For Bainbridge, the defeat was shattering. “If my professional character be blotched,” he wrote to his wife, Susan, “—if an attempt be made to taint my honor—if I am censured, if it does not kill me, it would at least deprive me of the power of looking any of my race in the face.” Porter was deeply affected as well. As the years passed, he vowed that if he were ever in similar circumstances, he would never surrender.
Both Bainbridge and Porter were understandably concerned about Commodore Preble’s reaction to their decisions. They knew he would be furious. Bainbridge had not only lost a frigate and all her men, but the American squadron—pathetically weak to begin with—was now reduced by another 30 percent, making it impossible for Preble to accomplish his mission. Adding to his chagrin was the fact that the frigate had been captured intact and could now be used against him. He wondered why Bainbridge had not succeeded in scuttling her, and why he and Porter had not led their men in a fight to the death, as Preble fancied he would have done in similar circumstances. “Would to God, that the officers and crew of the Philadelphia, had one and all, determined to prefer death to slavery,” he wrote to the secretary of the navy. “It is possible that such a determination might have saved them from either.” At some level, Porter probably agreed with Preble—as brave a commander as ever wore the uniform.
Bainbridge and Porter hoped they would not have a long time to contemplate their disgrace. Prolonged captivity seemed unlikely. The bashaw would certainly want to ransom them for cash as fast as he could. And President Jefferson would undoubtedly want to end the embarrassment quickly and pay for their release. Of course, reaching an agreement between the two governments might still be difficult. The price the bashaw demanded might be excessive, and Preble might not have enough of a squadron left to force the bashaw’s hand. The prisoners would then have to brace themselves for a long confinement. As it turned out, Karamanli insisted on receiving $3 million, a sum that was preposterous, and guaranteed a long incarceration, unless the navy freed them by force.
The Americans now had no idea how long their imprisonment would last, or how Karamanli would treat them. They hoped he would keep them in good health because of their ransom value, but they could not be sure. The Tripolitan secretary of state, Sidi Mohammed D’Ghies, took charge of them. Fortunately, he recognized their worth, and from the beginning, treated them decently. He spoke fluent French, which greatly eased communications. The rest of the Tripolitans followed his example, at least at the start.
Porter, Bainbridge, and the other officers were housed in the comfortable residence of the former American consul. They gave their parole not to attempt an escape, which permitted Karamanli to relax his guard somewhat. They were left pretty much on their own. The moody, depressed Bainbridge occupied a separate room and kept largely to himself, writing letters, and letting Porter and Lieutenant Jacob Jones supervise the other officers. Porter and Jones organized a school for the midshipmen, expanding their knowledge of seamanship, mathematics, navigation, gunnery, and even fleet sailing.
D’Ghies allowed the Danish consul, Nicholas C. Nissen, to attend to the officers’ basic needs. An industrious, sensitive man, Nissen improved their lives immeasurably, supplying bedding and food, handling their mail, and bringing them books. Porter spent much of his leisure time studying. He had always been preoccupied with improving his mind. Although not formally educated beyond elementary school, he was already well-read. With books provided by Nissen, Porter now studied history, French, English grammar, and drawing.
As might be expected, the crew received quite different treatment. Kept apart from the officers, hands were locked in a single large, dank cell in the basement of the castle. Later they were moved to a primitive warehouse in a different part of the city, where they had to lie on the damp, cold ground, eat bad bread, and do hard labor. Their drivers constantly beat them. The slightest infraction resulted in being bastinadoed, that is, beaten on the soles of the feet with a hard stick. This brutal treatment resulted in nine deaths. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia’s carpenter and other skilled workmen, such as blacksmiths, riggers, and sail makers, were compelled to help restore the frigate. The distress of any individual crewmember could be relieved if he converted to Islam, but in the long months of captivity and suffering, only five did.
