Ironsides poli in modern Libya - had long made blackmail an art, sacking U.S. ships, enslaving their crews, and extorting millions in ran- som from America and European powers. Most Europeans bought the pi- rates off; young America seemed an easy mark. "You Christian dogs shall eat stones!" snarled the Ba- shaw of Tripoli to one captive U.S. crew, tearing up old treaties and declaring war on the United States on May 14, 1801. On the shores of Tripoli America's answer came in the form of Edward Preble and his flagship Constitution. With barely 1,000 seamen and 15 ships, some borrowed, Preble faced Tripoli's 25,000 soldiers behind 115 fixed guns high in the Bashaw's fortress. Undaunted, Preble dealt Tripoli five bombardments in three weeks, climaxed by a daring bare- Portside cannons had to be hauled in to dock at the State Pier. knuckled raid in the pre-dawn dusk of Aug. 28, 1804. and Stephen ("My country right or In a dazzling display of will- sank out of sight. Scarcely a ves- wrong") Decatur - were known, tige remained to tell the world power and gunpower, Preble's proudly, as "Preble's Boys." fleet stormed into Tripoli harbor that such a frigate had ever swept the seas." through the pirate flotilla, fighting Fight to the finish In half an hour it was all over, sword-in-teeth and hand-to-hand, and struck straight below the It was Isaac Hull who com- and Dacres staggered aboard to Bashaw's batteries, too low for the manded Old Ironsides in the War surrender his sword. "I will not of 1812 the day she dueled HMS take your sword," replied Hull, guns to turn on him. There, Con- stitution broadsided Tripoli until Guerriere to the death and earned "But I tell you, Dacres, I will its minarets fell like trees and its her immortal nickname. trouble you for that hat!" dust choked the air, the ship The Guerriere and her grim In the midst of the fight one Captain Dacres were infamous in unknown American seaman en- "framed by foam-mountains New England waters. In Septem- tered legend with his ship: "Huz- splashing as high as her main- yards, like a hedge of tall white ber 1811, Dacres had seized the zah boys!" he shouted, as British poplars that blazed and darkened brig Done out of Wiscasset, defied shot bounced off Constitution's in the never-ending flashes of her neutral flag, hauled her to oak hull, "Her sides are made of light." Halifax for ransom, and impressed iron!" her crew into the British Navy. Time proved Old Ironsides had Novelist Kenneth Roberts, in "Lydia Bailey," caught the scene Dacres loudly scorned all such more to fear from her friends than "boats of pine boards flying a bit of her foes. Twice she was nearly in the eyes of a Mainer held cap- striped bunting for a flag," and bet scrapped by her countrymen and tive in Tripoli. "That's Edward Preble!" he shouts. "He comes his hat he could sink any Ameri- saved only by poetry and pennies. from Portland! Everybody in Port- can ship in a half-hour's fight. In 1830 Navy commissioners His chance came on Aug. 19, ordered the aged ship broken up land knows him!" 1812, when Isaac Hull and the for scrap and sold. A poem saved Dawn brought a breeze to the Constitution cornered Dacres 600 her - the stirring verses of "Old smoking harbor filled with shat- miles off Cape Cod. Hull's first Ironsides," by a 21-year-old medi- tered pirate ships, and "the big broadside dismasted the Guer- cal student, Oliver Wendell ship, as if she had been waiting for riere and swallowed her in smoke. Holmes Sr.: the sun, payed off and moved "The Constitution shook from "Aye! Tear her tattered ensign toward that misty yellow disk - a stem to stern," one gunner re- down - long has it waved on high! sun-ship, sleek, shinning, ageless, membered, "and when the smoke And many an eye has danced to see invulnerable sailed by a man cleared, we saw (the Guerriere) that banner in the sky!" whose strength was such that he could have survived a thousand was mastless, her main yards shot Crusade for restoration deaths." from the ship, her riggings hang- ing in great profusion over her The ringing stanzas rallied the But Preble was mortal, even if sides. public, and Congress voted to re- his ship seemed not. He died at "Her hull parted in the center store the ship. From 1860 to 1881, Portland in 1807, but the young by the shock, and loaded with Old Ironsides sailed as the train- officers he trained at Tripoli masses of iron and spars, reeled, ing ship for the U.S. Naval Acad- Oliver Hazzard Perry, Isaac Hull, staggered, plunged forward and emy at Annapolis. From 1882 to