Did you ever, by any chance, leave the Boston State House by the back door? If so, you found yourself in a quiet and rather shabby thoroughfare, cobble-paved and lined on the farther side by old-fashioned red-brick houses, with white, brass-knockered doors, and iron balconies, and green blinds. That is Derne Street. Though a man standing on Boston Common could break one of its violet-glass windows with a well thrown ball, it is, as it were, a placid backwater of the busy streams of commerce which flow so noisily a few rods away. I wonder how many of the smug frock-coated politicians who hurry through it as a short cut daily have any idea how it got its name; I wonder if any of the people who live upon it know. Though the exploit which this Boston byway was named to commemorate has been overlooked by nearly all our historians, perhaps because its scene was laid in a remote and barbarous country, yet it was afeat which, for picturesqueness, daring, and indomitable courage, is deserving of a more generous share of the calcium light of public appreciation. Though I am perfectly aware that history only too often makes dull reading, this chronicle, I promise you, is as bristling with romance and adventure as a hedgehog is with quills.
You must understand, in the first place, that the declining years of the eighteenth century found a perfectly astounding state of affairs prevailing in the Mediterranean, where the four Barbary states—Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli—which stretched along its African shore, collected tribute from every nation whose vessels sailed that sea as methodically as a street-car conductor collects fares. Asserting that they were no common, vulgar buccaneers who plundered vessels indiscriminately, the Barbary corsairs, claiming for themselves the virtual ownership of the Mediterranean, turned it into a sort of maritime toll-road, and professed themselves at war with all who refused to pay roundly for using it. Nor was their boast that they were the masters of the Middle Sea a vain one, scores of captured merchantmen and thousands of European slaves laboring under the African sun proving indubitably that they were amply capable of enforcing their demands.As far as the question of economy was concerned, it was about as cheap for a nation to be at war with these bandits of the sea as at peace, for so heavy was the tribute they demanded that their friendship came almost as high as their enmity. It cost Spain, at that time a rich and powerful empire, upward of three million dollars to obtain peace with the Dey of Algiers in 1786. Though England boasted herself mistress of the seas, and in token thereof English admirals carried brooms at their mastheads, she nevertheless spent four hundred thousand dollars annually in propitiating these African despots. Previous to the Revolution there were close on a hundred American vessels, manned by more than twelve hundred seamen, in the Mediterranean, but with the withdrawal of British protection this commerce was entirely abandoned. The ink was scarcely dry on the treaty of peace, however, before we had despatched diplomatic agents to the Barbary coast to purchase the friendship of its rulers, and had taken our place in the line of regular contributors. We were in good company, too, for England, France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, and the Italian states had been paying tribute so long that they had acquired the habit. Think of it, my friends! Every great seafaringnation in the world meekly paying tribute to a few thousand Arab cutthroats for the privilege of using one of the seven seas, and humbly apologizing if the payment happened to become overdue!
Our friendly relations with the Dey of Algiers were of short duration, however, and by 1793 his swift-sailing, heavily armed cruisers had captured thirteen American vessels, and sixscore American slaves were at work on the fortifications of his capital. In his prison-yard, indeed, one could hear every American inflection, from the nasal twang of Maine to the drawl of Carolina. After two years of procrastination, Congress, spurred to action by public indignation, purchased the liberty of the captives and peace with Algiers for eight hundred thousand dollars, though the Dey remarked gloomily, as he scrawled his Arabic flourish at the foot of the treaty: "If I keep on making peace at this rate, there will soon be no one left to fight. Then how shall I occupy my corsairs? What shall I do with my fighting men? If they have no one else to rob and slaughter, they will rob and slaughter me!"
The Bashaw of Tripoli at this time was a peculiarly insolent and tyrannical Arab named Yussuf Karamanli, who had gained the throne by theeffective method of winning over the body-guard, quietly surrounding the palace one night, and deposing his elder brother, Ahmet, whom he promptly exiled. Despite the annual tribute of twenty-two thousand dollars which we were paying to the Bashaw, not to mention the seventeen thousand dollars' worth of presents which we presented biennially to the officers and officials of his court, he complained most bitterly to the American consul at Tripoli that he was not getting as much as his neighboring rulers, and that unless the matter was remedied immediately, he would have to get some American slaves to teach him English. Now, Yussuf was a bad man to have for an enemy, for his cruisers were numerous and loaded to the gunwales with pirates who would rather fight than eat, and he had, in addition, the reputation of being most inconsiderate to those sailors who fell into his hands, sometimes going so far as to wall a few of them up in the fortifications which he was constantly building. To put it bluntly, he was not popular outside of his own circle. As Mr. Cathcart, the American consul, did not take his demands for a larger tribute very seriously, the Bashaw wrote to President Jefferson direct, mincing no words in saying that the American government had better grant his request, and bequick about it, or American seamen would find the Mediterranean exceedingly unhealthy for them.
