Combat· First Barbary War
Boat raid on convoy at Old Tripoli (Burning of the wheat ships)
On 20 May 1803, the USS New York and USS Enterprise cut off a convoy of wheat-laden vessels bound to provision Tripoli.
The escort and convoy ran for safety beneath the city's guns into the harbor of Old Tripoli, but the Americans were not deterred. A boat party of Marines and bluejackets pulled in under heavy fire, landed, set the moored vessels and their cargo of wheat ablaze, and returned safely to their boats. The Tripolitans afterward managed to put the fires out, limiting the damage, but the raid was part of the steady pressure the squadron kept on Tripoli's supply line through the war's middle phase. Cutting off the grain that fed the besieged city was a slow, grinding way to wear the enemy down, and the Marines' fire covered the boat crews through the dangerous work close under the shore batteries.
Podcast episodes on First Barbary War
Record no. 194