Hamet now displayed his constitutional gutlessness by announcing that he was turning back. The expedition’s simmering tensions came to a full boil. The Arabs prepared to make a grab for the provisions. Eaton and O‘Bannon mustered the Christian troops in front of the food tent with loaded muskets. The far more numerous Arabs advanced, stopping just yards away from the Christians’ dressed ranks. For a full hour, the armed allies confronted one another with loaded guns and swords. Finally Hamet pitched his tent to show he was remaining with the expedition. He persuaded the Arabs to dismount.

  Eaton then made a nearly fatal mistake. He gave the order for the Christian troops, still in ranks, to perform the manual of arms, evidently thinking this would be a good time for them to hold their daily practice. “The Christians are preparing to fire on us!” the Arabs shouted when they heard the clash of muskets. Two hundred mounted their horses and charged on the gallop, stopping at the last possible instant and withdrawing a short distance. Still on their horses, the Arabs pointed out all the Christian officers and aimed their weapons at them. “Fire!” they cried. But some of Hamet’s officers bellowed simultaneously, “For God’s sake do not fire! The Christians are our friends!” Miraculously, no one fired.

  The Christians began to lose their nerve. Soon only Eaton, O‘Bannon and his Marines, Peck, Richard Farquhar, Selim Aga, his lieutenants, and two Greek officers faced the mutinous Arabs. Eaton, unarmed, advanced toward Hamet, exhorting him to avert a slaughter. Dozens of Arab muskets were aimed at his chest. Hamet looked distracted. Eaton tried to address the cavalrymen, but they drowned him out with their shouts.

  Eaton began to berate the Arabs in a loud voice and in their own tongue. He said they were “women” who were afraid of battle. “The General continued to revile them until I thought he would lose his voice,” said O‘Bannon. “Then, all at once, his manner changed, and now he sounded joyous.” He shouted words of encouragement, and some of the Arabs cheered.

  The standoff ended when several Arab chiefs and some of Hamet’s lieutenants rode between the two sides with drawn sabers and drove back the Arabs. Eaton sternly pulled Hamet aside. Had he forgotten the expedition’s purpose and that they were all supposed to be allies? “He relented:—called me his friend & protector:—said he was too soon heated:—and followed me to my tent, giving orders at the same time to his Arabs to disperse.”

  Later, O‘Bannon scolded Eaton for rashly mingling with the mutinous Arabs while unarmed. With a laugh, Eaton raised the sleeves of his robe to reveal a pair of bone-handled throwing knives strapped to his wrists. “A slight tug at the handle of either knife would have brought the weapon instantly into his hand.”

  Eaton sent a fast courier ahead to Bomba to look for Hull while the army pushed on. Christians and Arabs alike were down to their last reserves of strength, subsisting on a daily cup of rice and a half-ration of water. Captain Selim Comb augmented their pinched diet with a wildcat: 5 feet long, sable color, with black ears and nose and a dark-brindled tail. His greyhound had chased it down in the desert. “It was cooked, and it eat very well.” There was never enough water to slake their raging thirst. At one stop, the soldiers and camp followers crowded around a well of filthy water, jostling one another to wet their lips. The pushing caused a horse to tumble down the slope to the well, taking two people with him. Halting on April 9 at a cistern, the marchers found two dead men in the water, Moslem pilgrims murdered by bandits. “We were obliged nevertheless to use the water,” observed Eaton.

  Until O‘Bannon stopped the practice, the hungry Marines cut the buttons from their dress uniforms and traded them with Arab women for food, and possibly sexual favors. The women strung the buttons into necklaces and wore them around their necks. Some of the foot soldiers and Bedouin families turned back for lack of adequate food. Hamet killed a pack camel for meat and traded another to the desert Arabs for sheep. He butchered and distributed the mutton to all the troops, now reduced to eating wild fennel and sorrel that they found in ravines, and to foraging for roots and wild vegetables.

  Another mutiny flared over the rations. This time, it was the cannoneers. Eaton wearily prepared to quell it—just as the courier returned with news that he had sighted vessels at Bomba. “In an instant the face of everything changed from pensive gloom to inthusiastic gladness.” New life was breathed into the expedition. The mutiny forgotten, the caravan pressed on.

  At last they reached Bomba.

  The empty bay mocked them. There were no ships, there was no one to meet them. The expedition succumbed to its accumulated disappointments and hunger. The bitter Arabs claimed that there had never been any resupply ships expected at Bomba, that the Christian leaders were “imposters and infidels;—and said we had drawn them into that situation with treacherous views.” Powerless to stop it, Eaton watched the expedition breaking up before his eyes. The Arabs laid plans to depart the next morning, brushing aside Eaton’s exhortation that they all press on to Derna. Despairing, Eaton and the Christians climbed a hill overlooking the harbor and lit signal fires. They stoked them all night, hoping that Hull was at sea nearby, and would see the fires and come to a rendezvous.

  At daybreak on April 15, there still were no ships in sight. Eaton watched helplessly as the Arabs prepared to break camp and return to Egypt. The expedition appeared to be over. One of Hamet’s servants climbed the signal hill for a last look at the Mediterranean—and spotted a sail in the distance. It was the Argus. Hull had seen the signal fires during the night. “Language is too poor to paint the joy and exultation which this messenger of life excited in every breast,” wrote Eaton.

  Hull had reached Bomba April 4, but, finding no one there, he had cruised to Cape Razatin, he told Eaton. Returning to Bomba and still finding no one, he sent a party ashore to determine whether Eaton had been there. When it couldn’t find any evidence that he had, the Argus had lingered offshore, checking the bay periodically.

  Eaton’s army spent a restorative week encamped at Bomba. Food and provisions were plentiful. The Argus and Hornet sent ashore 30 hogsheads of bread; 30 barrels of peas; rice; three hogsheads of brandy and wine; 100 sacks of flour; 10 boxes of oil; a bale of cloth; and $7,000 for Eaton.

  After crossing 460 miles of desert in five weeks, the army now faced the critical 60-mile push to Derna. The Americans and Arabs, Greeks and Turks, Tripolitans, and assorted Europeans knew this leg of the journey likely would end in a pitched battle from which they would emerge victorious, or in chains. The marchers rested and at
e and drank their fill.

  On April 23, they marched out of the parched land where they had spent the last forty-six days and into a wetter region of cultivated fields. Now that the army was in Tripoli, volunteers were joining daily, swelling the expedition’s ranks to about 1,000 fighting men as the force advanced toward Derna. Before his men could act on the growing temptation to scavenge from the land, Hamet sent a herald crying throughout the camp: “He who fears God and feels attachment to Hamet Bashaw will be careful to destroy nothing. Let no one touch the growing harvest. He who transgresses this injunction shall lose his right hand!”

  Yusuf’s envoy to Alexandria had returned with intelligence about Eaton and Hamet’s expedition. The bashaw had immediately acted to head them off, ordering his chief Mameluke, Hassan Bey, to lead an army toward Egypt to intercept and defeat Hamet. Yusuf had established a regular army only three years earlier, to thwart Hamet and subdue revolts in the interior. By the time Preble attacked Tripoli, the bashaw’s army had swelled to 1,500 Turkish mercenaries, 12,000 Arab and Berber cavalry, and thousands of irregulars—25,000 troops in all for Tripoli’s defense.