The Jews in America Trilogy

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  When the date and hour arrived, a sizable audience had gathered. There were a number of Uriah’s shipmates off the Franklin, an equal number of friends and fellow officers of Potter, the two men’s seconds and their friends, the mandatory physician, a judge, and a crowd of Philadelphians who had come out to see the show. Thus what happened is well attested to by witnesses. A distance of twenty paces was chosen. This was somewhat farther apart than most duelists elected to stand. Ten paces was a commoner stand-off distance, and even shorter distances—of two paces, or even one—were frequently selected, with the result that both duelists, firing at each other from arm’s length, were virtually guaranteed death. But both Levy and Potter were rated as excellent shots, and so the greater stretch of ground between them may have been regarded as a test of marksmanship. The judge asked each man whether he had anything to say. Uriah Levy asked permission to utter a Hebrew prayer, the Shema, and then in a characteristic gesture said: “I also wish to state that, although I am a crack shot, I shall not fire at my opponent. I suggest it would be wiser if this ridiculous affair be abandoned.” “Coward!” Potter shouted in reply. “Gentlemen, no further words,” the judge instructed, and began his count.

  Both men turned to face each other. Potter fired first, missing Uriah widely. Uriah then raised his arm straight up and fired a bullet into the air. The duel might have ended there, for Potter could have considered his honor satisfied, but Uriah’s gesture clearly had enraged him. He began reloading his pistol for a second round and Uriah, according to the code, was required to do the same. The second volley ended with the same results, Potter missing his mark and Uriah firing skyward. Now, like a man possessed, Lieutenant Potter began reloading a third time and, perhaps because his fury was affecting his aim, the third series of shots was a repetition of the first two. But clearly the affair had gone too far for sanity, and the seconds and a number of Potter’s friends rushed in to try to persuade him to abandon the duel “with honor,” but he would have none of it. For a fourth time he reloaded and fired at Uriah, missing again. On Uriah’s side of the field, his friends shouted to him to kill Potter, but once again Uriah merely reached into the air and fired. He then cried out to Potter’s aides, “Gentlemen, stop him or I must!”

  But Lieutenant Potter was at this point beyond control. He reloaded for a fifth shot and, screaming, “Stand back! I mean to have his life!” fired again, nicking Uriah’s left ear. Blood spurted across his face and shoulder. This time, Uriah held his fire altogether. Then, as Potter reloaded for a sixth shot, Uriah’s limits of patience and temper were reached. Shouting, “Very well, I’ll spoil his dancing,” Uriah for the first time took aim and fired at his opponent. From his remark about dancing, the audience assumed that Uriah Levy intended to shoot the lieutenant in the leg. But the bullet struck him in the chest, Lieutenant Potter fell to the ground without a word, and was immediately pronounced dead by the doctor.

  It was, everyone agreed, an extraordinary duel. Potter had behaved extraordinarily badly, and Levy had conducted himself extraordinarily well. There were, however, some unfortunate realities to be faced. In the eyes of the law, Uriah Phillips Levy had committed a murder. In the eyes of the United States Navy, an important bylaw of the club had been breached. An enlisted man—a mere sailing master—had not only slapped, but now had killed, an officer. No one, least of all Uriah Levy, was sure how this might affect a man whose ambition was already “to rise to high rank in the Navy,” and to set an example for future Jews to follow.

  The affair created a stir of major proportions in Philadelphia. The press praised him for the way “Levy fired shots in the air, and then for the first time fired at his antagonist, and with the unerring certainty of a true marksman, made him bite the dust.” Uriah was particularly idolized by his fellow crew members on the Franklin. But there was an element, and a strong one, in Philadelphia that was less than happy with the outcome of the duel, and said so. Lieutenant Potter might have been a boor and a drunk, but he had been a popular young man about Philadelphia parties. Levy might have been astonishingly coolheaded and brave, but he was, despite his proper connections, nonetheless—to some—an “outsider.” It was, after all, a case of a Jew having killed a Christian. The Navy commodore investigating the episode decided that Uriah had been neither the provocator nor the aggressor in the case, and dismissed it without action. But the Philadelphia grand jury felt otherwise, and handed down an indictment for “making a challenge to a duel.”

