David Porter, Philadelphia & The Barbary Pirates: Lieutenant Porter on the Shores of Tripoli

One halloween the US Navy would like to forget, played a terrible trick on LIEUTENANT DAVID PORTER, in 1803. He, along with 306 other shipmates aboard the 38-gun frigate USS Philedelphia, including Captain William Bainbridge, were caught by pirates at Tripoli It took guile and courage to free them from their 18-month slavery in the grip of a murdurous, despotic Pasha, and a renegade Scot-turned-Turk pirate. Plus the politicing of a President, Emporer and Pope. It also introduced the United States Marine Corps onto the world stage of battle and bravery. A handful of leathernecks with a raggle-taggle army of camel-drivers and mercenaries, under determined leadership, routed the best the Barbary Coast Pirates could muster. They helped free their comrades, after they marched across a desert, quelled mutinies and meted out frontier justice.