WILLIAM EATON ROLLED UP the pants leg of his homemade general’s uniform and walked out into the surf off Bomba beach. With the sun glinting off his epaulets, he waited for the American boat coming ashore.
An American Flag on Foreign Soil
WILLIAM EATON ROLLED UP the pants leg of his homemade general’s uniform and walked out into the surf off Bomba beach. With the sun glinting off his epaulets, he waited for the American boat coming ashore.
“All was now rejoicing and mutual congratulation,” wrote Midshipman Peck. The sight of the two-masted Argus brought elation that morning to the weary Americans, lifting them from the prospect of starvation or massacre to granting them yet another chance to pursue their unlikely mission.
Eaton and the midshipman stepped aboard the longboat; a dozen sailors rowed them out to the USS Argus, anchored safely offshore. “I enjoyed the pleasure of embracing my messmates,” later recalled Peck, “and sitting down to a comfortable meal which I had not enjoyed for near 40 days.”
Eaton was thrilled to see Hull again, who throughout had remained his steadfast advocate. Hull, like Eaton, hailed from the Massachusetts/Connecticut region with family members residing in both states. At fourteen, he had gone to sea as a cabin boy, and when shipwrecked at sixteen, he had saved his captain’s life. Now thirty-two years old, Hull was known as an adept seaman, with an uncanny knack of squeezing every ounce of speed out of any vessel. “He was a rough boisterous captain of the sea,” noted a contemporary, adding, “his manners were plain, bluff and hearty.” Hull, like Eaton, did not suffer fools gladly. He could be “ruffled on sufficient occasion,” added the observer.
Beyond Hull’s welcome, Eaton was greeted by a long letter from Commodore Barron. Given Barron’s lukewarm support of his mission, Eaton no doubt unfolded the document with trepidation. Within moments, he was calmed. “I cannot but applaud the energy and perseverance that has characterized your progress through a series of perplexing and discouraging difficulties,” Barron had written on March 22. (Actually, too ill to write, he had dictated the words to his secretary.)
Barron noted that he had instantly ordered military supplies and food to be loaded onto the Hornet and Argus to be rushed to Eaton, as well as the ample sum of 7,000 Spanish dollars. But Barron, in this note, was not uniformly supportive. He wrote that he deeply opposed the Convention that Eaton planned to sign with Hamet. (Barron didn’t know that Eaton had already signed it.)
“I reiterate to you . . . my dissent from any guarantee . . . [that] the United States may stand committed to place the exiled prince on the throne.” By way of clarification, Barron stressed that the United States was helping Hamet to help himself . . . and that if Yussef offered honorable terms of peace, the United States must be free to accept them and “then our support of Hamet must necessarily be withdrawn.” In stark terms, he described Hamet “as an instrument to an attainment.”
Obsessive Eaton weighed the mixed message, and he decided not to waver. He planned to capture Derne, Bengazi, then Tripoli. Though it’s clear from later letters that Eaton understood Barron’s calculated use of Hamet, he deeply opposed that approach. Eaton’s world featured Good and Evil; and Yussef by enslaving American sailors was Evil.
At 6 P.M., the crew of the Argus rowed a feast ashore for the weary troops. Eaton remained on board that night, eating well and drinking well and no doubt regaling his messmates with the tales of faithless Tayyib and the Bedouin women’s love of brass buttons. In the morning the sailors in the Argus longboat rowed him ashore.
That afternoon, the Hornet sloop arrived, carrying the bulk of the supplies. Over the course of the next two days, the sailors rolled and hoisted 30 hogsheads of bread, 20 barrels of peas, 10 tierces of rice (approximately 3,000 pounds total), 10 boxes of oil, 100 sacks of rice, one bale of cloth, and 7,000 Spanish dollars into longboats and rowed it all ashore. The army’s thirst requirements were not ignored. The Hornet off-loaded one hogshead (63 gallons) of brandy and two hogsheads of wine. Since, in theory, only the Christian troops drank liquor, and since that contingent totaled 75 men, each soldier—in a fair apportionment—could look forward to about two and a half gallons.
The troops, having survived the long march, spent three days lolling about, recuperating, eating, drinking. O’Bannon played his fiddle; the drummer avoided anything martial. Eaton, in his tent, finalized attack plans as best he could from his perch in Bomba about forty miles from the battle site in Derne.