Incredible as it may seem in this day and age, the authorities at Washington ordered a vessel to be loaded with the arms, ammunition, and naval stores demanded by the Bashaw, their total value being thirty-four thousand dollars, and hurriedly despatched it to Tripoli, with profuse apologies for the delay. A few months later the Bashaw, who evidently knew a good thing when he saw it, suggested that a token of our esteem for him in the form of jewels would be highly acceptable, whereupon the American minister in London was instructed to purchase jewelry to the value of ten thousand dollars and have it hurried to Tripoli by special messenger. Emboldened by his undreamed-of success in shaking the republican tree, the Bashaw reached the very height of audacity by again sending a peremptory note to President Jefferson, demanding that the United States immediately present him with a thirty-six-gun war-ship! As no attention was paid to this modest request (and in view of the other outrageous concessions made by our government, it is somewhat surprising that this demand was not granted also), the Bashaw ordered the flagstaff of the American consulate to be chopped down as a sign of war,and turned his corsairs loose on American commerce in the Mediterranean. The war opened most disastrously for the United States, for a few months later the frigatePhiladelphiaran aground in the harbor of Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew. No wonder the Bashaw went to the mosque that day to give thanks to Allah, for had he not received an even larger war-ship than he had demanded, and did he not have two hundred American slaves to instruct him in the English tongue? "God is great!" exclaimed the Bashaw devoutly, as he knelt on his silken prayer-rug, and "God is great!" echoed the rows of corsairs who knelt behind him.
It was shortly after this American misfortune that William Eaton, soldier, diplomat, and Indian-fighter, swaggered upon the scene, and things began to happen with a rapidity that made the Bashaw's turbaned head whirl. By birth and upbringing Eaton was a Connecticut Yankee, and he possessed all the shrewdness, hardihood, and perseverance so characteristic of that race. The son of a schoolmaster farmer, before he was sixteen he had run away from home to join the Continental Army, which he left at the close of the Revolution with the chevrons of a sergeant on hiscoat-sleeve. Far-sighted enough to see the value of a college education, he went from the camp straight to the college classroom. Graduating from Dartmouth in 1790, he re-entered the army as a captain, served against the Indians in Georgia and Ohio, and in 1798 received an appointment as American consul at Tunis. Resolute, energetic, and daring, impatient with any one who did not agree with his views, no better man could have been selected for the place. Thoroughly understanding the Arab character, from the very outset he took a high hand in his dealings with the Tunisian ruler. He alternately quarrelled with and patronized the Bey, bullyragged his ministers, and actually horsewhipped an insolent official of the court in the palace courtyard, for five years keeping up an uninterrupted series of altercations, provocations, and procrastinations over the payment of tribute-money. He acted with such energy and boldness, however, that he secured to the commerce of his country complete immunity from the attacks of Tunisian cruisers, and made the name American respected on that part of the Barbary coast at least. In 1801, as I have already remarked, the American flagstaff in the adjoining kingdom of Tripoli came crashing down at the Bashaw's order, and war promptly beganbetween that country and the United States. Two years later the Bey of Tunis, harried beyond endurance by the half-insolent, half-patronizing fashion in which Eaton treated him, ordered that gentleman to leave the country.
The frigate Philadelphia ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew.The frigate Philadelphia ran aground in the harbor of Tripoli, the Tripolitans capturing Captain Bainbridge and his entire crew.
Returning to the United States, Eaton went immediately to Washington and laid before President Jefferson and his Cabinet a scheme for bringing the war with Tripoli to a successful conclusion, and exchanging our humiliating position as a contributor to a gang of pirates for one more consistent with American ideals. The plan which he proposed was, briefly, that the United States should assist in restoring to the Tripolitan throne the exiled Bashaw, Ahmet Karamanli, on the understanding that, upon his restoration, the exaction of tribute from the American government and the depredations on American commerce should cease. Eaton was outspoken in urging the desirability of carrying out this plan, arguing that the dethronement of one of the Barbary despots would impress the people of all that region as nothing else could do. I can see him standing there beside the long table in the Cabinet room of the White House, his lean Yankee face aglow with enthusiasm, his every motion bespeaking confidence in himself and his plan, while Jefferson andhis sedate, conservative advisers lean far back in their chairs and regard this visionary half curiously, half amusedly, as he outlines his schemes for overturning thrones and reapportioning kingdoms. From the President and his Cabinet he received the sort of treatment which timid governments are apt to bestow on men of spirit and action. He was given to understand that he was at liberty to carry out his plans, but that, if he was successful, the government would take all the credit, and that, if he failed, he would have to take all the blame. The only way to explain the astounding apathy of the American government to events in the Mediterranean is that a bitter political struggle was then in progress in the United States, and that the very remoteness of the theatre of war probably lessened its importance in the eyes of the administration. At any rate, President Jefferson signed the appointment of Eaton as American naval agent in the Mediterranean, and, happy as a schoolboy at the beginning of the long vacation, at the wide latitude of action conferred upon him by this purposely vague commission, he sailed a few days later with the American fleet for Egypt. His great adventure had begun.