Meanwhile, Bainbridge managed to send letters to Preble at Malta explaining what had happened. The bashaw allowed the letters to be transmitted. His agents scrutinized the contents before forwarding them, of course, but Bainbridge fooled the censors by using invisible ink on part of the paper. The alert censors soon found out, but then Bainbridge changed to another type of invisible ink the Tripolitans failed to detect, and his messages got through. He urged Preble to either recapture or destroy the Philadelphia.
Preble did not need any prodding; he had been studying the matter since the surrender and had concluded there was no real chance of retrieving the frigate. He settled on a plan to demolish her and chose young Stephen Decatur Jr. to lead the expedition. It was a fitting appointment, for Decatur’s father, Revolutionary War hero Stephen Decatur, had been the Philadelphia’s first captain, and had superintended her construction.
On February 16, 1804, Decatur and a carefully picked crew of volunteers slipped into Tripoli’s harbor in a captured Tripolitan ketch (Mastico) that Preble had renamed Intrepid. They took the Philadelphia’s guards by surprise, and burned the frigate, destroying her beyond repair and escaping amid a shower of gunfire from angry Tripolitans ashore. Despite the fire and the fusillade from dozens of shore batteries, Decatur suffered only one wounded and no deaths.
Porter and the other captive officers saw the flames and were overjoyed, even though they knew the bashaw would retaliate against them. He did, removing them from the comfort of their residence and confining them to a dungeon in the center of the castle, where no air or light could penetrate except through a small iron grate in the ceiling. In addition to foul air and terrible food, they were plagued by noxious reptiles.
The new treatment was so severe that Porter now considered the officers released from their promise not to escape, and they made three attempts, which he led. All were thwarted, however. The bashaw was furious, but the prospect of ransoming them restrained him. So too did the likelihood of ransoming the rest of the crew, although they were treated even more harshly now as well.
Unfortunately for Porter and the other prisoners, the burning of the Philadelphia and Preble’s subsequent attacks on Tripoli did not secure victory. It was not until June 3, 1805, nineteen long months after the Philadelphia’s surrender, that Tobias Lear, an experienced diplomat who had once been George Washington’s private secretary, signed a peace treaty and obtained the prisoners’ release. Lear was able to reach an agreement with the stubborn bashaw because President Jefferson finally sent a fleet with enough firepower to force Karamanli’s hand. The fleet arrived off Tripoli on September 10, 1804, but its commander, Commodore Samuel Barron, who superseded Preble, was ailing and ineffective, so the war dragged on inconclusively. It was not until the spring of 1805 that Commodore John Rodgers finally used American naval superiority off Tripoli to force Karamanli to come to terms. As part of the peace treaty, the bashaw received $60,000 in ransom money for 293 prisoners—a tiny fraction of what he had originally demanded. The hostages, although they had been cruelly treated at times, were in surprisingly good health.
In June 1805, a naval court of inquiry examined all the evidence concerning the Philadelphia disaster, including testimony from her officers. It judged Bainbridge’s actions reasonable under the circumstances, a verdict that President Jefferson endorsed and the country accepted.
The ordeal had a lasting impact on Bainbridge and Porter. They may have been exonerated, but the cumulative effect of an ignominious defeat and long captivity, made a permanent imprint on their psyches. Bainbridge, given his history, suffered the most. “I have zealously served my country and strenuously endeavored to guard against accidents,” he wrote to Preble
, “but in spite of every effort misfortune has attended me through my naval life—Guadeloupe and Algiers have witnessed part of them, but Tripoli strikes the death blow to my future prospects.” Porter was less open about his feelings, but he was also deeply affected in a way that would influence his decisions, particularly in battle, from then on.
The widespread acclaim heaped on Stephen Decatur Jr. for his daring raid on the Philadelphia was also a source of dismay for Porter and Bainbridge. Preble wrote to the secretary of the navy urging that Decatur, for his gallant service, be promoted immediately from lieutenant to captain as an incentive for all naval officers. Needless to say, Preble did not express the same boundless admiration for Bainbridge and Porter.