A turbaned messenger arrived from the Moslem camp with yet another rumor that Yussef’s army had reached Derne with 500 men. Eaton complained in notes to Hull that this fact—if true—made his need for field artillery even more acute, and that he was disappointed the Congress hadn’t arrived with the promised fieldpieces. “Besides the terror that Cannon impress on the undisciplined Savages we have to dispute with, they will be our best resort against the Walls of Derne,” he wrote.
Eaton then requested that he be allowed to borrow two of the Argus’s 24-pound carronades. (Carronades were short-barreled guns that launched a heavy shot for a short distance.) He also asked for four barrels of musket gunpowder, balls and flints, and as many muskets as could be spared. Eaton warned the carronades might have to be abandoned in case of retreat.
As to the specific plan of attack, he wanted his forces to reach the eastern hills overlooking Derne and then attack from there; he hoped that the navy would come close enough to shore to blast out the town’s batteries. Eaton waxed optimistic, especially if he could afford to buy the loyalty of the local Arabs. “I find them like the rest of mankind, moved by the present good . . . Cash will carry them . . . with this the Gates of Tripoli may be opened.”
On the days leading up to battle, many soldiers cannot avoid thoughts of mortality. Eaton confronted his own possible death. “Of the effects I leave on board, in case I see you no more,” he wrote to Hull, “I beg you will accept my cloak, and small sword, as marks of my attachment; the Damascus Sabre, which you will find in my chest, please give to Capt. James Barron, it is due to his goodness and valor, I owe it to the Independent integrity of his heart; my Gold watch chain give to [my stepson Eli] Danielson; every thing else please deliver over to Mr. Charles Wadsworth my Executor.” (Conspicuously absent is any sentimental mention of his wife.)
Two other men also sent letters to Captain Hull, both requesting permission to fight alongside Eaton. Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon wrote that he was “unwilling to abandon an Expedition this far conducted.” Midshipman George Washington Mann asked to go onshore and replace Midshipman Peck. Mann labored to avoid insulting his commander. “I am actuated by . . . a wish to contribute generally by my services to the Interest of my Country.” Captain Hull granted both requests, and allowed Eaton in addition to keep his six U.S. Marine privates and one sergeant.
All this while, Hamet and his followers, and the hired sheiks and the Bedouin, camped away from the Christians. Swarthy teenage boys hut-hutted their camels to fertile pastures to graze. The more devout prayed five times a day. So close to open enmity but a week earlier, the two allies kept a safe distance.
Before Hull gave any reply to Eaton’s tactical letter, the Argus suddenly disappeared from port. Eaton could only assume—and hope—that Hull had seen a sail and taken off in pursuit. Then the next day, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and a storm hit the coast. Eaton in the rain was left wondering whether Hull would be able to rendezvous with him for the upcoming combined attack at Derne. But he had more pressing matters: moving an army the final leg to the battlefield.
The Gulf of Bomba sits ringed by mountains. The army, which had marched down along the coast to relax, now had to hike back up to head west to Derne. High cold winds mixed with rain soaked the troops as they marched ten miserable miles on Tuesday, April 23, up over rocky terrain. They camped in a ravine, within a mile of natural fresh water “springing from the top of a mountain of freestone, near Cape Ras el-Tin,” as Eaton recorded in his diary. In the distance could be seen cultivated fields. Hamet sent a herald throughout the various camps to announce: “He who fears God and feels attachment to Hamet Bashaw will be careful to destroy nothing. Let no one touch the growing harvest. He who transgresses this injunction shall lose his right hand.” By forbidding plundering, Hamet was trying not to alienate the local peasants who might rally to his cause.
The Americans, after so long in the desert, had finally reached a cultivated region. In antiquity, these lands bloomed with diverse crops; wealthy Romans squabbled over vacation homes. “Marched fifteen miles over mountainous and broken ground, covered with herbage and very large and beautiful red cedars—the first resemblance of a forest tree we have seen during a march of nearly six hundred miles.” The mixed troop camped in a valley along a stream. Eaton estimated them to be “about five hours march from Derne.”
A messenger arrived with news that the governor of Derne had fortified the city to repel any attack and that Yussef’s army would probably reach Derne before them. Another messenger reported that no American ships could be seen off the coast, since that harsh storm of the previous day. Eaton, with his typical bullheadedness, recommended haste, a quick march double time to Derne. The turbaned allies reacted differently. “Alarm and consternation seized the Arab chiefs, and despondency the Bashaw,” recorded Eaton. “The night was passed in consultations among them at which I was not admitted.”