Aware that the dethroned Bashaw had fled to Cairo, Eaton landed at Alexandria, and, hasteningto the Egyptian capital by camel, succeeded in locating the exiled Ahmet, whom he found in the depths of poverty and despair. Seated cross-legged beside him in a native coffee-house, Eaton outlined his plan and proposition. He told Ahmet that the United States would undertake to restore him to the Tripolitan throne upon his agreeing to repay the expenses of the expedition immediately upon his restoration, and upon the condition that Eaton should be commander-in-chief of the land forces throughout the campaign, Ahmet and his followers to promise him implicit obedience. Ahmet snapped at the chance, slim though it was, to regain his kingdom, as a starving dog snaps at a proffered bone. Eaton's plan of campaign was as simple as it was reckless. He proposed to recruit a force of Greek and Arab mercenaries, officered by Americans, in Alexandria, and, following the North African coast-line westward across the Libyan Desert, to surprise and capture Derna (or, as it was spelled in those days, Derne), the capital of the easternmost and richest province of Tripoli. With Derna as a base of operations, and with the co-operation of the American fleet, he held that it would be a comparatively simple matter to push on along the coast, taking in turn Benghazi, Tobruk, and the city of Tripoli itself.The chief merit of the scheme lay in its sheer audacity, for of all the leaders who have invaded Africa, this unknown American was the only one who had the courage to face the perils of a march across a waterless, trackless, sun-scorched, and uninhabited desert. But there was in Eaton the stuff of which great conquerors are made, and instead of letting his mind dwell on the dangers which the desert had to offer, he dreamed of the triumphs which awaited him beyond it.
To raise the men for so hazardous an expedition, Eaton had need of all the energy and magnetism at his command, alternately employing the specious promises of a recruiting sergeant and the persuasive arguments of a campaign orator. On March 3, 1805, Eaton and the man to whom he had promised a kingdom reviewed their forlorn hope—and it was very forlorn indeed—at a spot called the Arab's Tower, some forty miles southwest of Alexandria. I doubt if so strangely assorted a force ever marched and fought under the shadow of our flag. The army, if army it could be called, consisted of eight Americans besides Eaton: Lieutenant O'Barron, Sergeant Peck, and six marines borrowed from the American fleet; thirty-four Greeks, who went along professedly because they wanted to fight the Moslem, but really becausethey needed the money; twenty-five Egyptian Copts, Christians at least in name, who claimed to be trained artillerymen, and to lend color to their assertion brought with them a small brass field-gun; those of Ahmet's personal adherents who had fled with him into exile, numbering about ninety men; and a squadron of Arab mercenaries, whose services had been obtained by the promise of unlimited opportunities for loot—these with the drivers of the baggage-camels bringing the total strength of the "Army of North Africa" to less than four hundred men. With this motley and ill-disciplined force behind him, and six hundred miles of yellow sand in front, Eaton turned his horse's nose Tripoliward, so that at about the time President Jefferson was delivering his second inaugural address the adventurous American was leading his little army across the desert, with the courage of an Alexander the Great, to conquer an African kingdom.
The task which lay before him was one which great military leaders, all down the ages, had declared impossible. For a distance equal to that from Philadelphia to Chicago stretched an unbroken expanse of pitiless, sun-scorched desert, boasting no single living thing save an occasional band of nomad Arabs or a herd of gazelles. Midwaybetween Alexandria and Derna was the insignificant port of Bomba, where, according to a prearranged plan, theArgus, under Captain Isaac Hull—the same who became famous a few years later for his victories over the British in the War of 1812—was to meet the expedition with supplies. Unless you have seen the desert it will be difficult for you to appreciate how hazardous this adventure really was. Imagine a sea of yellow sand with billow after billow stretching in every direction as far as the eye can see; without a tree, a shrub, a plant, a blade of grass; without a river, a brook, a drop of water except, at long intervals, a stagnant, green-scummed pool; the air like a blast from an open furnace-door and overhead a sky pitiless as molten brass! During the seven weeks of the march the thermometer never dropped during the day below 120 degrees.