Bainbridge was particularly apprehensive about Preble’s opinion. It had taken some time after the Philadelphia’s capture for communication between the two men to be established, and for Bainbridge to know for certain that Preble was receiving his letters. That period of silence had been torture for the captive. When letters finally began arriving from Preble, they had been reassuring. The commodore, not wanting to add to Bainbridge’s burdens while he was in captivity, repeatedly gave him expressions of support, but Bainbridge worried that Preble might not mean them.
In fact, Preble had mixed feelings. His first reaction on hearing what had happened was to find fault. He thought that if Bainbridge had fought to the death instead of surrendering, he could have saved the men and the ship. After all, it was floated off the reef less than two days later. But on learning the exact circumstances facing Bainbridge and Porter, Preble relented and understood, to a degree, that they really had no other choice. Preble remained ambivalent, however. He undoubtedly felt that he would have handled the matter better than they did.
Continuing to be concerned about Preble’s feelings, Bainbridge stayed in close touch with him, hoping that Preble would not change his mind and openly criticize him. Bainbridge worried—far more than Porter—about the judgment others placed on his conduct. Bainbridge wrote to his wife on November 1, 1803, about, “an apprehension which constantly haunts me, that I may be censured by my countrymen. These impressions, which are seldom absent from my mind, act as a corroding canker at my heart.”
Porter was a changed man as well. He spoke less than Bainbridge did about his searing experience. But there is no doubt that surrendering an American frigate to a pirate state, spending nineteen months in captivity, and securing his freedom only by being ransomed, had a profound impact, and he craved an opportunity to redeem himself.
AFTER THE FINAL VICTORY OVER TRIPOLI, PORTER REMAINED IN the Mediterranean for two more years in command of his old ship Enterprise. During that time an incident occurred that the Admiralty would remember for years. It happened in the British port of Valetta in Malta, where Porter had the Enterprise anchored. A young, undoubtedly drunk, English tar came by in a rowboat shouting obscenities at the Enterprise. He was so intemperate that Porter hauled him aboard and gave him twelve lashes before sending him home. Sir Andrew Ball, the governor of Malta, was livid. He ordered Porter to remain in the harbor until the incident was reviewed. Porter ignored him, and despite threats that the Enterprise would be fired on if she attempted to leave, Porter sailed her past the formidable array of guns guarding the harbor entrance without incident. The Admiralty was furious that he had been let go. His name would be remembered in the Royal Navy for years. Whitehall had a score to settle.
CHAPTER
4
PRIMED FOR BATTLE
ON APRIL 22, 1806, PORTER WAS PROMOTED TO MASTER Commandant. The following year he finally returned to the United States, arriving in New York in October 1807. He had been away for over six years.
The next few months were a busy time for him. He became fast friends with young Washington Irving, whose literary prowess was just beginning to be recognized in New York with the publication of his satirical magazine Salmagundi. Sea officers with extensive combat experience fascinated Irving. His father had once been a petty officer in the Royal Navy. Porter for his part admired Irving’s erudition. They became part of a group of accomplished young men who partied together at various New York taverns, and at Crockloft Hall, the New Jersey estate of the fabulously wealthy Gouverneur Kemble.
Porter was also occupied with navy business. He was appointed to sit on no less than four courts-martial, all concerned with the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of June 22, 1807. A raw nerve was struck in the American psyche when the 50-gun British warship Leopard—caught up in a dispute over impressment—unexpectedly fired three broadsides into the unprepared 36-gun Chesapeake, killing three men and wounding fifteen others. Enormous animosity was aroused in America against Britain and might have precipitated a war if President Jefferson had not moved deftly to defuse the issue.
Commodore James Barron had been in charge of the Chesapeake at the time, and he was criticized for the unprepared state of his ship and for how he handled the situation generally. He hoped a court-martial would absolve him of blame. Commodore John Rodgers was president of the court, and after carefully examining the evidence, eleven officers found Barron guilty of failing “on the probability of an engagement, to clear his ship for action.” His sentence was a heavy one—suspension from the navy for five years without pay. Porter took an active part in the proceedings, asking more questions than any other officer, pressing Barron hard, and supporting the verdict.