  Almost immediately, Uriah was in another difficulty. One Sunday morning shortly after the duel, he walked into the wardroom aboard the Franklin for breakfast. In one corner of the room sat a certain Lieutenant Bond, breakfasting with two other officers. Uriah seated himself at a table on the opposite side of the room. The table was cluttered with used crockery and partly filled coffee cups, and Uriah asked a passing cabin boy to please clear it for him. Instantly, Lieutenant Bond was on his feet shouting that Uriah had no right to give orders to cabin boys. Uriah replied that he had given no orders, but had merely asked that the table be cleared. Bond answered that he had heard Uriah order the cabin boy to bring him breakfast. Uriah replied that he had not, and suddenly, amid shouts of “Liar!” “No gentleman!” and “Dictator!” the fight was on. Both men were on their feet, and it took the other two officers in the room plus two cabin boys to prevent them from coming to blows. And presently Bond was calling Uriah a “damned Jew.”

  In the lengthy transcript of the court-martial that followed—a trial which, in Navy history, has been called “the Breakfast Court Martial” and “the Tempest in the Coffee Cups”—there is endless testimony not only about who accused whom of what, but also about how many dishes were on the table at the time, their degree of dirtiness, whether soiled coffee cups or tea cups were involved, and what the various participants in the fracas were wearing. It is hard to see why all this was taken so seriously, and yet it was. Uriah made a long and impassioned speech in which he added patriotism, honor, manliness, and duty to the other issues in the case. It ended at last in a draw. Both Uriah and Lieutenant Bond were ordered reprimanded by the Secretary of the Navy for un-naval behavior.

  But while all this trivial and generally undignified business was going on, things were looking up for Uriah Levy again. In Philadelphia, the dueling case had come to trial in the civilian court and, despite the fact that public sentiment had been running against him, Uriah had been acquitted by the jury. The foreman, in fact, had risen from the jury box to add to its decision that “any man brave enough to fire in the air and let his opponent take deadly aim at him, deserved his life.”

  And so, despite the fact that naval court-martial proceedings were under way against him, Uriah took the unusual step of applying for a commission in the Navy. He was applying under the rule which stated that “Masters of extraordinary merit, and for extraordinary services, may be promoted to Lieutenant.” His friends who saw him as a man involved in two actions—one civil and one military—begged him to wait until the fuss had died down. But Uriah, confident of his extraordinary capabilities, plunged ahead. His commission was signed by President Monroe on March 5, 1817. The U.S. Navy had a Jewish officer at last.

  The first thing Uriah did when he had donned his gold-fringed lieutenant’s epaulets was to have his portrait painted by Thomas Sully. Sully always romanticized his subjects—which was certainly the key to his great popularity—and generously overlooked their physical shortcomings. So we must not take the Sully portrait of Uriah Levy entirely at face value. But it portrays a striking figure. Uriah’s face in the portrait is the face of a boy—he was twenty-five that year—clean-jawed, with a straight nose, wide forehead, large and arresting black eyes, a mop of dark curly hair, and dashing Rhett Butler sideburns. Sully exaggerates Uriah’s slight build so that his figure appears almost girl-like, frail and delicate, the slim legs almost spidery. Yet as he stands in the portrait, arms folded across his chest, the picture pulses with haughtiness, arrogance, defiance. The pictur
e has been described as making Uriah Levy look “a little vain, more than a little handsome, and very determined.”

  The officer corps of the United States Navy was not at all sure how it wished to treat this brash young upstart. The first few months of Uriah’s lieutenancy were particularly difficult for him aboard his ship, the Franklin. A former enlisted man was, after all, now an officer. A man who had taken commands was now giving them. The Franklin’s other officers, with whom Uriah had once worked cheerfully, as well as the enlisted men, who had once been his equals, all looked at him now with distrust and disdain. The friends who had cheered him in his duel and in the ordeal after it were suddenly chilly and aloof. Uriah had a long voyage to England, and then to Sicily, in this hostile atmosphere, before he was notified that he was to be transferred to the frigate United States.