At 6 A.M., before dawn, the drummer pounded out a general wake-up call; everyone hustled about, striking their tents; Eaton promptly gave orders to prepare to march. The European mercenaries and the American Marines in uniform lined up. The followers of Hamet also lined up but in the opposite direction. Sheik Tayyib and Sheik Muhammed guided the 300 cavalry slowly back toward Bomba. The Bedouin merely refused to move and remained in camp.
Eaton’s babysitting duties had commenced again. By now, he realized that the sheiks felt no overarching loyalty to Hamet or to the overthrow of Yussef. They were Moslem mercenaries on a sliding pay scale, which slid upward as the dangers increased. Eaton began with encouragement, shifted to reproach, and ended up promising $2,000 to the sheiks. They agreed. At 2 P.M. the Hamet-Eaton horde reached a hill overlooking Derne. The general was finally looking at his first target.
The easternmost town of any importance in the kingdom of Tripoli, Derne had a population of around five thousand. Nestled in a wadi (valley) of incredible fertility, the local crops included fig, pear, peach, orange, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, jasmine, and sugarcane. Derne was famed for its honey and its unusual butter, concocted of butter and mutton fat and prized for Middle Eastern stews. The town’s limestone buildings piggybacked on much older dwellings, with most of them having entrances on the second floor, reached by grapevine-trellis-covered staircases. In the summer, the local inhabitants liked to sit on their stoops under the shade of the grape bunches. Unfortunately for a place with so much to export, the harbor was miserable, shallow, pocked with reefs and exposed to high winds from the north and east. One traveler reported it unusable for seven months of the year, from February to August.
Eaton, along with Hamet, surveyed the target. From his hilltop, through his spyglass, he observed that a battery of eight cannons, probably nine-pounders, pointed seaward, guarding the harbor. To the northeast of the town, he saw residents building up some temporary breastworks, while to the southeast, the walls of old buildings blocked access. Eaton also noted a “ten inch howitzer” mounted on the terrace of the governor’s palace. Spies told him that in town the inhabitants had fortified their terraces and knocked loopholes in their walls for shooting. They also said that because the governor of Derne “could bring 800 men into battle, and he possessed all the batteries, breastworks and seaboard, we should find it difficult to dislodge him . . . besides Yussef’s army was just at hand.” In addition, no American ships had arrived.
Eaton looked at Hamet. “I thought the Bashaw wished himself back to Egypt.”
The following morning, at 8 A.M., Eaton ordered the Christian soldiers to build big bonfires in hopes the smoke signals would alert the American ships to their location. Without field artillery or ships, the attack would be foolhardy, even by Eaton’s standards. In the meantime, he sent a letter under white flag of truce to the governor of Derne.
Sir, I want no territory. With me is advancing the legitimate Sovreign of your country—Give me a passage through your city; and for the supplies of which we shall have need you shall receive fair compensation—Let no differences of religion induce us to shed the blood of harmless men who think little and know nothing.—If you are a man of liberal mind you will not balance on the propositions I offer.—Hamet Bashaw pledges himself to me that you shall be established in your government.—I shall see you tomorrow in a way of your choice.
The governor’s response arrived quickly:
My head or yours.—Mustifa
At 2 P.M. a distant sail was spotted. At 6 P.M. Lieutenant John Dent, captain of the Nautilus, sent a boat ashore, rowed by U.S. Navy sailors in crisp blue and white. “You will please send a large party down early in the Morning for the field pieces & ammunition, which I am afraid you will have some difficulty getting up the hill.” Dent added he was ready to send over any supplies that Eaton might want. “Make my respects to O’Bannon & all your Brave followers & wishing you all the Success you so fully deserve.”
After so many months at a slow pace, events were coming quickly to a head. General Eaton decided that, with Yussef’s army on the march toward Derne, he must order an immediate full-scale attack for the following day, Saturday, April 27.
The next morning, at 5:30 A.M., the Americans spotted three more ships hovering near the 14-gun Nautilus. Hull had arrived in the 18-gun brig Argus towing a lateen-sailed prize, while Lieutenant Samuel Evans showed up in the pip-squeak 10-gun sloop Hornet, which had formerly been a Massachusetts merchantman named Traveller.
The Argus, days earlier, had indeed spotted a ship and captured it. The vessel was flying Ottoman colors but carried mostly Tripolitan passengers on board, including a gunboat captain and several leading citizens of Bengazi. The cargo included gunpowder bound for Tripoli. Though Hull admitted he didn’t know whether Barron considered the whole coast under blockade, he decided he would keep the vessel as a prize.
The Argus carried long guns capable of firing 24-pound shot; the Nautilus sported stubby carronades hoisting 12-pound balls, and the Hornet carried brass cannons throwing 6-pound balls.
At 10:30 A.M. a longboat began ferrying the brass fieldpieces ashore to a spot east of Derne. The men rowed in close to the shore, only to discover that cliffs lined that whole section of the coast and that even the best place would require hauling the heavy gun up an almost twenty-foot-sheer cliff. While another boat looked for an alternative, the men hoisted up nine barrels of gunpowder, 200 bags of musket balls for grape filler, and 150 rounds for the fieldpiece as well as the rammer and wadding. (A bag of musket balls is a cannon’s equivalent of bird shot, delivering a lethal spray at the enemy.)
The fieldpiece was a problem. The weight is not listed, but a good guess might be 1,500 pounds, to be hoisted from a rocking boat up a cliff and over the edge. The men, using ropes and horses and struggling for several hours, finally lugged up one fieldpiece. Eaton decided that it would take too long to haul up the other, so he left it to be carried back to the Nautilus.
The three U.S. Navy ships began to sail to take their positions outside Derne harbor.
Eaton readied the army. The Christians and Moslems would have separate missions. Eaton with his small force would tackle the governor’s main defense. Hamet and his hundreds of robed riders would circle around back of the town to try to capture an old castle to the southwest of town. They hoped to meet at the governor’s mansion. The navy would try to take out the shore battery, then plunk balls into the town.
At 2 P.M. General Eaton along with Lieutenant O’Bannon, leading an attack force of 7 U.S. Marines and 26 Greek recruits as well as 24 European mercenaries to handle the fieldpiece, advanced on the southeast corner of Derne. Hundreds of men opposed them, shooting up from a fortified ravine, protected by earthworks. The fieldpiece rained big balls and sprays of musket balls down upon the enemy.
Upon the start of gunfire, the brave little Hornet sailed to within one hundred yards of Governor Mustifa’s battery of nine-pounders and spit out a relentless barrage of grape and balls from its brass six-pounders. The Nautilus stood about a half mile from shore and lobbed its 12-pound balls over the Hornet and toward the battery and the town. Anchored a bit farther out was the Argus, at the right distance to shoot its 24-pound shot.
Hamet’s troops—more than 1,000 men—galloped downward, green Moslem flags streaming, and quickly took the largely undefended old castle on the hill at the back of the town, but then they remained there, stock still in that safe zone.
Eaton’s French-Maltese-Sicilian artillery team learned the niceties of their new weapon on the run; they mastered it quickly, but their speed of reloading was diminished when the crew accidentally fired away the only rammer.
The three ships kept up constant fire on the enemy’s shore battery on the ramparts above the harbor. The Hornet, located within pistol shot, repeatedly tacking, braved especially heavy fire. At one point, a shot from the Derne battery snapped the halliards that held aloft the large American flag in the stern. From war immemorial, there has been an almost mystical disgrace to losing one’s national flag, to having it captured or seeing it lowered. It is the symbolic embodiment of the will to fight. Lieutenant Blodget scooped up the immense flag, fifteen feet long, and climbed the ratlines amid a torrent of musket fire. Just as he nailed it to the main masthead, he was hit with a musket ball near his hip, which miraculously “lodged in his watch while in his fob,” according to an eyewitness account. He escaped injury as did the flag, which now caught the breezes.
The Hornet sprayed jagged grapeshot on the shore battery. The navy men kept up such a constant barrage that the brass six-pounders pulled the planks out of the deck. The turbaned gunners tried to remain brave as ball after heavy ball from the Nautilus or Argus plowed up the earth nearby. After three-quarters of an hour, the governor’s gunners abandoned the battery and rushed to join the governor’s troops defending the southeast section of town.
Eaton and O’Bannon had approximately one hundred soldiers, including seven U.S. Marines perched on the hill to the southeast of town. The total enemy force was estimated at close to one thousand, well entrenched, firing their muskets from behind bulwarks.