The arrangements for the transport had been left to Ahmet Pasha, and it was not until the expedition was two hundred miles into the desert, and the camel-drivers abruptly halted and announced that they were going back to Egypt, that Eaton learned that they had been engaged only to that point. As the desertion of the camel-drivers and the consequent inability to transport the tents, ammunition, and supplies would wreck the expedition,Eaton pleaded with the men to stick by him two or three days longer, until he could reach an encampment of Arabs with whom he could make another contract. This they consented to do on condition that they were paid in advance. By borrowing every piaster which his Americans and Greeks had to lend, Eaton succeeded in raising six hundred and seventy-three dollars, and with this the camel-drivers were apparently content. Nothing shows more strikingly the shoe-string on which the enterprise was being run than the fact that this unexpected disbursement reduced Eaton's war-chest to three Venetian sequins—equivalent to six dollars and fifty-four cents! Despite this payment, all but four of the camel-drivers deserted the very next night, and the four that remained sullenly refused to go any farther. In the darkness of the following night they, too, quietly untethered their camels and slipped silently away. Here, then, were three hundred and fifty men, with a rapidly diminishing supply of food and water and absolutely no means of transport, as completely marooned as though they were on a desert island.
To make matters worse, if such a thing were possible, Eaton learned that Ahmet had induced his Tripolitans and the Arabs to refuse to advanceuntil they had news of the arrival of theArgusat Bomba. Eaton, striding across to Ahmet's tent, shook his fist menacingly in the face of the cringing Tripolitan. "I know you're a coward," said he, "and I suspect that you're a traitor and I've a damned good mind to have you shot." The Pasha, now thoroughly frightened, replied that his men were too tired to march any farther. "You can take your choice between marching and starving," Eaton retorted, turning on his heel, and placing a guard of American marines around the tent containing the provisions, he ordered them to shoot the first Arab who approached it. This resolute action had an immediate effect, for the Pasha and his men lost their tired feeling with amazing quickness, fifty of the camel-drivers returned, and the desperate march was resumed. It was but a day or two, however, before the Arabs became as turbulent and unruly as ever. Then another mutiny broke out, Ahmet and his people announcing that they preferred to be well-fed cowards rather than starved heroes, and that they were going back to the flesh-pots of Egypt forthwith. Just as they were on the point of departure, however, a messenger who had been despatched to Bomba reached camp with the news that theArguswas awaiting them in theharbor. These unexpected delays had wholly exhausted the supplies, which were slim enough, goodness knows, in the beginning, so that during the remainder of the march to Bomba they were compelled to kill some of the camels for food, living upon them and upon such roots as they could gather on the way.
It was a half-starved and utterly exhausted expedition that plodded up the sand dunes which overlook the little port of Bomba, so what must their despair have been when they found no vessel awaiting them in the harbor, and that the town itself had been deserted. Captain Hull, apparently having given them up as lost, had departed. This time a more serious mutiny occurred, the Arabs, desperate with hunger and furious from disappointment, preparing to attack Eaton and his handful of Europeans. Appreciating the peril of his position, Eaton hastily formed his men into a hollow square. Just as the Arabs were preparing to charge down upon them the musket of one of the marines was prematurely discharged, the bullet whistling in uncomfortable proximity to the Pasha's ear. So terror-stricken was that worthy that he called off his men and attempted to parley with Eaton, who, standing alone well in front of his command, relieved his mind by tellingAhmet his opinion of him in what, according to the accounts of those who heard it, must have been an epic in objurgation. While the two factions were growling at each other like angry bull-dogs one of the Americans, happening to glance seaward, suddenly broke the dangerous tension by shouting: "A sail! A sail!" Hull, true to his promise, was returning, and the expedition was saved. Supplies were quickly landed from theArgusfor the starving men; with full stomachs the courage of the Arabs returned, and Eaton and his little band once more turned their faces toward the setting sun.
On the evening of April 25 the vanguard sighted the walls of Derna. A feat that veteran soldiers had jeered at as impossible had been accomplished, and Eaton, without the loss of a man, had brought his army across six hundred miles of desert, in the heat of an African spring, and in the remarkable time, when the scantiness of the rations and the many delays are considered, of fifty-two days. With their goal actually in sight, still another mutiny took place, the craven Arabs claiming that they were too few in number to attempt the capture of a walled and heavily garrisoned city, and it was not until Eaton promised them a bonus of two thousand dollars if they succeeded in takingit that they could be induced to advance. The more one learns of this man the more one must admire his unfailing resource, his tenacity of purpose, and his bull-dog courage; for, in addition to the appalling natural obstacles which he overcame, he was constantly harried by intrigue, treachery, and cowardice.