  The United States was one of the Navy’s most prestigious addresses. The ship had been the heroine of several important battles in the 1812 war and she had, in the process, become known as a “gentlemen’s ship.” Nowhere was the clublike nature of the Navy more apparent. The great Stephen Decatur (“our country, right or wrong”) had been the United States’s commander when the ship had overcome and captured H.M.S. Macedonian, and now she was captained by the equally aristocratic William Crane, a man of whom it was said that he “believed his blood ran bluer than all the rest.”

  The day before Uriah was to report, Captain Crane dispatched a long letter to Commodore Charles Stewart, in charge of the Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet. In it, Captain Crane argued vaguely about Uriah being a “disturbing influence,” and suggested that he might create “disharmony” among the ship’s other officers. In concluding the letter he said flatly: “Considerations of a personal nature render Lieutenant Levy particularly objectionable, and I trust he will not be forced on me.”

  It is seldom in the Navy that an officer attempts to tell a superior what to do. But Captain Crane’s letter displays a great deal of confidence, and it is likely that he thought he stood a good chance of getting his way. And he may have. Though the commodore is said to have been “boiling mad” at Crane’s note, his reply—signed “Your obedient servant”—is both a lengthy and a mealymouthed affair, when one would have thought that a terse note of reprimand would have been in order. It is clear that Commodore Stewart realized that he was involved in a ticklish situation, and that Lieutenant Levy’s Jewishness was what it was all about. In his reply, Commodore Stewart “regrets exceedingly” having to disappoint his captain and, after several conciliatory paragraphs, he adds: “Should you be possessed of a knowledge of any conduct on the part of Lieutenant Levy which would render him unworthy of the commission he holds, I would at the request of any commander represent it to the government. As your letter contains no specific notice of his misconduct, I can find nothing therein whereupon to find a reason for countermanding the order for changing his destination.”

  The commodore showed both Crane’s and his own letter to Uriah, assured him that “everything would be all right,” and the next morning Uriah set off to present himself to his new commander. Navy protocol required that an arriving officer pay two visits to his captain—the first, briefly and formally to present his orders, and the second, a longer social visit to be carried out within forty-eight hours. But when Uriah was admitted to his cabin, Captain Crane, without even looking up from his desk, said, “The United States has as many officers as I need or want.” He ordered that Uriah be escorted off his ship and back to the Franklin. Now Crane was not merely advising, but defying, a superior officer.

  This, it turned out, was too much for the commodore, who now wrote:

  SIR:

  Lt. U. P. Levy will report to you for duty on board the frigate United States under your command.

  It is not without regret that a second order is found necessary to change the position of one officer in this squadron.

  CHARLES STEWART

  In humiliating fashion, Uriah was rowed back to the United States to present his orders a second time. Crane kept him waiting outside his cabin for over two hours. Then, ordering him in, Crane glanced at the letter, handed it back to Uriah, and muttered, “So be it.” He returned to his paperwork. He did not so much as rise, offer a handshake, or even return Uriah’s salute. Uriah carried his gear to the wardroom. There he was told by another officer—there were only eight others aboard—that theirs had been “a very pleasant and harmonious officers’ mess,” until now.

  It was aboard the United States that Uriah was required to witness his first flogging. The practice was commonplace. American naval regulations were based on the British Articles of War, which dated back to the earliest days of the Restoration, when they had been formulated by the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of the British Navy, who later became King James II. Flogging was advocated as the most practical way to maintain discipline and order on shipboard, and its benefits had been touted by commanders for generations. “Low company,” Commodore Edward Thompson had written, “is the bane of all young men, but in a man-of-war you have the collected filth of jails. The scenes of horror and infamy on board are many.” Thus, the horror of flogging was merely another to be endured. By the nineteenth century, when sailors stripped to the waist to work, it was not remarkable to see that the backs of many of them were solidly ridged and bubbled with scar tissue.

