Commodore Edward Preble’s squadron
In Tripoli Harbor, Commodore Edward Preble’s squadron—including the Nautilus (second from left)—engages Barbary gunboats and fortifications on 3 August 1804. A month later, the destruction of the Intrepid would signal the end of that year’s Tripoli campaign.
U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Naval History and Heritage Command

Barbary War Interlude in Messina

Most scholarship and literature concerning the First Barbary War focuses on 1804. But for the officers of the U.S. schooner Nautilus, events that unfolded in early 1805 more than made up in drama for what the year lacked in action.
By William J. Prom
April 2020
Naval History Magazine

Midshipman Charles G. Ridgely firmly grasped a telescope as he perched himself at the bow of the schooner Nautilus on the night of 4 September 1804. First Lieutenant George Reed had ordered him to not lose sight of the ketch Intrepid as she sailed toward Tripoli Harbor. The Intrepid carried the Nautilus’s captain, Master Commandant Richard Somers, on a daring mission to destroy the harbor’s fortifications. The Navy had converted the 75-ton ketch into a fireship loaded with 115 barrels of gunpowder and 150 shells, and Somers planned to sail toward the harbor walls with a small crew, light the fuses, and in another boat row back to the blockading squadron.

Tension had risen after inadequate winds prevented attempts the previous two nights, but the wind picked up the night of 4 September, sufficient to carry the Intrepid into the harbor. Ridgely recalled:

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1. “Blowing up of the U.S. Ketch Intrepid described by Midshipman Charles G. Ridgely, U.S. Navy,” in Dudley W. Knox, ed., Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers (hereafter NDBP) (Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1939), vol. 4, 509.

2. Chipp Reid, Intrepid Sailors: The Legacy of Preble’s Boys and the Tripoli Campaign (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2012), 230.

3. Extract from log book kept by Sailing Master Nathaniel Haraden, 8 September 1804, in NDBP, vol. 4, 526–27; CAPT Edward Preble to LT John H. Dent, 4 September 1804, in NDBP, vol. 4, 514.

4. “John Herbert Dent,” Naval History and Heritage Command, 9 December 2015, history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/library/research-guides/z-files/zb-files/zb-files-d/dent-john-herbert.html.

5. CAPT John Rodgers to CAPT Samuel Barron, 26 September 1804, in NDBP, vol. 5, 54; extract from journal of U.S. Frigate Congress, 18 October 1804, in NDBP, vol. 5, 93.

6. Abstract of journal kept by MIDN Charles Morris Jr., 1 November 1804 to 31 May 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 111.

7. Washington Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe 1804–1805 (New York: The Grolier Club, 1921), vol. 2, 41.

8. Brian Jay Jones, Washington Irving: An American Original (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2008), 27–28.

9. Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe, vol. 2, 14–35.

10. Barron to Tobias Lear, 14 January 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 276–77.

11. Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe, vol. 2, 52.

12. Jones, Washington Irving, 36–37; Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe, vol. 2, 60–62.

13. Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe, vol. 2, 77.

14. Irving, vol. 2, 68.

15. Cavaliere Giorgio Guillichini to Dent, 25 January 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 305–6.

16. Ridgely to Barron, 13 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 508.

17. Ridgely to Barron, 13 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 508–9.

18. Irving, Notes and Journal of Travel in Europe, vol. 2, 71–72.

19. Irving, vol. 2, 74.

20. Irving, vol. 2, 75–76.

21. Charles Morris, The Autobiography of Commodore Charles Morris, U.S. Navy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1880), 36.

22. Ridgely to Barron, 13 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 508–9.

23. Barron to Dent, 15 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 511; Barron to William Eaton, 15 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 511–12.

24. CAPT Stephen Decatur Jr. to Barron, 29 April 1805, in NDBP, vol. 5, 549–50; Barron to Secretary of the Navy Robert Denison, 22 May 1805 in NDBP, vol. 6, 33; Degen, Purviance & Company to Barron, 29 May 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 57.

25. Ridgely to Barron, 26 May 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 49.

26. John Broadbent to Barron, 17 June 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 123.

27. Captain John Rodgers to Dent, 9 June 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 102.

28. Guillichini to Dent, 28 June 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 140; Dent to Guillichini, 28 June 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 141; Guillichini to Broadbent, 1–4 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 148, 149, 151, 155, 158; Broadbent to Guillichini, 1–4 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 148–49, 151, 155, 158–59; Broadbent to Barron, 4 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 159.

29. Ridgely to Barron, 26 May 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 49.

30. Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, 1 September 1805, in NDBP,
vol. 6 259–63.

31. Broadbent to Rodgers, 24 September 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 286–87.

32. LT George Washington Reed to Rodgers, 12 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6 177; Rodgers to MIDN Oliver Hazard Perry, 21 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 195; Perry to Rodgers, 21 August 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 241; Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, 27 August 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 251–52; Rodgers to Secretary of the Navy, 10 January 1805 in NDBP, vol. 6 341; Ridgely to Rodgers, 18 January 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 348.

33. Jones, Washington Irving, 117–18, 120–21, 125–26.

34. LTCDR Claude Berube, “The Crucible of Naval Enlightenment,” Naval History 28, no. 5 (October 2014), usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2014-08/crucible-naval-enlightenment.

35. Broadbent to Rodgers, 9 July 1805, in NDBP, vol. 6, 171.

William J. Prom

Mr. Prom graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2009 with a B.S. in history with honors and a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. He deployed to Afghanistan in 2012 and in the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit as an artillery officer in 2013. He left the Marine Corps in 2014 as a captain and now lives with his wife and children in The Midlands, Texas.

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