On February 22, 1808, the courts-martial were over, and Porter turned to more pleasant business, traveling to Chester, Pennsylvania, where on March 10 he married seventeen-year-old Evelina Anderson (he was now twenty-eight). Although her family was eventually pleased with the match, at the moment they were uncertain about Porter. They thought Evelina could do much better. Two months earlier, when David went to Chester to ask for Evelina’s hand, her brother Thomas had informed him—none too gently—that marriage was out of the question. Whereupon, Porter flew into a rage, shouting, “Sir, you are meddling in a matter that does not concern you. I came here about marrying your sister, I didn’t come to marry you, and damn you if you don’t leave the room I’ll throw you out of the window.” Many years later, Porter’s son, Admiral David Dixon Porter wrote, “Young Anderson, who had a strong sense of humor, often related this incident to show Captain Porter’s rough way of wooing, which was, in fact, his impulsive manner of doing everything.”
Porter had already received orders to take command of the New Orleans naval station, and so only a week after the wedding, the young couple embarked on the long trip from Pennsylvania to Louisiana. It was to be their only honeymoon. The newlyweds arrived in New Orleans on June 17, 1808, and were happy that David’s father was stationed there. In late 1807, so that he could be near his son, the navy had given the Revolutionary War hero a warrant as a sailing master and assigned him to the New Orleans naval station.
The elder Porter was good friends with a man who would become important to his son. George Farragut, fifty-two, and Porter were serving together in the navy’s tiny New Orleans station and soon discovered they had a lot in common. Like Porter, Farragut had fought on the patriot side during the American Revolution, even though he was a native of Spanish Minorca. Farragut had been a privateer, and later became a member of the state navy of South Carolina, where he performed heroically during the battles of Charleston and Savannah. Later, he fought as a guerrilla with Francis Marion. After the Revolution, Farragut and his family settled in Tennessee. They remained there until March 1807, when he was appointed a sailing master in the United States Navy and sent to New Orleans, where his friend William Claiborne was governor of the Province of Louisiana.
But tragedy soon struck the Porters and the Farraguts. On a hot summer’s day in 1808, Porter was fishing on Lake Pontchartrain when he collapsed from sunstroke. He would have died right there had Farragut not been fishing nearby. Quickly realizing what had happened, Farragut took Porter to his house, where his wife, Elizabeth, cared for him. Tragically, while she was nursing him, she contracte
d yellow fever and passed away on the same day that the elder Porter also died—June 22, 1808. Five days earlier, on June 17, Master Commandant David Porter Jr. had arrived to take command of the New Orleans Station. He was devastated by his father’s death. To make matters worse, he soon contracted yellow fever himself, only narrowly avoiding the same fate as Elizabeth Farragut.
While recovering from the loss of his father and from the fever, Porter tried to assist George Farragut with the enormous task of caring for his five grief-stricken children. Farragut was a man of great inner strength, and he held together, but the burden of the children was beyond his capacity, and when Porter offered to take two of them and bring them up as his own, George reluctantly agreed. Thus, in February 1809, nine-year-old James Glasgow Farragut and one of his sisters became members of the Porter household.
Young Farragut would during the Civil War become the first admiral in American history and a great hero. But that was much later. At the moment, he had to move into the Porters’ house, which he did with great reluctance. In time, he became, in essence, the Porters’ son, although he was never actually adopted. From the beginning of their relationship, David Porter treated Farragut as if he was his own child, and in recognition of that unselfish care, James later changed his name to David Glasgow Farragut.
In spite of his relationship with Porter, Farragut remained close to his father. They would spend many days together on Lake Pontchartrain, where young Farragut acquired an extensive knowledge of sailing and a love for life on the water. At the end of Porter’s two-year tour in New Orleans, Farragut, in what must have been a heartrending decision for the boy and his father, remained with Porter, traveling with him back to Chester. Farragut’s sister, who had also been a member of the Porters’ household in New Orleans, stayed behind in the city with Porter’s sister, Margaret.
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