This was an insanely daring plan, since the Philadelphia sat nestled deep in the Bashaw’s tricky harbor, next to a dozen other armed ships under the castle’s heavy batteries. Preble gave Decatur five midshipmen from the Constitution and told him to see whether any of the 70 crew and officers from the Enterprize would volunteer. This mission was strictly optional, and Preble offered to make up any shortfall in the complement of men. Instead, Decatur was engulfed by men willing to risk their lives. Too many volunteered. Lieutenant Charles Gordon, for one, sent a note to Preble begging the favor “to let no opportunity escape wherein I can render my country any service.”
After months of little action, certainly the chance for danger appealed, but in addition, something about twenty-five-year-old Stephen Decatur inspired confidence and swept other men along. Tall, athletic, handsome with wavy hair, he was a strong, warm commander who maintained discipline not through fear of punishment but through loyalty and fairness. Decatur, as a young man, was credited with several daring rescues, including swan-diving from the yardarm to save a drowning sailor. He grew up in a seafaring household and was always more mechanically than academically bent. His father, Stephen Decatur Sr., veteran sea captain, was actually the first commander of the frigate Philadelphia after it came off the blocks.
Despite the choppy seas, the navy men were eager to depart for Tripoli. Ralph Izard Jr., a midshipman from the Constitution allowed to go on the mission, wrote home to his mother on February 2, 1804, from Syracuse harbor. “Before this day [next] week, I am in hopes we shall have the happiness of seeing the Philadelphia in flames—We shall astonish the Bashaw’s weak mind with the noise of shot falling about his ears. Perhaps some ‘more lucky than the rest may reach his heart’ & free our countrymen from Slavery.”
The Mastico/Intrepid and the Siren set sail for Tripoli, but within days, gale winds forced them off the plan. The first crack at a rendezvous on February 8 outside Tripoli harbor fell through when violent seas made it impossible for the Siren even to weigh anchor, and instead was forced to cut the anchor cable. “The men [were] several times knocked down by the capstan bars and several much injured,” wrote an officer.
The captains of the two vessels had to tie up their sails and ride out the storm. Aboard both ships, the whistle of the winds mixed with the ominous sound of men sharpening steel.
On the night of February 16, they tried again. The Siren waited just outside Tripoli harbor. The Mastico/Intrepid slowly proceeded in the dark into the harbor and approached the Philadelphia. When the Tripolitan guards aboard the Philadelphia noticed the other ship, they took the tompions out of the cannons, making ready to fire. The American sailors crouched belowdeck, with hatchets, daggers, cutlasses at the ready. Salvatore Catalano of Palermo stood on the deck with a handful of Americans disguised as typical Mediterranean sailors. He hailed the Philadelphia and spoke to the guards in Lingua Franca, mixed with some Arabic from a lifetime at sea: “We come from Malta and have lost our anchors in the storm. Can we make fast to you for the night?”
The unsuspecting guards on the Philadelphia tossed over a thick hawser rope. The disguised crewmen pulled the two ships close to each other. The instant before the two vessels touched, Decatur gave the signal, and 60 concealed Americans sprang up, edged weapons in hand, and boarded the Philadelphia. “The Tripolitans on board of her were dreadfully alarmed when they found out who we were,” wrote middie Ralph Izard Jr. “Poor fellows! About 20 of them were cut to pieces and the rest jumped overboard.”
The ambush ended quickly, but not quickly enough. “The whooping and screaming of the enemy being boarded and defeated drew an almost instantaneous and continued fire of small arms from two xebecs lying near,” wrote surgeon’s mate Lewis Heerman. Now the 60 boarders raced about the long deck of the Philadelphia, following Decatur’s detailed plan, and they climbed belowdeck to scatter combustibles. “I immediately fired her in her Store Rooms, Gun Room Cockpit and Birth [Berth] Decks,” wrote Decatur in his official report. “And remained on board until the flames had issued from the Spar Deck Hatchways and Ports.”
If the Philadelphia’s gunpowder caught fire, Decatur and others would be launched skyward. The stragglers literally outraced the flames to reboard the ketch Mastico/Intrepid. The mission was completed within fifteen minutes, but in the confusion, the Philadelphia’s shore boat, which the Americans had hoisted down, drifted away, carrying a flag of Tripoli, a trophy.
The Philadelphia, strategically drenched in combustibles, roared up in flames, garishly illuminating the harbor. The Mastico/Intrepid lay two feet downwind of this inferno. Now, a not so strange thing happened. It was as though currents of air “were rushing from every side toward the flames,” pulling everything into the blaze, according to Heerman, surgeon’s mate. Fire needs oxygen, and the Mastico/Intrepid was being sucked closer to the Philadelphia.