On the morning of the 26th a message was sent to the governor of Derna, under a flag of truce, offering him full amnesty if he would surrender and declare his allegiance to his rightful sovereign, Ahmet. The answer that came back was as curt as it was conclusive: "My head or yours," it read. Just as the sun was rising above the sand-dunes the following morning theArgus, theNautilus, and theHornetswept grandly into the harbor, their crews at quarters, their decks cleared for action, and the red-white-and-blue ensign of the oversea republic floating defiantly from their main trucks. Under cover of a terrific bombardment by the war-ships, Eaton's force advanced upon the city, planning, with their single field-piece, to effect a breach in the walls and carry the place by storm. So murderous was the fire that the Tripolitan riflemen poured into them from the walls and housetops, however, that they were thrown into confusion, their singlepiece of artillery was put out of action by a well-directed cannon-shot, and Eaton himself was severely wounded. Seeing that his raw troops were on the verge of panic, and knowing that his only chance of holding them together lay in a charge, Eaton ordered his buglers to sound the advance, and with a cheer like the roar of a storm his whole line—Americans, Greeks, and Arabs—swept forward on a run. "Come on, boys!" shouted Eaton, as he raced ahead, sword in one hand, pistol in the other. "At the double! Follow me! Follow me!" And follow him they did. Cheering like madmen they crossed a field swept by a withering rifle-fire. They clambered over the ramparts, and by the very fury of their assault drove back the defenders, who outnumbered them twenty to one. They fought with them hand to hand, sabre against cimiter, bayonet against clubbed matchlock. Swarming into the batteries, they cut down the gunners and turned their guns upon the town. The defences of the city once in his possession, Eaton directed an assault upon the palace, where the governor had taken refuge, utilizing his Arab cavalry meanwhile to cut off the retreat of the flying garrison. Before the sun had disappeared into the Mediterranean, Eaton, at a cost of only fourteen killed and wounded (all ofwhom, by the way, were Americans and Greeks), had made himself master of Derna. His moment of triumph came when, still begrimed with dirt and powder, his arm in a blood-stained sling, he stood with drawn sword before the line formed by his ragged soldiers and the trim bluejackets from the fleet, and, watching a ball of bunting creep up that palace flagstaff from which so recently had flaunted the banner of Tripoli, saw it suddenly break out into the Stars and Stripes. Our flag, for the first and only time, flew above a fortification on that side of the Atlantic.
Reinforced by a party of bluejackets from the fleet, Eaton wasted not a moment in preparing the city for defence. He was none too soon, either, for the Bashaw, learning of the loss of his richest province, despatched an overwhelming force for its recapture. This army arrived before the walls of Derna on May 13, and immediately made an assault, which Eaton repulsed, as he did a second one a few weeks later. By this time the news of Eaton's victory had spread across North Africa as fire spreads in dry grass, and thousands of natives, many of them deserters from the Bashaw's forces, hastened to assert their undying loyalty and to offer their services to Ahmet, for your Arab is far-seeing and takes good care to befound on the side which he believes to be the winning one. With his army thus largely augmented, with ample supplies, with Derna as a base of operations, and with his own prestige equivalent to an additional regiment, Eaton had completed the preparations for continuing his victorious advance along the African coast-line. There is little doubt, indeed, that with the co-operation of the fleet he could have marched on to Benghazi, taken that city as easily as he did Derna, and in due time planted the American flag on the castle of Tripoli itself.
So it was with undisguised amazement and indignation that on June 12 he received orders from Commodore Rodgers to evacuate Derna and to withdraw his forces from Tripoli, Colonel Tobias Lear, the American consul at Algiers, having, in the face of Eaton's successes, signed an inglorious treaty of peace with the Bashaw of Tripoli. No more degrading terms were ever assented to by a civilized power. The Bashaw at first demanded two hundred thousand dollars for the release of Bainbridge and thePhiladelphia'screw, but as Eaton had captured a large number of Tripolitans in the storming of Derna, an exchange was eventually arranged, the United States agreeing to pay the pirate ruler sixty thousand dollars to boot.The city of Derna and the great province of which it was the capital were surrendered without so much as the mention of an equivalent, not even the relinquishment of the ransom of the American prisoners. The unfortunate Ahmet Pasha, who had been decoyed from his refuge in Egypt on the promise of American assistance in effecting his restoration, was deserted at a moment when success was actually ours, and had to fly for his life to Sicily, his wife and children being held as hostages by his brother and the heads of his adherents being exposed on the walls of the Tripolitan capital. Thus shamefully ended one of the most gallant and romantic exploits in the history of American arms; thus terminated an episode which, more than any other agency, compelled the rulers of the Barbary coast to respect the citizens and fear the wrath of the United States. Though an expedition of scarcely four hundred men may sound insignificant, the humbling of a Barbary power was an achievement which every European nation had attempted and which none of them had accomplished.
