Home of the Brave
Page 27
We waited patiently as the gunboats surged forward toward the Tripolitan shore. Plumes of white smoke appeared on the walls of the Tripolitan citadel followed by a thunderous rumble from the foreign cannons. White pillars shot up from the clear blue water as the balls narrowly missed the Vixen on the right of the attack. The Tripolitan cannons from the fortress targeted us next as several Barbary gunboats began to file out of the harbor toward our gunboats in front. The captain ordered a volley and we fired our starboard cannons into the enemy formation. Vixen fired and then Nautilus as we reloaded. One of the pirate gunboats was hit and took fire, burning adrift, and spewing black smoke concealing the boats behind it. Then a cannon report from the fortress targeted us as the projectiles closely missed their mark spraying the deck with water and rocking the ship with a wave caused by the impact. The Constitution returned fire as she discharged her batteries over our ship and impacted into the fortress gun positions. The crew let out a loud cheer as we reloaded to again fix a volley on the enemy gunboats now closing with our own. We fired and the foreign boats were girded with spires of water shooting skyward. Another Tripolitan boat was damaged and listed badly to port. The Tripolitan shore battery let loose a volley of fire targeting Nautilus. The sound of splintering could be heard as several projectiles had hit their mark just as the Argus fired, returning her answer upon the battery. With seemingly most of the fortress guns neutralized, the Constitution and John Adams shifted their fires into the city of Tripoli, ostensibly repaying them with the same hospitality shown for our honored dead.
The gunboats were in close quarters as smoke filled the harbor. We stopped firing to prevent hitting our own gunboats—now it was up to them to eliminate what was left still considerably outnumbered. Men could be heard shouting along with sporadic cannon fire as musket and pistol fire emanated from the smoky water ahead of us.
I looked through the glass standing on the starboard guns as did Captain Thorn. Two gunboats appeared from the smoke cruising toward us, one fired and hit near the boom on the stern splintering part of the gunwale. I immediately gave the command to fire and our cannons hit both of the approaching gunboats directly. Both boats turned back, escaping into the smoke of battle. Reloaded, we stood by to counter another threat. I did not know if our gunboats were winning or losing until Captain Decatur’s Gunboat 5 appeared cruising toward us with a captured gunboat in tow. He came alongside and his men threw the line of the prize boat up to the Enterprise. Captain Decatur shouted, “It’s going well, there are some men on this prize that need attention.” Bat immediately had some of the loblolly boys begin to get the wounded aboard and the captured men were pulled aboard and separated under guard.
Another gunboat broke through the smoke and slowly approached the Enterprise. A boy on the bow was yelling, “Captain Decatur! Captain Decatur!”
He hollered back, “I’m here!”
The gunboat came nearer and the boy shouted, “I’m Midshipman Brown and this is Gunboat 2, I have your brother here—Lieutenant Decatur, badly injured, sir!”
Captain Decatur immediately threw a line and pulled the gunboat in close. He leaped onto Gunboat 2 and found James lying unconscious. He turned to the midshipman and demanded to know who did it.
Brown said, “Sir, we were in a hot contest with a Tripolitan boat when they struck their colors. Lieutenant Decatur boarded the enemy vessel to claim the prize when the corsair captain brandished a pistol and shot your brother then ordered his men to attack! We scarcely escaped, sir.” Captain Decatur asked him to describe the man who shot his brother and he told how he was a very large man in Muslim garb.
Captain Decatur called for volunteers from the Enterprise and I instinctively jumped down onto Gunboat 5.
Mr. Walsh jumped down next to me and said, “Aren’t you trying to get yourself killed again, sir!”
I squinted and retorted, “What about you? Should you stay with the Enterprise?”
He cracked a smile and said as he pointed at Captain Decatur, “I go where he goes.”
I saw Frank spring over from Gunboat 2 and the captain cut the line and we made haste toward the Tripolitan. The captain was enraged, his face flushed, and his eyes almost completely black. I focused forward and I felt a sense of reprisal beginning to overtake me, it seemed contagious. With the enemy gunboat in sight, I realized I did not have my pistol—my only weapon was my cutlass. I felt a fear beginning to take hold and I forced it out of my mind, I told myself, “If all I have is a cutlass, then I’ll slash and stab until my arms ache. I will certainly not go easy.”
