The Enterprise & Intrepid - Namesake Sister Ships at War 200 Years Ago - Together Again in NY
The Space Shuttle Enterprise is delivered to the USS Intrepid, both named after ships that fought together in the first Barbary War.
The
Enterprise
and the
Intrepid - together again after two hundred years.
In the early 1800s the
schooner USS Enterprsie and the ketch
USS Intrepid sailed together in the
first war against the Barbary Pirates.
Now 200 years later, their namesakes
have come together again, with the Space Shuttle Enterprise becoming part of
the Intrepid museum at New York
harbor.
While the TV Starship and the Space Shuttle Enterprise and the air craft carriers Enterprise and Intrepid may be more famous, they are all named after schooner USS Enterprise and the ketch USS Intrepid, - sailing ships that
fought together during America’s first war with the Barbary pirates at the turn
of the 18th century.
Since President George Washington began giving American
warships inspirational names, few have had as glorious and entwined history as
the Enterprise and the Intrepid.
In 1801 the schooner
USS Enterprise, then commanded by Lt. Andrew Sterrett, was the
first American ship to engage the Barbary Pirates in combat, taking on the corsair
Tripoli in
a fierce battle that left the pirate ship destroyed without any American
casualties.
Lt. Sterrett of the schooner
USS Enterprise oversees the destruction of the pirate corsair
Tripoli.
Later, the same Enterprise, commanded by Lt. Stephen Decatur, assisted
in the capture the pirate ship Mastico,
which was rechristened the USS
Intrepid.
In February, 1804, Commodore Edward Preble, aboard the
flagship USS Constitution, ordered
Lt. Stephen Decatur to sail the Intrepid
into Tripoli harbor in the dark of night, posing as a merchant ship, recapture
and sink the captured frigate USS
Philadelphia.
“The destruction of the Philadelphia
is an object of great importance,” Preble wrote to Decatur,
adding “I rely with confidence on your Intrepidity & Enterprize to effect
it.”
Decatur successfully
completed the mission to sink the Philadelphia, one of the first special
operations conducted by the US Navy.
The following September, 1804, Preble turned the Intrepid over to Lt. Richard Somers,
converted it into a fireship laden with explosives, and sailed into Tripoli
harbor at night, with the intention of lighting a fuse, escaping in row boats,
and have the Intrepid explode amidst the anchored pirate fleet. Something went
terribly wrong however, and the ship exploded before it reached the enemy,
killing Somers, two other officers – Lt. Henry Wadsworth (uncle of Longfellow)
and Lt. Joseph Israel, along with ten other men.
The remains of the men of the Intrepid washed ashore and
were buried outside the castle walls, where they remain today, despite the two
century long efforts of the Somers and Wadsworth
families to have them repatriated home. The Department of Defense is currently
conducting a study to determine the feasibility of returning their remains.
We are trying to obtain the repatriation of all of the remains of the men of the Intrepid from Tripoli, and the Veterans who served on the USS Intrepid carrier have supported this effort in a big way, and have offered to hold the official repatriation ceremony for these men aboard the aircraft carrier Intrepid when and if it ever occurs.
On HISTORY:
USS Enterprise 1799
The third USS Enterprise, a
schooner, was built by Henry Spencer at Baltimore,
Maryland, in 1799, and placed under the
command of Lieutenant John Shaw. This ship was overhauled and rebuilt several
times, effectively changing from a twelve gun schooner to a fourteen gun
topsail schooner and eventually to a brig rigged ship.
On 17 December 1799, Enterprise departed the Delaware Capes for
the Caribbean to protect United
States merchantmen from the depredations of
French privateers during the Quasi-War with France.
Within the following year, Enterprise
captured eight privateers and liberated 11 American vessels from captivity,
achievements which assured her inclusion in the 14 ships retained in the Navy
after the Quasi-War. Placing her for sale was suggested in mid-March,
1801.
After Lieutenant Shaw, due to ill health, was relieved by Lieutenant Andrew
Sterett, Enterprise sailed to the Mediterranean.
Being delayed by getting new masts, she left Baltimore
in early May 1801. Raising Gibraltar on 26 June 1801, where she was to join
other U.S.
warships in the First Barbary War. Enterprise's
first action came on 1 August 1801
when, just west of Malta,
she defeated the 14-gun Tripolitan corsair Tripoli,
after a fierce but one-sided battle. Unscathed, Enterprise
sent the battered pirate into port since the schooner's orders prohibited
taking prizes. the 1st of August (1801), the schooner Enterprize , commanded by
captain Sterrett, and carrying 12 six pounders and 90 men, bound to Malta for a
supply of water, fell in with a Tripolitan cruiser, being a ship of 14 six
pounders, manned by 80 men.