Disappointed and disgusted, Eaton returned to the United States in November, 1805, to find himself a national hero. From the moment he set his foot on American soil he was greeted withcheers wherever he appeared; it was "roses, roses all the way." The cities of Washington and Richmond honored him with public dinners; Massachusetts, "desirous to perpetuate the remembrance of an heroic enterprise," granted him ten thousand acres of land in Maine; Boston named a street after the city which he had captured against such fearful odds; President Jefferson lauded him in his annual message; and in recognition of his services in effecting the release of some Danish captives in Tripoli, he was presented by the King of Denmark with a jewelled snuff-box. He was complimented everywhere except at the seat of government, and received every honor except that which he most deserved—a vote of thanks from Congress. Though his expedition had involved an expense of twenty-three thousand dollars, for which he had given his personal notes and the repayment of which exhausted all his means, Congress never reimbursed him. Notwithstanding the astounding indifference and ingratitude of the nation on whose flag he had shed such lustre, he indignantly rejected the advances of Aaron Burr, who tried ineffectually to enlist him in his conspiracy to establish an empire beyond the Mississippi, and died, poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, on June 1, 1811. Thoughthe most modest of monuments marks his resting-place in Brimfield churchyard, and though not one in a hundred thousand of his countrymen have so much as heard his name, his fame still lives in that wild and far-off region where it took an Italian army of forty thousand men to repeat the exploit which he accomplished with four hundred.
We leaned over the rail of theHamburg, Colonel Roosevelt and I, and watched the olive hills of Fayal rise from the turquoise sea. Houses white as chalk began to peep from among the orange groves; what looked at first sight to be a yellow snake turned into a winding road; then we rounded a headland, and the U-shaped harbor, edged by a sleepy town and commanded by a crumbling fortress, lay before us. "In there," said the ex-President, pointing eagerly as our anchor rumbled down, "was waged one of the most desperate sea-fights ever fought, and one of the least known; in there lies the wreck of theGeneral Armstrong, the privateer that stood off twenty times her strength in British men and guns, and thereby saved Louisiana from invasion. It is a story that should make the thrills of patriotism run up and down the back of every right-thinking American."
Everything about her, from the carved and gilded figure-head, past the rakish, slanting maststo the slender stern, indicated the privateer. As she stood into the roadstead of Fayal late in the afternoon of September 26, 1814, black-hulled and white-sparred, carrying an amazing spread of snowy canvas, she made a picture that brought a grunt of approval even from the surly Azorian pilot. Hardly had the red-white-and-blue ensign showing her nationality fluttered to her peak before a harbor skiff bearing the American consul, Dabney, shot out from shore; for these were troublous times on the Atlantic, and letters from the States were few and far between. Rounding her stern, he read, with a thrill of pride, "General Armstrong, New York."
The very name stood for romance, valor, hair-breadth escape. For of all the two-hundred-odd privateers that put out from American ports at the outbreak of the War of 1812 to prey on British commerce, none had won so high a place in the popular imagination as this trim-built, black-hulled schooner. Built for speed, and carrying a spread of canvas at which most skippers would have stood aghast, she was the fastest and best-handled privateer afloat, and had always been able to show her heels to the enemy on the rare occasions when the superior range of her seven guns had failed to pound him into submission. Herlist of captures had made rich men of her owners, and had caused Lloyd's to raise the insurance on a vessel merely crossing the English Channel to thirteen guineas in the hundred.
The story of her desperate encounter off the mouth of the Surinam River with the British sloop of warCoquette, with four times her weight in guns, had fired the popular imagination as had few other events of the war. Although her commander, Samuel Chester Reid, was not long past his thirtieth birthday, no more skilful navigator or daring fighter ever trod a quarter-deck, and his crew of ninety men—Down-East fishermen, old man-o'-war's men, Creole privateersmen who had fought under Lafitte, reckless adventurers of every sort and kind—would have warmed the heart of bluff old John Paul Jones himself.
Just as dusk was falling the officer on watch reported a sail in the offing, and Reid and the consul, hurrying on deck, made out the British brigCarnation, of eighteen guns, with two other war-vessels in her wake: the thirty-eight-gun frigateRota, and thePlantagenet, of seventy-four. Now, as the privateer lay in the innermost harbor, where a dead calm prevailed, while the three British ships were fast approaching before the brisk breeze which was blowing outside, Reid, who knew the line which marks foolhardiness fromcourage, appreciating that the chances of his being able to hoist anchor, make sail, and get out of the harbor before the British squadron arrived to block the entrance were almost infinitesimal, decided to stay where he was and trust to the neutrality of the port, a decision that was confirmed by the assurances of Consul Dabney that the British would not dare to attack a vessel lying in a friendly harbor. But therein the consul was mistaken, for throughout the entire duration of the war the British as cynically disregarded the observance of international law and the rights of neutrals as though they did not exist.