  Often a flogging was so severe as to destroy the muscle tissue of a man’s back and shoulders, thus making him unable to work and useless to the Navy. A captain was given great latitude in terms of meting out the penalty and, needless to say, the practice was often abused by sadistic commanders. It was prescribed for such misdeeds as “keeping low company”—a euphemism for drunkenness—for profanity, and “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.”* Flogging could also be ordered for such relatively minor offenses as “spitting in the deck,” or for “looking sullen.” There were also more severe punishments available. Keelhauling was still practiced in the Navy and, for the crime of murder, a man might be tied to the mouth of a cannon. Then the cannon was fired.

  Uriah had been aboard the United States only a few weeks when Captain Crane issued the order for all hands to appear on deck. A middle-aged gunner’s mate had come back from shoreleave drunk, and had been noisy and abusive. Thirty lashes had been ordered, a relatively moderate sentence. Uriah now saw how, over the centuries, flogging had been perfected to the point where it was almost an art form of its own. The first few blows of the lash softened the muscles of the back. The fourth or fifth blow broke the skin. Then an expert with the lash could direct his blows so that they fell in a symmetrical crisscross pattern, so that the flesh of the back was cut in equal diamond-shaped pieces. An alternate stood by in case the first man wielding the lash grew tired. Also, several extra “cats” were provided so that when one of them grew too slippery from blood to be gripped, another could be substituted. Men had been known to remain standing through as many as sixty strokes of the lash, but the gunner’s mate, not young, fainted several times during his ordeal, and was unconscious when it was over. He was at last cut down from the rack where he had been tied, spread-eagled, and pails of salt water were poured over his raw and bleeding flesh.

  Uriah, sickened by the hideous spectacle, nonetheless forced himself to watch it, never once diverting his eyes. For weeks after the experience, he could talk of nothing else but the brutality of flogging as a punishment. This did little to further endear him to his fellow officers. Not only was he a Jew, but there was also something subversive about him. It was whispered that Uriah Levy disapproved of Navy discipline, but Uriah had found another crusade.

  Uriah had been able to make only one friend on the ship, its executive officer, a young man named Thomas Catesby Jones, who had counseled him: “Do your duty as an officer and a gentleman. Be civil to all, and the first man who pursues a different course to you, call him to a strict and proper account.” It was good advice, but advice that was difficult for Uriah to follow. One night, for example, when Uriah was st
anding watch on deck, he saw two young cabin boys dash up a companionway, pursued, it appeared, by a boatswain’s mate named Porter, who held what looked like a whip in his hand. When Uriah halted Porter, and asked him why he was whipping the boys, Porter answered him in what Uriah considered an “insolent and mocking” tone. Uriah slapped Porter across the cheek with the back of his hand. Within an hour, Uriah was called before his superior officers and—in the presence of Porter—was asked to explain his actions. Uriah considered this a severe breach of Navy etiquette, and cried out, “Sir, I am not to be called to account in this way in front of a boatswain!” Warned that he was being disrespectful, Uriah replied, “And you, sir, are treating me in an equally disrespectful manner.” Uriah was then ordered to his cabin and warned, “You will hear more of this.” He did—his second court-martial, in which he was charged with disobedience of orders, contempt of a superior officer, and unofficerlike conduct. The president of the court-martial was Captain Crane, a circumstance not likely to benefit the defendant. He was found guilty on all three charges and sentenced to be “dismissed from the U.S.S. Frigate United States and not allowed to serve on board.”

  Actually, such a sentence—over such a petty matter—was so unusual as to be considered irregular, and when the case was reviewed by the naval commander in chief, President James Monroe reversed the sentence. But when this news reached Uriah Levy he was already in trouble again over a matter that was, if anything, even more trifling. This time it was a rowboat. Lieutenant Levy had ordered a boat to row him ashore. Told that his boat was ready, he arrived on deck. When he was about to board the boat, another lieutenant, named Williamson, told him the boat was not his. Uriah insisted it was. Williamson repeated that it wasn’t. Presently both men were shouting epithets at each other, including “Liar!” “Scoundrel!” “Rascal!” “Coward!” and so on. In a rage, Uriah went back to his cabin and dashed off the following note to Williamson: