Volume 38, No. 6 – June 2025
Website: www.CivilWarRoundTablePalmBeach.org

The President’s Message:

Please make an effort to come to the June meeting on the 11th as the Round Table will be on hiatus until October.  We will not meet in July, August, or September. I look forward to seeing everyone in the fall.  Have a good summer.

Gerridine La Rovere

June 11, 2025 Program:

Robert Schuldenfrei will present Civil War Leaders and West Point.  Rather than the whole history of West Point, this talk will be limited to some of the subjects that were taught during the first half of the 19^th century and six students who absorbed this knowledge and put it to practical application during the Civil War.

May 14, 2025 Program:

Bill McEachern presented a program titled War with Barbery Pirates.  Tonight, we are going to discuss pirates.  We're talking about the 250th anniversary now of the US Navy and the US Marines.  This talk is dedicated to the US Navy and the US Marines, and you'll see why a little bit later.  I will introduce a number of people in the era, basically from 1785 to 1805.  This is a little bit outside the 19^th century, but it's very important.  We're going to talk about a captain, William Bainbridge, a Commodore, Edward Preble, a Lieutenant, Stephen Decatur, a Marine, Presley O'Bannon, a Consul, William Eaton, the Consul General to Tripoli, a President, Thomas Jefferson, and of course, the Barbary Pirates.

So why war with the Barbary Pirates?  What was going on?  Give you a subtle hint.  The British did it; the wildly condescending British.  So as background, we're talking about the Treaty of Paris in 1783.  Not only did we get our independence, and that was the good part of it, but the law of unintended consequences applies.  What is that?  Britain withdrew their naval protection of our merchant ships.  Now, why was that important?  Britain, of course, was the greatest superpower at that point in time.  Their navy was the largest. France, although they rivaled Britain, they weren't in the same league time and time again.  So, when the British withdrew their naval protection after the Treaty of Paris, there were consequences.

This painting is the Treaty of Paris.  It shows, going from left to right, standing up is John Jay, a future Supreme Court justice.  Sitting down next to him is John Adams, a future president.  Sitting next to him, going to the right, is Benjamin Franklin.  Then above him is Henry Lawrence.  Now, probably people say, who's Henry Lawrence?  Henry Lawrence is the man who claimed to have written the Declaration of Independence.  And of course, Thomas Jefferson didn't like it because Thomas Jefferson thought he wrote the Declaration of Independence.  Next to them is William Templeton Franklin.  Now, you'll notice what is missing, the British delegation.  The British delegation refused to sit for this portrait.  And in my opinion, that says it all.  They were contentious of the American nation.  They thought we were upstarts.  They were condescending to us.  They were arrogant.  They did not want to honor the treaty and Bill explained why. 

The British intimated to the Barbary Pirates that Americans are fair game.  What does that do?  Insurance rates on shipping, American shipping, went from one to 2% of the value of the cargo in the hull.  We'll see you next week…  So, who are the pirates and what countries do they represent?  There are four pirate kingdoms going from west to east.  We have Morocco on the west, then there is Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli.  First of all, Morocco; they did capture the first American ship, but why did they do it?  They wanted to have the Americans recognize them as a country and set up trade.  They saw the best way of doing it was to capture a merchant ship.  Among the other three Tripoli was the largest and most powerful of these four nations who were part of the Ottoman Empire.  And they all were under the suzerain of the sultan, Mohammed II of Constantinople, otherwise known as Istanbul.

Let’s look at the geography.  Here's Alexandria, Egypt.  Here's Derne in Tripoli and there's Tripoli.  Those parts are going become very important later on.  From Alexandria to Derne is 500 plus miles across the desert.  The pirates, they swarmed merchant vessels using ships such as xebecs, galleys, and feluccas, which were often powered by both oars and sails.  Muslim ships traditionally had lateen sails.  This rig allowed the pirates to navigate closer to the wind and handle lighter winds effectively.  It was a big advantage over square rigged ships used by the merchants.  They would get close to the targets and put as many men as possible onto the ship to take it over.  Merchant ships, might have a crew of 30 or 40 men at most. These Muslim ships would have 100 to 150 men crowded onto their boats.

Now, who were they threatening?  They threatened everybody.  The Muslim nations, the Barbary pirates, this was institutionalized terrorism.  This was done specifically to get as much money as possible.  It was state sponsored where Tripoli would get a cut of the cargoes.  The nations of Europe, Norway, Sweden, France, Portugal, Spain, England, and Italy, were all paying tribute to the Muslim nations, these four Muslim nations, so they wouldn't capture the ships.  Now, how much money was this?  Spain at one point in time was paying $4 million a year.

Morocco captured the Betsi, which is the first instance of piracy.  It's October 11, 1784, just a year after the Treaty of Paris was signed.  As soon as the British withdrew their protection, the Muslim corps there started swarming on our shipping.  The next two ships were taken by Algeria.  Interestingly enough, all four of these Barbary nations said to the United States, we'd love to sign a tribute treaty with you, and all you have to do is give each of us $660,000 each.

The United States was not even the United States at this point in time.  They were still under the Articles of Confederation.  Several states had never paid in to the U.S. Treasury, Georgia being one of them, for example.  Of those states that did pay they might pay one or two of the ten years that they were supposed to pay in.  The U.S. Treasury at this point in time had zero in it.  So, there was no money to be gotten to be given to the Barbary Pirates.  But the United States said, well, we've got to do something.  They sent abroad Thomas Jefferson left and John Adams.  They were commissioners and they were in Paris, France.  Both of them, to be very honest, were highly naive, totally babes in the wood as diplomats.  They really didn't know what the heck they were doing, but they did their best to try and deal with the issue.

These two men show the main divide that was going to be the political divide in the country over this issue.  Thomas Jefferson, surprisingly enough, was strongly in favor of building a navy and going to war and ending the problem once and for all.  John Adams on the other side was highly in favor of a peace.  Traditionally, you would think that would be the opposite rules for these two gentlemen.  But those are the positions they argued for in 1785 when they came to Paris.  Now, John Adams got very friendly with the ambassador from Tripoli Sidi Haji Abdrahaman.  They got very close.  They were negotiating back and forth.  John Adams, after several visits back and forth with this ambassador, said to Thomas Jefferson, I think I've got it done.  I think we've got a peace treaty.

So, he invited Jefferson and Adams to come to the ambassador's house.  They smoked a hookah, and had glass after glass of claret.  And the afternoon went by, the leaves were falling in Paris, they talked about art, and they talked about music.  Finally, John Adams says to the ambassador, well, ambassador, what amount of tribute would you take to protect the American ships?  Oh, my friend, how naive you are.  We don't want tribute.  John Adams smiles at Thomas Jefferson, basically saying, see, I told you so.  And the ambassador says, no, we don't want any tribute.  Well, we want our gifts.  Hello, John Adams says, how much in gifts do you want?  Oh, not much at all.  One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for me just to start the negotiations would be an appropriate amount.  At this, Thomas Jefferson stormed around the room.

He started yelling at the ambassador.  Don't you know we have no money?  Our entire treasury is thirty thousand dollars.  We've been authorized to pay you thirty thousand dollars for peace.  To which the ambassador said, and I quote, it is written in our Koran that all nations which have not acknowledged the profhet are sinners.  It is the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave sinners.  Well, that stopped the negotiations right then and there.  This is the way the negotiation sat from 1785 until 1794.  So, the crews of those merchant ships that I've mentioned, they're languishing in prisons.  Now, what are those crews doing?  They're going out by day and they're cracking rocks to make the breakwaters for the Harbor and Tripoli and to build up the fortress.  They're dying off.  This is almost 20 years.  They're given no new clothing.  They're given no bedding.  They're given very little food.  They're given sometimes vinegar to drink.  These people are in terrible shape.  Finally, the United States appropriated $800,000 for tribute in 1794 and those crews of Betsy and Maria were released.  Jefferson never, ever forgot about these men.

At this point Bill talked about the election of 1800 where Jefferson became President and the country fixed the Electoral College.  Here is Captain William Bainbridge, a very brave man.  Earlier in his life he had put down a mutiny.  He and his captain went against the entire rest of a crew on a merchant ship.  Both of them were severely wounded and yet they cowered the mutiny.  He became a commander at age 19, a tremendous seaman, and in the quasi-war of September 1798 he made a mistake.  What mistake did he make?  Well, he thought these two French frigates were British frigates and he sailed the ship right up to them only to end up being captured.  In fact, it's the first ship that is ever captured from the American Navy, a ship called Retaliation, irony of ironies.

So, Bainbridge now sails to the port of Tripoli.  Like every other good captain, he gets a pilot who takes him into the port.  The pilot, though, puts George Washington,  a ship that will be given to the Barbary Pirates as tribute, directly beneath the guns of this fortress.  That fortress has several hundred gun ports and all of the guns could now be easily trained upon George Washington.  This is the huge blunder.  Bainbridge now has been told by the Dey that he has to deliver now the Dey's tribute to the sultan in Istanbul and he's got to travel to Istanbul and meet the sultan.  Now, what is this cargo of tribute that the Dey is sending?  Slaves, hundreds of slaves and hundreds of animals and an entourage of various officials, totaling about three hundred people and a couple hundred animals.  But, with George Washington under the guns of the fort and surrounded by the Dey's warships and military personnel Bainbridge reluctantly complied for fear of imprisonment, raised the Algerian flag on his masthead and delivered gifts of animals and slaves to Constantinople.

So, Bainbridge's second blunder.  Oh boy, he did it again.  It is now 1803.  Thomas Jefferson is realizing, eight hundred thousand dollars a year in tribute going out when your entire country's income is a couple of million is not gonna work.  Maybe it's cheaper to show force.  So, he gives William Bainbridge command of USS Philadelphia and he says, go out there and do your best.  Now, this is where Bainbridge excels.  He's aggressive and he's successful.  So, he captures a 24-gun corsair.  That's a big ship for the Muslim fleet.  He also liberates an American ship that had been captured.  So, his start is excellent.  He really starts to go after Tripoli and so forth.  He decides that he's gonna blockade the port of Tripoli.  He says I'm gonna take the war to Tripoli and so he's trying to do a blockade with himself and one other small ship.  One pirate corsair, the Mastico, tries to run this blockade.  William Bainbridge goes after the Mastico and he's sailing along the shore of Tripoli trying to catch up to the Mastico. Now, the Mastico has a much smaller draft.  It doesn't go down that far in the water. The frigate Philadelphia has a much deeper draft.  The Mastico goes in and out among shoals until finally Philadelphia hits one of these shoals and is stuck tight.  After that, a bunch of corsairs come out of the harbor of Tripoli and start circling around Philadelphia and they're firing their cannons at it.  Bainbridge is trying valiantly to get the ship off of the shoals.  He has his crew work like crazy.  They do everything you can think of.  They even started tossing cannon over the side.  They took their water barrels.  They emptied them.  They took a lot of cargo out.  They were stuck tight.  So, after a while, Bainbridge surrenders Philadelphia thinking that soon these corsairs are gonna board my ship.  They're gonna cut my men to pieces.  He surrenders the ship.  Bainbridge and his crew are captured and enslaved.  The Dey now has one of the most modern frigates afloat.  They get Philadelphia freed.  A couple days later, there's a storm that comes up and Philadelphia just floats right off of those shoals.  Now they've got this wonderful frigate.  Bainbridge is smart.  He decides, I've got to start to do something.  I mean, you know, last time around we had crews being held from 1785 to 1794.  I'm not spending 20 years here and neither are my men.  So, he starts to work with the Dey and starts to talk to him.  And, ultimately, he becomes the secretary for the Dey.  He's educated.  He can write well.  He's got a good hand.  And he starts getting privileges.  One of these privileges that he finally gets is a room with a view.  And what's the view of?  It's of Philadelphia and the harbor.