Almost to the enemy vessel, it was obvious this would be a challenge. In our haste to invoke revenge, only eleven men had boarded the gunboat before the lines were cut. The corsair looked to have two dozen aboard. Captain Decatur said sternly, “Keep up with me and stay tight together. Don’t separate from the group and don’t stop fighting, understand!”
We all responded loudly, “Aye!” Pulling alongside, Captain Decatur jumped onto the enemy vessel along with the rest of us fighting furiously with every pirate we encountered. I swung my cutlass wildly, cutting down two men as the formation moved toward the center of the boat. The Muslim captain was easy to identify, standing over a head’s length higher than the rest of his crew. The man saw Captain Decatur and plunged a boarding pike at him as the captain deflected the weapon but in the process broke his cutlass. The pirate then lunged at the captain with knife in hand. At that time another pirate hit me across the back of my shoulders with a pike, pushing me to the deck. Bent over, I turned my cutlass and spun around to plunge it into his midsection as he lunged to finish me with his knife. I looked over to see Captain Decatur on the deck with the big man on top of him. He managed to wield his pistol and shoot the man dead, kicking him off him. I heard a shot from behind me and I quickly turned to see a pirate standing over me with a cutlass in one hand and clutching his chest with the other. Grimacing in pain, he dropped to his knees revealing Frank standing behind him with a pistol. Frank! My old shipmate has saved me from certain death! The fighting stopped, and the remaining three men surrendered. Twenty-one pirates were slain on the deck of that gunboat covered in blood. Exhausted, yet I was still shaking with agitation as we made our way back towards the Enterprise.
The Enterprise was not near the reef when we returned. The nearest vessel was the Vixen and we made way for her. Captain Smith on the Vixen told how the Enterprise transported all the wounded men, to include Lieutenant Decatur, to the John Adams. Leaving the captured prize with Vixen, Captain Decatur sailed Gunboat 5 for the John Adams. The Enterprise was along her starboard and we tied up along her port side. She was awaiting our arrival and we quickly tied on. Captain Decatur made his way up the side of the ship and soon disappeared from sight as he boarded. I scurried up the side of the frigate along with the rest of the men on the gunboat and found Captain Decatur amidships with this brother, still unconscious. Dr. Peters was standing nearby and I nodded at him. I had not seen him since he transferred off the Enterprise. He leaned over and whispered something to Captain Decatur. As he sat on the deck and held his brother, a loud cheer could be heard throughout the squadron. The pirates had been soundly defeated with about ten gunboats limping back into port unable to continue to fight. The shore batteries and fortress cannons had been silenced and their city at our mercy. Unfortunately, a complete conquest requires a force to seize and occupy the enemy position—a strength that we did not have. But we did deal them such a blow as to keep them bottled for a while. To be sure, our victory did not come cheap. Many a good sailor lost his life in that harbor, including James that died on the deck of the ship in his brother’s arms.
Frank found me standing on the deck. He walked up to me with tears in his eyes, pulled out my hand, and put the bloody trinity knot in my hand. He said, “I’m sorry for the blood, sir!”
I embraced him and he stated, “You are truly blessed!” Surprised, I replied, “Did the knot bring you luck?”
He smiled and said, �
��It brought you luck—it followed you!”
Confused, I said, “What do you mean?”
Then he told, “You see, when I saw you jump onto the gunboat, I had no intention of going along. But something compelled me to jump, and I did almost without thinking. Then the captain cut the lines so fast that there was no going back. In the fight, I did my best. It all happened so fast.” He paused for a moment as he recollected the event. “I remember rolling on the deck with a pirate and stabbing him. He stopped moving and my hand found a pistol on the deck. That is when I saw a Turk rise up to strike a blow at an unsuspecting victim and I fired the pistol. I did not realize it was you he pursued until he fell. You are blessed!” Then I replied to him, “I’m blessed to have a friend as good as you, Frank!” Then I embraced him. I later thought of what he said, what if he hadn’t found that pistol on the deck? Or what if it was not loaded? Then I would certainly have joined James in death. My steps truly are ordered by the Lord. I wondered why I was spared and what plans did the Lord have for my life.