At around 3:30 P.M., Eaton came to a grim conclusion. “The fire of the enemy’s Musketry became too warm and continually augmenting. Our troops were thrown into confusion and undisciplined as they were, it was impossible to reduce them to order.” The British infantry, fighting against Napoleon, was famous for its unflappable lines of muskets. This hodgepodge European-American unit was verging on chaos and retreat.
Eaton made a desperate decision: a charge. His hundred against their thousand. The men attached bayonets. He gave the signal. The drummers pounded the skins.
Eaton and O’Bannon in full uniform led the charge down the hill into the teeth of the enemy. A polyglot war cry rose from the throats of the attacking men: English, French, Italian, Greek. Young Scot Farquhar raced near the front, as did the U.S. Marines. The men poured downward toward the earthworks, completely exposed during this rumble down the hillside. The enemy could squeeze off target-practice shots at them, but only one round or possibly two before the attackers would reach them. Eaton’s goal was to descend quickly enough to fluster the enemy. He had had little choice; the firefight had been going badly.
The Americans and Europeans poured forward. U.S. Marine Private John Wilton was instantly killed by a shot to the heart. Another marine, Edward Steward, crumpled, as did several of the Greeks. A pair of marines—David Thomas and Bernard O’Brian—were also hit. Maniacal Eaton, at the very front, suddenly spun to the ground. He grasped his left wrist; a musket ball had torn through the wrist and exited the other side. Blood poured out, staining his general’s coat, splattering in the dust of the dry wadi. O’Bannon and Mann kept on charging with the 75 men, and Eaton quickly gathered himself, somehow wrapped the wound, and continued forward.
With this determined force coming at them, the men of Derne fired off another round, but then most of them didn’t dare to try to reload; they scattered from the earthworks to the safety of the nearby houses. A bayonet can skewer a man before a scimitar can do any harm.
Twenty-nine-year-old O’Bannon, along with twenty-one-year-old Mann, as well as the few U.S. Marines and Greeks zigzagged through the shower of musket fire from the loopholes in the buildings. They fought and raced to the abandoned battery and fort in the harbor.
Captain Hull observed the action through his spyglass on the Argus, a half mile offshore. “At about half past 3, we had the satisfaction to see Lt. O’Bannon and Mr. Mann, midshipman of the Argus, with a few brave fellows with them, enter the fort, haul down the Enemy’s flag, and plant the American ensign on the walls of the Battery.”
This marked the first time the American flag—then fifteen stars and fifteen stripes—had ever been planted in battle on foreign soil outside of North America. Eaton and the Marines never explained their rationale, but it’s unlikely that Thomas Jefferson ever envisioned that his reluctant permission to allow Eaton to aid Hamet would lead to an American flag flapping in conquest over a city in Tripoli. Whatever Jefferson might have thought, the sight greatly stirred the emotions of the handful of hardened men who witnessed the accomplishment.
The soldiers who captured the fort labored hard to turn the heavy guns and point them upon the town. They discovered that the enemy in its haste to retreat had left a round loaded, primed, and ready to go. Around this time, Hamet Bashaw and his cavalrymen advanced into the southwestern end of town. And now the allied forces pinned the defenders between two streams of gunfire as the navy ships kept lobbing balls into the town, creating chaos.
With the tide of battle turning, the Bashaw and his men cantered through the narrow streets, harassing the enemy. They took possession of the governor’s palace, and the cavalry chased the fleeing enemy. As Eaton later described it: “They held safe positions to catch fugitives until the doors of the Enemy were open’d for plunder, when they became at once brave & impetuous.” The governor of Derne first took refuge in a mosque then somehow slipped into the harem of one of the town’s leading citizens and claimed the ancient rights of sanctuary. Most of the defenders of Derne tried to hide their weapons and slip back into civilian life.
By 4 P.M. Eaton claimed the town as captured. Hull sent a boat ashore to bring more ammunition and carry off the thirteen Christians wounded, including U.S. Marine Bernard O’Brian. At 5:30 P.M. Eaton went aboard the Argus to have his wound dressed; it was described as “musket ball through the left wrist,” in other words, a metal ball of at least three-quarter inch in diameter had passed through just below the wrist joint. (Eaton would never regain full use of the arm.)
The time for recuperation for Eaton and the other Christian wounded, however, would be brief. A spy reported that Yussef’s troops were within fourteen hours’ march of the town. The doctor bandaged Eaton’s arm and made the general put it in a sling, which was draped next to his shiny epaulet. Eaton later complained he could no longer wield his rifle. (In this era, the rifle, with its longer range and accuracy, was replacing the cumbersome musket.)