So, let's go from Bainbridge for a moment to Commodore Edward Preble.  Preble, meanwhile, has been given command of USS Constitution and a couple of other ships.  And this is now his Commodore.  He has actually a flotilla.  Back in that era, there were no admirals in the United States Navy.  Commodore was the head of a small fleet.  Preble now is taking command of this small fleet going over to Tripoli. 

Preble is not a people person at all, and he may have a good reason for that.  He has an ongoing stomach problem.  He's not friendly, he's not nice, and he's got a clipped New England accent.  A lot of his crew are Southerners.  They think we don't understand him and he doesn't understand us when we talk.  His crew, at first, does not like Preble.  On the way over Preble is sailing off the coast of Portugal.  He detects that there's a ship in front of him in the fog, and he hails that ship.  He says, who are you?  And the ship doesn't answer a couple times. Finally, he says, you don't answer my hail.  I'm just going to start firing on you.  So, then the ship calls back and says it's a British ship of the line, 74 guns, and they'll be damned if they're going to haul over for a small American ship.

Now, Preble has a frigate.  It is USS Constitution, but Constitution is a 44-gun ship.  74 guns ships of the line should have been able to take out Constitution.  Preble though says, I'll be damned.  He says to his men, open up the gun ports.  And he says I want you to send the ship over to us, which is basically saying you're going to surrender it to us.  They say, no, we're going to fire our broadside.  Preble says to his men blow on your matches.  Blowing on a match back then is the last step.  You blow on the match, you get it hot, you touch the touch hole of the cannon, and the cannon fires.  He's basically telling his men, get ready to fire.  At that point, the other ship says, I'm Lieutenant so-and-so of HMS Maidstone, a 32-gun frigate.  It's a small frigate.  I'm sending a ship over.  Preble goes from being that sour man who nobody likes to God, this guy's brave as all get out.  He is just tremendous.  The estimation of his crew is where he's grown tremendously.

Returning to North Africa, Preble wants to be aggressive as all get out with the pirates.  Bainbridge, meanwhile, as I explained has become a secretary to the Dey.  He's got privileges.  One of them is he can write.  He writes letters.  He writes Preble a letter.  And in the letter, he says, I can see Philadelphia sitting in the harbor.  Stephen Decatur, who's a lieutenant underneath Preble, has become a good friend of Preble.  They've been thinking about the same exact plan.  When Bainbridge says this can be done, Decatur says, okay, we're going to do it.

Now, Decatur has been given authority to go out and capture ships.  What ship do they have to capture?  Irony of irony it is Mastico.  The one that lured Philadelphia out of the shoals.  They then are going to make Mastico now renamed Intrepid into a fire ship and bring it alongside Philadelphia and burn Philadelphia.  Stephen Decatur’s father was a Commodore during the revolution.  This guy is incredibly brave.  He's multi-talented.  He was good as a shipwright.  He oversaw the building of some of these frigates.  He knew what to put on them.  He also is the youngest captain in US naval history at age 25.  We're going to talk about some of the exploits as we go through this. He's very brave, very dedicated. The crew of Intrepid led by Stephen Decatur overpower the little crew that's on Philadelphia, set it afire, and sail away. 

Preble is determined to win the war against Tripoli.  He brings his fleet up and tries to bombard the fort from the harbor.  This fails because the fort is supplied with food, water, and materials that just come across the desert and in from the south side.  So, he hatches another daring plan.  You have got to love Pribble and his resourcefulness.  If one plan doesn't work you just try something else. He reminds me of Grant before Vicksburg.  You know, just keep trying, if this doesn't work, I'll try this.  If that doesn't work, I'll try this. 

