North Carolina Office of Archives and History

Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U. S. Navy by Glenn Tucker;Dorothy Thomas TuckerReview by: A. M. PattersonThe North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 (January, 1964), pp. 128-129Published by: North Carolina Office of Archives and HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23517524 .

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128 The North Carolina Historical Review

warts only to wipe them out or blur them. The main shortcoming of the volume is its simplistic frame or reference. There are good guys and bad guys, right causes and wrong causes, those in favor of progress, and those opposed to it, and so forth. If the human psyche is so un

complicated, if great issues are really this simple there is no need of historians or philosophers. One has have only to resort to copybook maxims.

Harry L. Coles The Ohio State University

Harry L. Coles

Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U. S. Navy. By Glenn Tucker. Maps by Dorothy Thomas Tucker. (Indianapolis, Indiana, and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1963. Illus trations, acknowledgments, bibliography, and index. Pp. x, 487. $6.95.)

Temporarily, at least, Glenn Tucker has deserted the Civil War, a field in which he has been pre-eminently successful, to write the

fascinating and too-little known story of the Barbary Wars and the birth of the United States Navy. Dawn Like Thunder will certainly rank with the best of Mr. Tucker's Civil War books.

In the late-eighteenth century, American shipping, as well as that of other nations, was the constant prey of the piratical forces of the

Barbary States, and the paying of tribute, or bribes, to an assortment of rapacious beys and bashaws was the order of the day. Finally, grow ing demands for protection of American shipping and for cessation of

payments of tribute led to the Navy Bill of 1794, which was enacted in spite of the opposition of Nathaniel Macon and the entire North Carolina delegation in Congress.

The bill led to the creation of a navy which was truly one of iron men and wooden ships. Preble, Stephen Decatur, Lawrence, Mac

Donough, Porter, Somers, and Wadsworth, to name only a few officers of the young navy, won undying fame for themselves and respect for their fledgling nation. The burning of the "Philadelphia" by Decatur and his intrepid band remains a great epic in naval history, and the exploits of the indomitable Lieutenant Presley N. O'Bannon on "the shores of Tripoli" live on in the words of the Marine Corps hymn.

The author finds a degree of similarity between the payment of tri bute to the Barbary States and some of the United States' current for

eign aid programs, and critics of some of these present-day foreign policies will find familiar reading in the unhappy ending to the heroic

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Book Reviews 129

efforts of Consul Eaton and Lt. O'Bannon to oust the villainous Bashaw

of Tripoli and place his friendly brother on the throne, only to have another agent of the United States make peace with the Bashaw, thus

leaving friendly forces stranded in the desert. In his research, Tucker not only consulted most available sources in

this country, but also visited Tripoli in search of information in order to

familiarize himself with the area. This reviewer's only criticism—a minor one—is that Tucker placed too much emphasis on historical

background, with the result that the reader may find it difficult to fol low him as he jumps from country to country and from era to era in the

early chapters of the book. Mrs. Tucker's excellent maps are of considerable assistance in fol

lowing the courses of battles and campaigns described in the book.

A. M. Patterson

State Department of Archives and History

A. M. Patterson

American Slavers and the Federal Law, 1837-1862. By Warren S. Howard.

(Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press. 1963. Illus

trations, bibliography, notes, and index. Pp. xii, 336. $6.50.)

This study makes fascinating reading, and it has a timeless quality in its presentation of the age-long proclivity of men to seek all kinds of devices to evade the law for their private gain. It supersedes the

study of DuBois' work on the subject, particularly in greatly reduc

ing the exaggerated estimate by the Negro historian of the number

of slaves smuggled during the illegal African slave trade. It also com bats the allegation that Democratic administrations controlled by southerners were responsible for the lack of enforcement of the laws

against the smuggling of slaves. Another of its virtues is that, though it recognizes the horror and unspeakable cruelty of the slave trade,

it places emphasis on another aspect of the trade, namely the reasons

for the failure of law enforcement. The author lists a number of explanations arising predominantly

out of the national character of Americans in the period of slave

smuggling. Among these traits were the individualism, pride, and

Anglophobia of Americans which prevented the Senate from conclud

ing a treaty with Great Britain to allow its cruisers to search American vessels on the high seas for the purpose of detecting and arresting slavers. Not until 1862, after the American squadron had been called

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