Eaton allowed himself one night aboard the Argus. The next day bright and early, the New Englander began orchestrating the town’s defenses. He set up his own headquarters under the American flag in the small fort by the harbor battery. Someone, probably Eaton, dubbed it “Fort Enterprise”—a telling name that brings to mind hard work and boldness. Eaton, with help from his engineer, colorful Jean Eugene, repaired the ramparts and the fort and set about permanently pointing the cannons into the city. He placed barricades in various spots in the city to create ambush points. The guns were cleaned and repaired. Nine-pound cannonballs were neatly stacked nearby. Local reports estimated that about one-third of the quite perturbed populace remained secretly loyal to Governor Mustifa Bey, then holed up in the sheik’s harem.
After consulting with Eaton, Hull decided that he would send off the Hornet to Malta, both for repairs to its sheered planks and, equally important, to inform Commodore Barron of their victory. In four years of war against Tripoli, this easily ranked as the United States’ greatest victory.
Eaton, still weak from his wound, set about the pleasant task of relaying their good news. “We are in possession of the most valuable province of Tripoli,” he announced. Eaton recounted the battle in vivid blow-by-blow detail and begged the liberty to praise O’Bannon, Mann, and the commanders of all three navy vessels for their courage and competence. He recommended them all for reward or promotion.
Eaton signed it, sealed it with wax, and handed it to go by the Hornet. But the winds were not favorable, and the small vessel was forced to return to port the next day. This gave Eaton the chance—a mischance really—to write a long May 1 postscript to Barron. Maybe the wound made him edgier than usual, or maybe he’d had more than one glass of brandy to soothe the pain, but in this missive, Eaton shows himself too honest, too blunt. He starkly stated that Hamet lacked the “military talent and firmness” to conquer Bengazi and Tripoli City. And that for Eaton to help him do it, he would need detachments of U.S. Marines and more money.
Eaton also testily analyzed the commodore’s last letter, which had placed nuanced limits on American support of Hamet. Eaton argued that if Hamet was “to be used solely as an instrument . . . to the advantage of the United States, without any consideration of his future well-being, I cannot persuade myself that any bonds of patriotism dictate to me [that] duty.” The issue of honor and betrayal was clearly starting to weigh on him. He baldly pointed out the conflict of interest: that the mission’s own success would spell its doom; that is, if he and Hamet succeed in threatening Yussef, then Yussef would propose peace “to rid him of so dangerous a rival.” That built-in disloyalty to an ally disturbed Eaton.
“At all events,” he wrote, “I am deeply impressed with the opinion that the post we have secured here [Derne] should not be abandoned, nor the terms of peace precipitately embraced.” Eaton regarded Derne as America’s strongest bargaining chip. And in this rambling letter, he couldn’t resist taking one last crack at gaining backing for pursuing his original mission to overthrow Yussef. “It would probably be a death blow to the Barbary System.” Eaton’s wound finally induced him to close.
“It is with much pain that I keep a sedentary position to write . . . I have not language to express my sense of gratitude and obligation for your exertions in forwarding us supplies; without them we must have perished.”
The Hornet departed with his letters, but stormy weather would slow its path to Malta.
Over the next week, Eaton, ensconced in Derne, prepared for the inevitable battle against Yussef’s army that must arrive on the scene very soon. Its whole existence couldn’t be a phantom of the rumor mill.
While Hamet was lording it inside the governor’s mansion, Eaton wanted to capture the ousted governor of Derne, the third-ranking minister in all of Tripoli. With his usual short temper, he found it infuriating that the man, Mustifa, who had written “My Head or Yours,” could be basking in a harem in town. Eaton noted in his diary for May 2: “Used exertions to draw the Governor from his sanctuary. The Hiram [Harem] in which he had taken asylum appertained to a Sheik of Mesreat, one of the departments [loyal to Hamet]. Neither persuasion, bribes nor menace could prevail on this venerable aged chief to permit the hospitality of his house to be violated. He urged that whatever may be the weakness or even the crimes of the Arabs there was never an instance known among them of giving up a fugitive to whom they had once accorded their protection.” The sheik added if he violated the laws of hospitality, Allah would avenge the crime on him and on his children.