So, what's going to happen now is Preble has decided, OK, we were able to sneak a ship into the harbor and burn Philadelphia.  Why not try that again?  This time, he's going to bring in Intrepid, fill it full of gunpowder, and try and bring it right up to the fortress.  Unfortunately, as he comes in the fortress starts firing.  One shot happens to hit Intrepid. And the whole ship blows up.  The entire volunteer crew is killed.  Unfortunately, that plan did not work.  No less than probably one of the most daring sailors of the age said the boldest and daring act of the age was the attempt to use the ship Mastico to blow up in the harbor.  That's Lord Nelson.  I can't think of higher praise, really.

That failed, so Preble thinks, I've got to do something.  He goes to our ally, the King of Sicily, and says, you've got 10 gunboats.  Give me those 10 gunboats, and I'll go in and I'll attack the harbor of Tripoli.  I'll destroy their gunboats.  I'll get them once and for all.  King of Sicily says, I'm glad to lend them to you.  No problem.  But you've got to bring them back in exactly the same condition as I give them to you.  Oh, come on.  How realistic is that?  Anyway, Preble then decides what we're going to do is he has his US squadron out here.  He gets the gunboats from Sicily.  They come in, and there's a big gunboat battle outside of the harbor.  There are 10 American slash Sicily gunboats against 10 to 20 of these gunboats of Tripoli.  Slowly but surely, the Americans start winning.

They're doing it using the same tactics that the pirates are so famous for, boarding a ship.  Stephen Decatur and his men, they're boarding ship after ship, they're killing the pirates off, and then they're taking that ship.  They're getting more and more gunboats, and the Dey of Tripoli is losing them.  Finally, Decatur says, we've done enough.  He takes his gunboats out, he's leaving, and then someone tells him, your brother's been killed!

Decatur goes nuts.  He turns his ship around.  Now, he's going in alone.  He singles out the ship of the head of the fleet of gunboats, and this man, this pirate, is a giant.  The pirate is reported to be either 6'4", 6'6", or 6'8".  You take your choice.  Guy is much taller than Preble, who's like 5'8".  They're fighting, and they get to the point where the giant is on top of him, just about ready to impale him with a knife, Decatur pulls his derringer from his pocket.  He shoots the giant at the same time that an American sailor by the name of Ruben James, which becomes obviously a name of the US Navy ship, uses a bayonet, or in some versions it's a scabbard, to kill off another pirate, and Decatur's life is saved.  This is fierce, fierce hand-to-hand fighting here, and I know nowadays that there are historians who say Reuben James didn't save Decatur, that it was another sailor, and that Reuben James has been wrongfully attributed. 

This is the story of an American who's going to end the war single-handedly if necessary.  William Eaton is the U.S. counsel to Tripoli.  He has been a thirst for military glory and has always wanted to be a general to lead men in battle, and set up an empire.  Today we would call this regime change.  He was friends with a gentleman by the name of Hammet.  The Dey of Tripoli was youngest of three brothers.  With his mother watching, he stabs his eldest brother to death.  While he's doing that, the middle brother, Hammet, runs away, and goes into self-exiled in Alexandria, Egypt, leaving the youngest brother as the Dey.  Commander-in-chief, so to speak, of Tripoli.  Eaton has become friends with Hammet, and he wants to put his friend Hammet back on the throne because Hammet's the rightful ruler.  Eaton gone directly to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson gives him a letter saying you are the commander-in-chief of the American forces in North Africa.  You are authorized to do whatever is necessary to get rid of the Dey of Tripoli and install whomever you think should be the Dey.  He's got everything he wants.

