Combat· First Barbary War
Boat Attack on a Grounded Galliot West of Tripoli
On July 7, 1804, armed boats from the U.S. brig Siren attacked a Tripoline galliot run ashore about 9 miles west of Tripoli, abreast of the Second Tower. At daybreak the Argus, Vixen, Scourge and Siren had chased her, and the enemy hauled her on shore and unloaded her. Master Commandant Charles Stewart sent the Siren's launch with a 12-pounder carronade and her barge with a heavy swivel under Lieutenant Caldwell and Midshipman Dorsey. Both boats grounded on the reef under a severe fire from enemy troops posted behind rocks and sand hills. The boats kept up a brisk fire until the schooner Vixen, towed by boats and using her sweeps, came in to cover them. Their fire cut the vessel to pieces, but the reef kept the boats from bringing her off, and Stewart recalled them. William Williams, a Marine, was killed, and Marines Thomas Riveness, Samuel Henzie and William Cooper were wounded. Williams died at noon of a wound in the shoulder.
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Record no. 896