Over the next couple days, the enemy army finally arrived on the outskirts of town and shrewdly chose for their encampment the same high ground to the southeast that Eaton had chosen back on April 26. The attacking force appeared to number about 1,000, but its total shifted almost daily with recruits and defections from among the Bedouin tribes and from among the townspeople. From Eaton’s perspective, the people of Derne seemed to care only about aligning themselves with the eventual winner. Unfortunately for them, no one was yet sure who that would be. To lure supporters, the enemy spread the word that their attacking army would slaughter and plunder anyone loyal to Hamet. The governor from his luxurious prison in the harem helped relay the threat through the streets via messengers. (While Eaton accepted the validity of a foreign embassy as a sanctuary, he couldn’t wrap his Christian mind around the inviolability of a Moslem harem.)
Day followed day, and by May 12, Eaton had had enough of comfortable Mustifa. Eaton marched to the sheik’s house at the head of a force of fifty Christians with fixed bayonets. Through his interpreter, he loudly declared his intention to bring out the governor. Word in Arabic of the general’s arrival spread quickly throughout the quarter. Someone shouted: “The Christians no longer respect the customs of our fathers and our laws of hospitality.” Eaton through an interpreter retorted to the crowd that the Bey was an outlaw, had insulted him, had been defeated, was in a conquered town, and by all rules of war, was Eaton’s prisoner. Worse, the man was carrying on a secret war from his sanctuary. Eaton—in his typical hardheaded way—then said he would now have the governor “dead or alive.”
The murmur in the street rose; the townspeople began massing to attack the Christians. The bayonets glinting in the sun apparently gave pause. Hamet arrived and became deeply upset. He pleaded with Eaton to delay his attack until the following day, promising to try to negotiate the governor out of the harem. Reluctantly, Eaton led his fifty bayonets back to Fort Enterprise. That night, the old sheik smuggled the governor out of town and allowed him to slip over to the enemy camp. The governor, with his knowledge of goings-on inside Derne, wasted no time; he immediately organized an attack.
Just before dawn, five flags, Moslem standards, flapped in the breeze on the hill behind the town. The cavalry of Bashaw Yussef, about 700 horsemen with muskets and scimitars, stood ready to attack, along with about 300 men on foot. These enemy troops remained poised on the hill, a menacing silhouette.
According to Captain Hull’s account, Hamet was informed of the enemy’s position and he ordered about 300 men to ride out to meet the enemy. “At 1/2 past 9 the parties met and began a brisk fire, which lasted about fifteen minutes.” The brief battle ended when Hamet’s troops, outnumbered, dissolved back into Derne. About 300 enemy horsemen pursued them in the winding streets of the town. From out of the limestone houses, from gaps in the garden walls, some of the locals fired upon the attackers, picking off one here and one there. Hull credited the townspeople as well as Hamet’s troops in ambush with killing enough of the enemy that they decided to retreat. As the enemy poured out of the eastern side of town, Hull stated, this gave the guns of the Argus and Nautilus a clear target, and they peppered them with shot. Eaton’s harbor battery chimed in as well. (To aim at the town itself from a rocking vessel a half mile offshore was far too risky to the lives of allies.) By 11 A.M., the enemy marched back up the hill to their original starting point, “defeated.” So stated Hull.
Interestingly, William Eaton left a different account of the same battle. His is much more dramatic and features a stunning turning point. Eaton stated that Hamet sent only one hundred horsemen out to meet the enemy, and that they fought bravely but, far outnumbered, were forced to retreat. The enemy advanced through irregular ambuscades right to the edge of the governor’s palace in the heart of town. “The attackers seemed resolute in capturing [Hamet],” wrote Eaton.
Eaton and O’Bannon judged an infantry sortie from Fort Enterprise, which would leave the guns unguarded, too risky. Over the next hour, Eaton listened as the pop-pop of musket and pistol fire began to slow, and he feared that the enemy had captured most of the town and would surround the governor’s palace. In his telling, he then made a bold decision. He decided to fire the battery guns upon the town; the risk of course was that they might accidentally kill loyal citizens or some of Hamet’s forces. “Very fortunately, a shot from one of our nine pounders killed two of the enemy from their horses in the courtyard of the palace,” wrote Eaton. A pair of horsemen gored by a cannonball is not a pretty sight. “They instantly sounded a retreat, and abandoning the town at all quarters, were everywhere pursued by Hamet’s cavalry until they were chased under the shot of our vessels, which galled them sorely in their flight.”