In 1790 he becomes the U.S. counsel to Tripoli, and he's got dreams of military glory.  General Eaton now assembles his army.  He's got all the American forces in North Africa, which amount to seven Marines. two sailors and their commander, First Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon.  Now, Presley O'Bannon, he's as Irish as they come.  Eaton has decided that we're going to trek across Africa.  We're in Alexandria, that's where Hammet is in self-exile with a bunch of followers.  They recruit up to 500 more Muslims to join in, who all want to be members of the new regime, and we're going to go from Alexandria, across the desert, and attack Derne.  Derne is the second largest city in Tripoli.  We're going to take it.  I've been promised, this is Eaton saying now, I've been promised naval support.  The fleet's going to come in and help bombard Derne when we get there with my army, and we're going to take Derne.  And then from there, we're going to trek further across the desert, and we're going to take Tripoli.  Okay, that's the grand plan.

Presley O'Bannon is a Marine.  He's a Lieutenant.  He's born in Virginia.  His father was in the Revolution.  He marries Daniel Morgan's daughter.  Daniel Morgan was famous for the victory at Cowpens.  Finally, O'Bannon was a boxer who knew how to fight.  This band is going to trek across the desert, go all the way across the desert, and up here to Derne.  This is from March 8 to April 25.  That's over 500 miles in the desert.  That's darn quick marching.

Eaton's leading all the forces of the United States in North Africa, and it's 500 followers.  They get to Derne, and they start to attack Derne, and they put it under siege.  The U.S. Navy doesn't show up.  At this point there's a discrepancy between O'Bannon’s story and Eaton's story.  Now, I don't know about you.  I believe O'Bannon.  O'Bannon says he finally got sick and tired of sitting there.  He leads his marines, sailors, and the other 500 guys to attack Derne.  This is where you get “to the shores of Tripoli.”

As they're making their attack, the U.S. Navy shows up.  Better late than never.  Anyway, they start firing at the same time that O'Bannon's troops are attacking.  They take Derne.  Wow, Eaton's done it.  They've taken the second largest city in Tripoli.  This is fantastic.  Because of O'Bannon's distinguished record during the Derna campaign, Marine Corps Commandant Archibald Henderson in 1825 adopted the Mameluke sword for wear by all Marine Corps commissioned officers. 

General Eaton is now ready to march on Tripoli.  There's only about another 800 miles gang.  I'm sure they love that idea of trekking desert.  He wants to install his friend Hammet on the throne.  Meanwhile, he learns from the commander of the American fleet, peace has been broken out.  How?  The United States paid his brother Yusef $60,000, and you now, Eaton, have to surrender Derna back to Yusef's forces, and Yusef, he gets to stay on the throne.  Hammet doesn't get his throne.  Eaton is incredibly upset by this outcome.  He comes back to the United States.  He's lauded as a hero because, yeah, the American forces, took Derne, the Dey has surrendered, and ended the war.  He is so mad at Thomas Jefferson that he goes out of his way to tell people Thomas Jefferson betrayed him.  I had the war won.  You know, we didn't have to pay a dime.  The wrong guys on the throne.  He is incredibly bitter.  He keeps going out and saying the American government is corrupt.  Congress is corrupt.  Jefferson's corrupt.  Congress was ready to appropriate money for him as a hero, give him land, et cetera, et cetera.  For some reason, I don't know why, they decided not to pass the resolution.  And so, then he became even more bitter. He reasons, I never got a sword, a medal, a tract of public land, or simply even a resolution of thanks.  Well, not after being so bitter.

Now, I told you this guy wanted to set up an empire.  I think this is one of the biggest ironies in American history.  He becomes a principal witness in the trial of Aaron Burr, who was tried for trying to set up an empire.  I mean, how, how unbelievable is that?

Epilogue:  Preble dies in 1807.  He had stomach cancer.  That's why his stomach hurt so much and that's why he was always in pain and that's why he wasn't a happy camper.  In 1812, Decatur commands USS United States and captures HMS Macedonian among many other incredible exports.  Decatur dies in a duel with James Baron in 1820.  William Bainbridge, I don't want to ruin his reputation.  1812 he commands USS Constitution and defeats HMS Java.  Big, big major battle.  He's, as I said before, brave, he's aggressive, and he's a great fighter.  Sometimes he makes mistakes but this time he comes around with just a tremendous victory.