The following morning, James’s remains were committed to the depths of the Mediterranean in a funeral ceremony conducted by Commodore Preble. Captain Thorn and I stood next to Captain Decatur and Captain Campbell on the John Adams. A sense of pride shrouded the somber occasion as we took inventory of what we had achieved. Word spread that over fifty pirates had been killed and another sixty captured during the fight. Three Barbary gunboats had been sunk, five captured, and the rest severely damaged. The Enterprise and Nautilus had received some minor damage as did two of our own gunboats, but the goal was accomplished.
Many of the citizens of Tripoli vacated their city upon threat of invasion. Several months later a mercenary force of five hundred Christian Greeks and Muslim Arabs attacked the port city of Derne led by eight of our marines achieving what we had never done as a nation before—raising our flag in victory on foreign soil. Some argued that paying mercenaries was akin to paying tribute and payment in either case is still extortion. I thought, as did my fellow officers, that mercenaries limited the high price of American blood while ensuring our enemies pay a price as well in their own blood. Mercenaries could be cheaply bought and there was no shortage of those fighting for pay. Still the victory was tainted, robbed as the pressures to pay a ransom won out and our government agreed to pay sixty thousand dollars for the crew of the Philadelphia and the captured merchantmen. Four years at war and our country’s leaders decided to pay, although they did want to ensure the distinction between a ransom and a tribute. All the same, many of us knew it was temporary, we would surely return to finish another day.
33
Home of the Brave
Sailing back to the United States I thought of Charlene. I was excited to marry her, but I was also not so naive that I didn’t know it had a cost—everything has a cost. I wanted her to have everything she dreamed, and perhaps I could give her most of what she wanted. What her mother feared would come to pass—I would leave her for long periods alone as I went to sea, just as her father did. That left me torn, but she did not go into this engagement unaware. I did love her, and I survived to return—I was content.
The warm rain began hitting my face and I felt someone grab me by the wrist. William asked, “Grandpa, are you all right?”
“Sure, I’m fine,” I replied as several umbrellas began to pop open for the visiting ladies. The speaker, Mr. Davis was reciting the poem by Francis Key to end the ceremony as the rain continued to fall. The last words of his poem…
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Home of the brave…The words echoed through time. Where was the home of the brave? Home was where you came from to be sure. Many of the brave men I’ve known over the span of numerous years came from various states within our nation. But was that really their home? My home was on the deck of the Eagle and the Enterprise during those early years as a young man growing up in a world of mystery, fear, pride, and death. Overcoming fear, not of being afraid, but standing firm in the face of great harm— that was the brave men I stood with. I thought of Charlie Best, Robert McCall, Bart Talbert, Richard Somers, and James Decatur, men whose final homes are in foreign lands and those whose resting places are in the depths of the oceans we patrolled. They are only memories now, but not forgotten by those who fought with them and loved them as brothers—even the difficult men such as Mr. Talbert, Mr. Edwards, and Captain Sterett. I hold them dear in my memory and in my heart—that is the home of the brave. Their spirit lives on in the hearts of those they fought with and for. They live there always.
Were these men forgotten to the chronicles of history? I suppose, but they will always be alive in my memory. The men of my youth—Campbell, Edwards, Duffy, Shaw, Sterett, Bainbridge, Decatur, Batterton, Baker, Potts, Gross, Thorn, Lewis, and many others, all who touched my life, will always be a part of me until I no longer breathe. As the stories are passed down, truths fade into fiction and even legend, even as their importance becomes minimized. No doubt the civilian populace reaped the reward for their bravery and sacrifice. That which is sewn is not always reaped by the sewer. Just as those that do not treasure the seed, may squander their inheritance.