In a grim aside later to Hull (perhaps not meant for posterity), he added: “The Enemy are shamefully flogged, we have collected twenty of their heads besides those you have killed, which are said to be an equal or greater number.”
Eaton hoped that Hull would now allow a troop of U.S. sailors and marines to parade in downtown Derne to overawe the inhabitants into believing that the Hamet-American forces would win. He also requested more gunpowder, musket balls, flints, and cartridge paper. Equally as important, he added: “We are destitute of Spirits and Wine—The cask sent off was something more than two thirds gone, either by leakage or theft.” No self-respecting Christian soldier in 1805 wanted to celebrate a victory . . . sober.
That night, with everyone calling it a victory, the local sheik who had sheltered the governor in his harem sanctuary came to the palace. All that day, he and his men had fought for Hamet. He kissed Hamet’s hand and squatted down in front of him. He told him that he had shown his unwavering loyalty all day, but he added, looking Hamet in the eye, that perhaps the prince did not deserve his support. “You would have yielded to the Christian General in violating the hospitality of my house, and of degrading the honor of my name. You should have recollected that, not quite two years ago, you were saved in this same asylum, and secured in your escape by the same hospitality from the vengeance of this very same Bey.” The sheik then renewed his oath of loyalty to Hamet.
The following day, an Italian slave escaped from Yussef’s army. He reported the enemy dead totaled 39, with 45 wounded.
Eaton and Hamet were both also completely penniless, and Eaton was at wit’s end trying to buy some more loyalty. Eaton convinced Captain Hull to put up for auction some of the prize goods he had seized off the small vessel a week earlier. He convinced him that he and O’Bannon would sign bona fide receipts for the sale and then give the money to Hamet, and that Hull and crew would later be reimbursed by the U.S. government. The scheme made sense, except for the fact the vessel had not yet been judged a legitimate prize by any admiralty court. Eaton was desperate.
An auction was held on the morning of May 15. Expensive cloths—striped and glazed, blue linen, as well as 31 silk turbans and more cloth and 100 handkerchiefs and more turbans . . . generated $331.50. Eaton handed the cash over to Hamet and a receipt over to Hull.
The enemy forces grouped again on the hill overlooking Derne, about 1,000 men. A spy reported they were readying to unleash a huge attack on the following morning. The only possible hitch: The Bedouin tribes were balking at using their camels as moving breastworks.
Since the Hornet hadn’t returned from Malta, Hull regarded it as his duty to send the Nautilus to update the commodore. Now only one U.S. Navy ship remained offshore. As for onshore: five healthy U.S. Marines, Eaton, Mann, and O’Bannon remained with the fifty ragtag Christian mercenaries. Eaton worried about diminishing food supplies, especially if the Argus had to leave.
On Monday, May 20, on a beautiful spring day, the entire opposing army massed on the hill overlooking the town. Standards fluttered in the breeze. Joy shots filled the air. It was abundantly clear that they planned to attack.
On that day, the men serving under Eaton signed an amazing document, a testament to Eaton’s fortitude. Very few officers ever receive such spontaneous support. It was written in French.
Monsieur,
Vu le desir et le courage qui nous anime . . .
Sir,
In view of the desire and the courage which animates us all to participate in the glory of an expedition which is worthy of such a warlike nation, we are coming today to state to you again the zeal which we have to take part in it. We could not serve a better chief. The heroic ardor and the talents with which you are endowed can only ensure the happiness of your men. We offer our services in the campaign, to strictly carry out your orders, to exact respect for the honorable flag of the United States of America, and to encounter the enemy wherever he may be.
Everything assures us of a complete victory under your command. We are only waiting for the moment to win this glory, and to fall on the enemy.
We believe you are assured in advance of the sentiments which we are proclaiming. Yes! We swear that we shall follow you and that we shall fight unto death.
It was signed in varying degrees of legibility by:
Chevalier Davies, Major
PN O’Bannon, Lt. Marines
George Mann
George Farquhar
Geny Inspectore [Jean Eugene]
Filippo Galea
Selim Capt.
Count Lieut.—for the entire company of artillery
Rocco Lieut.
Cap.no Luca—for the entire Greek company
To William Eaton, Agent of the United States of America for all the Barbary Regencies and General Commander in Chief of the allied land forces against Tripoli.
At the camp of Derne 20 May 1805