At this time the Enterprize
bore British colours. Captain Sterrett interrogated the commander of the
Tripolitan on the object of his cruise. He replied that he came out to cruise
after the Americans, and that he lamented that he had not come alongside of
some of them. Captain Sterrett, on this reply, hoisted American, in the room of
British colours; and discharged a volley of musquetry; which the Tripolitan returned
by a partial broadside. This was the commencement of a hard fought action,
which commenced at 9 A.M. and
continued for three hours.
Three times, during the action, the Tripolitan attempted to
board the Enterprize, and was as
often repulsed with great slaughter, which was greatly increased by the
effective aid afforded by the Marines. Three times, also, the Tripolitan struck
her colours, and as often treacherously renewed the action, with the hope of
disabling the crew of captain Sterrett , which, as is usual, when the enemy
struck her colours, came on deck, and exposed themselves, while they gave three
cheers as a mark of victory.
When for the third time, this treacherous attack was made,
captain Sterrett gave orders to sink the Tripolitan, on which a scene of
furious combat ensued, until the enemy cried for mercy.
Captain Sterrett, listening to the voice of humanity even
after such perfidious conduct, ordered the captain either to come himself, or
to send some of his officers on board the Enterprize.
He was informed that the boat of the Tripolitan was so shattered as to be unfit
for use. When we compare this great slaughter, with the fact that not a single
individual of the crew of the Enterprise was in the least degree
injured, we are lost in surprise at the uncommon good fortune which accompanied
our seamen, and at the superior management of Captain Sterrett .
Fighting Pirates - Yesterday and Today
The murders of four American yachtsmen by pirates and the continued attacks on
merchant ships off Africa reflects the threat against American ships by the
Barbary Pirates that lead to the creation of the United States Navy and continues
today with the USS Sterrett and USS Bainbridge sailing anti-pirate
patrols off Africa.
When the Barbary Pirates of North Africa began to attack American ships and hold
crews as hostage for ransom and tribute, the Americans responded with the
battle cry of "Millions for Defense but not once cent for tribute,"
and sent a fleet of ships to the Mediterranean to fight
them.
As President John Adams said, "We ought not to fight them at all, unless
we determine to fight them forever," and indeed, here we are, still
fighting them.
The USS Sterrett, on pirate duty off Africa
today is named after Lt. Andrew Sterrett, whose schooner USS Enterprise was the first American vessel to engage the Barbary
pirates in 1801.
Among the warships outfitted for the US Navy to fight the pirates were the
frigate Philadelphia, and a number of smaller schooners,
including the schooner USS Enterprise
and Nautilus.
Lt. Richard Somers, of Somers Point, New
Jersey, who was named skipper of the schooner Nautilus,
reported on Sterrett's first early action against the pirates in a letter he
wrote to Lt. Stephen Decatur, who would later command the Enterprise
himself.
"I was about to close my letter," Somers wrote, "when one of our
officers got a letter from a friend on the ENTERPRISE, and as it shows how the
Barbary corsairs fight, I will tell you part of it. While running for Malta,
on the 1st of August, the ENTERPRISE,
came across a polacca-rigged ship such as the Barbary Corsairs usually have,
with an American brig in tow. It had evidently been captured and her people set
adrift. Sterrett, who commands the ENTERPRSIE, as soon as he found the position
of affairs, cleared for action, ran out his guns, and opened with a brisk fire
on the Tripolitan. He got into a raking position, and his broadside had a
terrific effect upon the pirate. But - mark the next- three times were the
Tripolitan colors hauled down, and then hoisted again as soon as the fire of
the ENTERPRISE ceased. After the
third time, Sterrett played his broadside on the pirate with the determination
to sink him for such treachery; but the Tripolitan rais, or captain, appeared
in the waste of the ship, bending his body in token of submission, and actually
threw his ensign overboard. Sterrett could not take the ship as a prize,
because no formal declaration of war had reached him from the United
States; but he sent Midshipmen Porter…aboard
the pirate to dismantle her. He had all her guns thrown overboard, stripped her
of everything except one old sale and a single spar, and let her go, with a
message to the Bashaw of Tripoli that such was the way Americans treated
pirates."
"I understand that when the rais (captain) got to Tripoli with his one old
sail, he was ridden through town on a jackass, by order of the Bashaw, and
received the bastinado; and that since then the Tripolitans are having great
trouble in finding crews to man their corsair ships because of the dread of the
'Americanos'."
"...Now I must tell you a piece of news almost too good to be true. I hear
the Government is building four beautiful small schooners, to carry sixteen
guns, for use in the Tripolitan war, which is to be pushed actively; and that
you, my dear Decatur, will command one of those vessels, and I another! I can
write nothing more exhilarating after this; so, I am, as always, your faithful
friend, Richard Somers."
While the USS Sterrett is now patrolling for pirates off Africa,
it is not known what effect the killing of three pirates by American snipers
from the USS Bainbridge last year had on these pirates today.
As with the USS Sterrett, the USS Bainbrige is an American warship
named after a hero of the War against the Barbary Pirates. Bainbridge was the
Captain of the frigate USS Philadelphia
when it ran aground outside Tripoli
harbor while chasing a pirate corsair. Bainbridge and his 300 man crew were
taken prisoner and held in the dungeons of the Old Castle Fort, which is now a
museum.
Lt. Decatur, aboard the captured pirate ship renamed the USS Intrepid, slipped into Tripoli
Harbor on an early special ops
mission and scuttled the Philadelphia
and escaped without any casualties.
Lt. Somers then sailed the Intrepid,
filled with explosives, back into Tripoli
harbor on September 4, 1804
in what turned out to be a suicide mission. When the Intrepid exploded prematurely in the harbor, Somers, two officers
and ten men were killed, their bodies washed ashore the next morning.
Captain Bainbridge convinced the Bey of Tripoli to allow the captured chief
surgeon from the Philadelphia and a
detail of prisoners to bury them, which they did east of the Old Castle Fort in
what is now Martyrs Square,
the epicenter of the Libyan revolution.
While the Navy kept the pirates bottled up at Tripoli Harbor, Marine Lt.
Presley O'Bannon and a detachment of eight marines, American diplomat William Eaton,
200 Greek Christian mercenaries and 2,000 Arab tribesmen marched across the
desert and attacked and captured the eastern port city of Derna, while the
Enterprise and other American warships pounded the city from the sea.
They were about to march on Tripoli
and fight to free the prisoners from the Philadelphia
when a treaty was hatched and Bainbridge and his men were freed.
The Bey at the time was Yousef Karamandi, the same name of the Mayor of Tripoli
in 1949 when a ceremony was held at the graves of five men of Somers' men from
the USS Intrepid. After over a hundred and fifty years, the same family was
still ruling Tripoli.
USS Enterprise vs. Tripolitan Corsair Tripoli,
1 August 1801. Lieutenant
Andrew Sterrett leaving USS Enterprise
to board the Tripoli after the
corsair’s surrender.
During the First Barbary War, the schooner Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Andrew
Sterett, encountered the Barbary corsair Tripoli west
of Malta and
prepared for engagement. After a three-hour battle and false surrenders by Tripoli’s
commander, Admiral Rais Mahomet Rous, Enterprise
broadsided the vessel. Admitting defeat, Rous surrendered and threw the
Tripolitan flag into water.
Dudley Knox‘s “A
History of the United States Navy,” Sterrett reported that, “The carnage on
onboard the Tripolitan was dreadful, she having twenty men killed and thirty
wounded…Her mizzen-mast went over the side…We had not a man wounded and sustained
no material damage in our hull or rigging.”
Her next victories came in 1803 after months of carrying dispatches, convoying
merchantmen, and patrolling the Mediterranean. On 17
January, she captured Paulina, a Tunisian ship under charter to the Bashaw
(Pasha) of Tripoli, and on 22 May,
she ran a 30-ton craft ashore on the coast of Tripoli.
For the next month Enterprise
and other ships of the squadron cruised inshore, bombarding the coast and
sending landing parties to destroy enemy small craft.
On 23 December 1803, after
a quiet interval of cruising, Enterprise joined
with frigate Constitution capture
the Tripolitan ketch Mastico.
Refitted and renamed Intrepid,
the ketch was given to Enterprise's commanding officer, Lieutenant
Stephen Decatur, Jr., for use in a daring expedition to burn frigate Philadelphia, captured by the Tripolitans and
anchored in the harbor of Tripoli.