TheCarnation, learning the identity of the American vessel from the pilot, hauled close into the harbor, not letting go her anchor until she was within pistol-shot of theGeneral Armstrong. Instantly a string of signal-flags fluttered from her mast, and the message was promptly acknowledged by her approaching consorts, which thereupon proceeded to stand off and on across the mouth of the harbor, thus barring any chance of the privateer making her escape. So great was the commotion which ensued on theCarnation'sdeck that Reid, becoming suspicious of the Englishman's good faith, warped his ship under the very guns of the Portuguese fort.
About eight o'clock, just as dark had fallen,Captain Reid saw four boats slip silently from the shadow of theCarnationand pull toward him with muffled oars. If anything more were needed to convince him of their hostile intentions, the moon at that moment appeared from behind a cloud and was reflected by the scores of cutlasses and musket-barrels in all four of the approaching boats. As they came within hailing distance Reid swung himself into the shrouds.
"Boats there!" he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands. "Come no nearer! For your own safety I warn you!"
At his hail the boats halted, as though in indecision, and their commanders held a whispered consultation. Then, apparently deciding to take the risk, and hoping, no doubt, to catch the privateer unprepared, they gave the order: "Give way all!" The oars caught the water together, and the four boats, loaded to the gunwales with sailors and marines, came racing on.
"Let 'em have it, boys!" roared Reid, and at the word a stream of flame leaped from the dark side of the privateer and a torrent of grape swept the crowded boats, almost annihilating one of the crews and sending the others, crippled and bleeding, back to the shelter of their ship.
By this time the moon had fully risen, andshowed the heights overlooking the harbor to be black with spectators, among whom were the Portuguese governor and his staff; but the castle, either from weakness or fear, showed no signs of resenting the outrageous breach of neutrality to which the port had been subjected. Angered and chagrined at their repulse, the British now threw all caution aside. The long-boats and gigs of all three ships were lowered, and into them were crowded nearly four hundred men, armed with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses. Reid, seeing that an attack was to be made in force, proceeded to warp his vessel still closer inshore, mooring her stem and stern within a few rods of the castle. Moving two of the nine-pounders across the deck, and cutting ports for them in the bulwarks, he brought five guns, in addition to his famous "long tom," to bear on the enemy. With cannon double-shotted, boarding-nets triced up, and decks cleared for action, the crew of theGeneral Armstronglay down beside their guns to await the British attack.
It was not long in coming. Just as the bells of the old Portuguese cathedral boomed twelve, a dozen boats, loaded to the water's edge with sailors and marines, whose burnished weapons were like so many mirrors under the rays of themoon, swung around a promontory behind which they had been forming and, with measured stroke of oars, came sweeping down upon the lone privateer. The decks of theGeneral Armstrongwere black and silent, but round each gun clustered its crew of half-naked gunners, and behind the bulwarks knelt a line of cool, grim riflemen, eyes sighting down their barrels, cheeks pressed close against the butts. Up and down behind his men paced Reid, the skipper, cool as a winter's morning.
"Hold your fire until I give the word, boys," he cautioned quietly. "Wait till they get within range, and then teach 'em better manners."
Nearer and nearer came the shadowy line of boats, the oars rising and falling with the faultless rhythm which marks the veteran man-o'-war's man. On they came, and now the waiting Americans could make out the gilt-lettered hat-bands of the bluejackets and the white cross-belts and the brass buttons on the tunics of the marines. A moment more and those on theArmstrong'sdeck could see, beneath the shadow of the leather shakoes, the tense, white faces of the British boarders.
"Now, boys!" roared Captain Reid; "let 'em have it for the honor of the flag!" and from the side of the privateer leaped a blast of flame andlead, cannon and musketry crashing in chorus. Never were men taken more completely by surprise than were those British sailors, for they had expected that Reid, relying on the neutrality of the port, would be quite unprepared to resist them. But, though the American fire had caused terrible havoc in the crowded boats, with the bull-dog courage for which the British sailors were justly famous, they kept indomitably on. "Give way! Give way all!" screamed the boy-coxswains, and in the face of a withering rifle-fire the sailors, recovering from their momentary panic, bent grimly to their oars. Through a perfect hail-storm of lead, right up to the side of the privateer, they swept. Six boats made fast to her quarter and six more to her bow. "Boarders up and away!" bellowed the officers, hacking desperately at the nettings with their swords, and firing their pistols point-blank into the faces they saw above them. TheArmstrong'sgunners, unable to depress the muzzles of their guns enough so that they could be brought to bear, lifted the solid shot and dropped them from the rail into the British boats, mangling their crews and crashing through their bottoms. From the shelter of the bulwarks the American riflemen fired and loaded and fired again, while the negro cook and his assistantplayed their part in the defence by pouring kettles of boiling water over the British who were attempting to scramble up the sides, sending them back into their boats again scalded and groaning with pain.
