The End of Barbary Terror: America's 1815 War Against the Pirates of North Africa

ISBN-13: 9780195325409 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 256 str.

Frederick C. Leiner

Opis

When Barbary pirates captured an obscure Yankee sailing brig off the coast of North Africa in 1812, enslaving eleven American sailors, President James Madison sent the largest American naval force ever gathered to that time, led by the heroic Commodore Stephen Decatur, to end Barbary terror once and for all.
Drawing upon numerous ship logs, journals, love letters, and government documents, Frederick C. Leiner paints a vivid picture of the world of naval officers and diplomats in the early nineteenth century, as he recreates a remarkable and little known episode from the early American republic. Leiner first describes Madison's initial efforts at diplomacy, sending Mordecai Noah to negotiate. But when the ruler refused to ransom the Americans--"not for two millions of dollars"--Madison declared war and sent a fleet to North Africa. Decatur's squadron dealt quick blows to the Barbary navy, dramatically fighting and capturing two ships. Decatur then sailed to Algiers. He refused to go ashore to negotiate--indeed, he refused to negotiate on any essential point. The ruler of Algiers signed the treaty--in Decatur's words, "dictated at the mouths of our cannon"--in twenty-four hours. The United States would never pay tribute to the Barbary world again, and the captive Americans were set free.
Here then is a real-life naval adventure that will thrill fans of Patrick O'Brian, a story of Islamic terrorism, white slavery, poison gas, diplomatic intrigue, and battles with pirates on the high seas.

Recenzje

"Frederick Leiner has taken an almost forgotten moment in early U.S. history—the 1812 capture by Algerines of an obscure Yankee sailing brig—and by focusing exclusively on that incident and the events deriving from it has woven a remarkably complex yet totally coherent tapestry of the times. There are heroes and villains galore, mysterious secret agents and conniving heads of state; there are wars and other international crises, numerous historical set pieces and acts of derring-do. All told, there's enough spectacle and drama to satisfy any reader."—James Tertius de Kay, author of A Rage for Glory: The Life of Commodore Stephen Decatur, USN

O autorze

Frederick C. Leiner is a lawyer and historian who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of Millions for Defense: The Subscription Warships of 1798, which David McCullough praised as "first rate—well researched, well written, and very welcomea fascinating chapter in American naval history."