Decatur and his volunteer crew carried out their mission perfectly, destroying
the frigate and depriving Tripoli
of a powerful warship. Enterprise
continued to patrol the Barbary Coast until July 1804
when she joined the other ships of the squadron in general attacks on the city
of Tripoli over a period of several
weeks.
Enterprise passed
the winter in Venice, Italy,
where she was practically rebuilt by May 1805. She rejoined her squadron in
July and resumed patrol and convoy duty until August of 1807. During that
period she fought 15 August 1806
a brief engagement off Gibraltar with a group of Spanish
gunboats who attacked her but were driven off.
Enterprise returned to the
United
States in late 1807, and sailed coastal
waters until June 1809. After a brief tour in the
Mediterranean,
she sailed to
New York where she
was laid up for nearly a year.
Repaired at the Washington Navy Yard,
Enterprise was
recommissioned there in April 1811, then sailed for operations out of
Savannah,
Georgia and
Charleston,
South Carolina. She returned to
Washington
on 2 October and was hauled out of the water for extensive repairs and
modifications: when she sailed on
20
May 1812, she had been rerigged as a brig.
At sea when war was declared on
Britain,
she cruised along the east coast during the first year of hostilities. On
5 September 1813,
Enterprise sighted and chased the
brig HMS
Boxer. The brigs
opened fire on each other, and in a closely fought, fierce and gallant action
which took the lives of both commanding officers,
Enterprise captured Boxer and
took her into nearby
Portland, Maine,
with Edward McCall in command. Here a common funeral was held for Lieutenant
William Burrows,
Enterprise, and Captain Samuel Blyth,
Boxer, both well-known and highly
respected in their services.
After repairing at
Portland,
Enterprise sailed
in company with brig Rattlesnake, for the
Caribbean.
The two ships took three prizes before being forced to separate by a heavily
armed ship on
25 February 1814.
Enterprise was compelled to jettison most of
her guns in order to outsail her superior antagonist. The brig reached
Wilmington,
North Carolina, on
9 March 1814, then passed the remainder of the
war as a guardship off
Charleston, South
Carolina.
Enterprise served one more short tour in the
Mediterranean
(July-November 1815), then cruised the northeastern seaboard until November
1817. From that time on she sailed the
Caribbean Sea and
the
Gulf of Mexico, suppressing pirates, smugglers, and
slaves; in this duty she took 13 prizes. An attack on
Cape
Antonio, Cuba
in October 1821 resulted in the rescue of three vessels taken by pirates and
the breaking up of an outlaw flotilla reputedly commanded by James D. Jeffers,
aka Charles Gibbs. Her long career ended on
9 July 1823, when, without injury to her crew, she
stranded and broke up on Little Curacao Island in the
West Indies.
Sketch of the Intrepid as it sailed into Tripoli Harbor - September 4, 1805
KETCH USS INTREPID
VESSEL DATA FILE
NAME: Intrepid, ex-Mastico, ex-Gheretti
TYPE: Ketch 4 (martingana)
BUILT: FRANCE
COST: $1,800.00
LAUNCHED: 1796
CAPTURED: December 23, 1803
COMMISSIONED: January 31, 1804
FIRST CRUISE: 1804
PRINCIPAL DIMENSIONS – (No known plans are known to have survived)
DIMENSIONS (found in Dictionary of American Naval Fighting
Ships): L/Gun Deck: 60,000 Extreme Beam:
12,000 (Register of Officer Personnel and Ships Data 1801-1807, 1945, 60’ long,
12’ beacm and displacement of 64 tons. Listed as bomb ketch.
TONAGE: Congressional Measurement – 60 tons (DANFS) (40
& 2/95ths by calculation)
CHANGES: Mounted 4 guns when captured.
ACTION: 1) Believed to have participated in the Battle
of the Nile as a French gunboat Gheretti.
2)
Ex-Tripolitan ketch Mastico captured by schooner USS Enterprise (Decatur) and
flagship USS Constitution on 23
December, 1804.
3)
Lt. Stephen Decatur (of Enterprise)
uses Intrepid to scuttle Philadelphia.
4) 1 June 1804 outfitted as a Hospital
Ship
5)
August 1804 Used as supply ships during attacks on Tripoli
6) 4 Sept. 1804 outfitted as fire ship,
destroyed in Tripoli Harbor
DEACTIVATION/ DISPOSITION: Prematurely blew up on
4 September 1804, while entering the
harbor
of Tripoli as a fire-ship with the
loss of all 13 hands.
The
Intrepid at Tripoli Harbor - 1804
.JPG)