There has been no fiercer struggle in all the annals of the sea. The Yankee gunners, some of them gray-haired men who had seen service with John Paul Jones in theBon Homme Richard, changed from cannon-balls to grape, and from grape to bags of bullets, so that by the time the British boats drew alongside they were little more than floating shambles. The dark waters of the harbor were lighted up by spurts of flame from muskets and cannon; the high, shrill yell of the Yankee privateersmen rose above the deep-throated hurrahs of the English sailors; the air was filled with the shouts and oaths of the combatants, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the incessant trampling of struggling men upon the decks, the splash of dead and injured falling overboard, the clash and clang of steel on steel, and all the savage, overwhelming turmoil of a struggle to the death. Urged on by their officers' cries of "No quarter! Give the Yankees no quarter!" the British division which had attacked the bow hacked its way through the nettings, and succeededby sheer weight of numbers in getting a footing on the deck, all three of the American lieutenants being killed or disabled in the terrific hand-to-hand struggle that ensued.
At this critical juncture, when the Americans on the forecastle, their officers fallen and their guns dismounted, were being pressed slowly back by overwhelming numbers, Captain Reid, having repulsed the attack on theArmstrong'squarter, led the after division forward at a run, the privateersmen, though outnumbered five to one, driving the English overboard with the resistless fury of their onset. As the British boats, now laden with dead and dying, attempted to withdraw into safety, they were raked again and again with showers of lead; two of them sank, two of them were captured by the Americans. Finally, with nearly three hundred of their men—three-quarters of the cutting-out force—dead or wounded, the British, now cowed and discouraged, pulled slowly and painfully out of range. Some of the most brilliant victories the British navy has ever gained were far less dearly purchased.
At three in the morning Reid received a note from Consul Dabney asking him to come ashore. He then learned that the governor had sent a letter to the British commander asking him todesist from further hostilities, as several buildings in the town had been injured by the British fire and a number of the inhabitants wounded. To this request Captain Lloyd had rudely replied that he would have the Yankee privateer if he had to knock the town into a heap of ruins. Returning on board, Reid ordered the dead and wounded taken ashore, and told the crew to save their personal belongings.
At daybreak theCarnation, being of lighter draught than the other vessels, stood close in for a third attack, opening on the privateer with every gun she could bring to bear. But even in those days the fame of American gunners was as wide as the seas, and so well did the crew of theGeneral Armstronguphold their reputation that theCarnationwas compelled to beat a demoralized retreat, with her rigging cut away, her foremast about to fall, and with several gaping holes between wind and water. But Reid, appreciating that there was absolutely no chance of escape, and recognizing that further resistance would entail an unnecessary sacrifice of his men's lives, by which nothing could be gained, ordered the crew to throw the nine-pounders which had rendered such valiant service overboard and to leave the ship. The veteran gunners, who were as much attachedto their great black guns as a cavalryman is to his horse, obeyed the order with tears ploughing furrows down their powder-begrimed cheeks. Then Reid with his own hand trained the long-tom down his vessel's hatchway, and pulling the lanyard sent a charge of grape crashing through her bottom, from which she at once began to sink. Ten minutes later, before a British crew could reach her side, theGeneral Armstrongwent to the bottom with her flag still defiantly flying.
Few battles have been fought in which the odds were so unequal, and in few battles have the relative losses been so astounding. The three British war-ships carried two thousand men and one hundred and thirty guns, and of the four hundred men who composed the boarding party they lost, according to their own accounts, nearly three hundred killed and wounded. Of the American crew of ninety men, two were killed and seven wounded. This little crew of privateersmen had, in other words, put out of action more than three times their own number of British, and had added one more laurel to our chaplet of triumphs on the sea.
The Americans had scarcely gained the shore before Captain Lloyd—who, by the way, had been so severely wounded in the leg that amputation was necessary—sent a peremptory message to thegovernor demanding their surrender. But the men who could not be taken at sea were not the men to be captured on land, and the Americans, retreating to the mountainous centre of the island, took possession of a thick-walled convent, over which they hoisted the stars and stripes, and from which they defied British and Portuguese alike to come and take them. No one tried.