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THE GRANDEES: AMERICA'S SEPHARDIC ELITE |
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13. THE FIREBRAND
WHAT THE AMERICAN JEWISH community required was a man to serve as its conscience. At least this was the contention of young Uriah Phillips Levy of Philadelphia, who seems to have decided at a very early age that he would fill that role. To him it was a question of assimilation -- and loss of all that it meant to be a Sephardic Jew -- or of continuity, and he placed tremendous value on the latter. He thoroughly disapproved of what he had heard was going on in cities such as New Orleans, and of men such as Judah Touro, who were Jews with only half their hearts. He disapproved of fellow Philadelphians such as the Franks girls, who seemed not only to care nothing about their country but to care less about their faith, being bent apparently only on marrying titled Englishmen. He disapproved of his Levy cousins Samson, Benjamin, and Nathan -- the latter had been David Franks's partner -- who danced at the Assembly, joined Christian clubs, and paid only lip service to their noble heritage. Their children were all marrying Christians and converting. Uriah Phillips Levy believed that American Jews needed Great Menthe kind who would stand up foursquarely as Americans, and just as foursquarely as Jews, who would assume positions of leadership in American institutions, but on their own Jewish terms. It was a large order to give to an already seriously fragmented and disunified group of people, but Uriah Levy gave it. He was small in stature, but his ego was more vast than the whole of the new republic. Equally sizable was the chip that Uriah Levy carried, through most of his life, on his diminutive shoulder.
To be a crusader, a setter-to-rights, he regarded as part of his birthright. He was, after all, a Philadelphia Levy. His family, Uriah Levy felt, were in no way to be taken lightly. After all, George Washington had been at his grandparents' wedding. His great-great-grandfather had been the personal physician to King John V of Portugal. The Levy family had made all the proper in-the-group marriages. One of Uriah's sisters had married a Hendricks, another a Lopez -- one of Aaron Lopez' West Indian cousins. Though Uriah's family was sometimes referred to as "the poor branch" (the Samson Levys were considerably richer), the Levys were nothing if not proud.
In 1806, when Uriah Levy announced that he intended to embark upon a naval career, he was barely fourteen years old. He had already learned to identify, from their silhouettes, the names and flags of all the ships that entered and departed Philadelphia harbor. He first signed on as a cabin boy, with duties, among other things, of making up the captain's bunk. By autumn of the following year, pressures were building toward the War of 1812, and President Jefferson declared an embargo on all American trade with Europe. This meant that the shipping industry fell idle, and Uriah used this time to attend a navigation school in Philadelphia, where it was quickly apparent that he was brilliant.
The American Navy, at this time, was closely modeled after the British. Its officer class consisted of men with old-school ties, who all Knew" each other, who regarded themselves as "gentlemen." U.S. naval officers, in other words, constituted a kind of club, with rules and rituals and membership requirements that were inflexible. No Jew had ever been a U.S. naval officer, and it was unthinkable that one should ever wish or try to be. Uriah Levy had chosen for his arena the institution of American life where the Jew's role had always been the weakest, the most capitulating, where Jews had traditionally been given the least power and the meanest jobs.
In 1809, the Embargo Act was lifted, and Uriah Levy -- now a naval school graduate -- was back in service. It wasn't long before he had his first run-in with the power structure.
In the years between the two wars, British impressment gangs prowled the streets of American port cities looking for susceptible young men whom they could literally shanghai into the British Navy. American men who carried the proper documents were usually immune from this sort of danger, however, and Uriah Levy had naturally taken pains to have his "protection certificate" up to date and in order. As a result, when the cry of "Press gang!" rang through a Philadelphia tavern one afternoon -- and most of the young men in the place headed quickly for the back door -- Uriah Levy remained calm, sipping his coffee.
A squad of British marines, in white breeches and blue coats, with tall red plumes sprouting from fat shakos, marched into the room with rifles at port, and demanded to see Uriah's credentials. Uriah withdrew his certificate from his breast pocket. One of the marines took the certificate, scanned it, looked at Uriah, and said, "You don't look like an American to me. You look like a Jew."
Uriah replied coolly, "I am an American and a Jew."
"If the Americans have Jew peddlers manning their ships, it's no wonder they sail so badly," the sergeant said.
The Levy temper took over. Uriah immediately doubled his fist and struck the British sergeant in the jaw. A second member of the press gang promptly raised his rifle butt and felled Uriah with a single blow. When he regained consciousness, Uriah Levy was in the brig of a British cutter named the Vermyra, bound for Jamaica.
Uriah spent several miserable weeks slaving as a deckhand on the British ship. He was repeatedly ordered to be sworn into His Majesty's Navy, and each time refused with the polite and formal statement: "Sir, I cannot take the oath. I am an American and I cannot swear allegiance to your king. And I am a Hebrew, and do not swear on your testament, or with my head uncovered." Obviously, the commander of the Vermyra realized he had a somewhat unusual situation on his hands. Possibly his uncertainty as to what a Jew actually was caused him to treat Uriah Levy with some deference. The young man's stiff and haughty attitude, and carefully phrased responses, hinted that the captain was in the presence of a Personage. At Jamaica, Uriah was permitted an audience with Sir Alexander Cochrane -- the Briton who, a few years later, would order the city of Washington, D.C., put to the torch. Uriah, however, found Sir Alexander sympathetic and disapproving of the practice of impressment. Sir Alexander looked over Uriah's papers, said that they appeared to be authentic, and announced that Uriah could be released provided he made his own way back to the United States. Within a few weeks, he was back in Philadelphia again.
In 1811, Uriah Levy had saved enough money to purchase a one-third interest in a 138-ton schooner named the George Washington -- from the first names of his other partners, George Mesoncort and Washington Garrison. Levy was designated the ship's master. "By this time," he wrote, with unfailingly breezy self-confidence, in his memoirs, "I had passed through every grade of service-cabin boy, ordinary seaman, able-bodied seaman, boatswain, third, second, and first mates, to that of captain. By means of my eight years' experience and instruction afloat and ashore, I had become familiar with every part of my profession -- from the sculling of the compass to the taking of the altitude of the sun; from the splicing of a rope to the fishing of a mainmast; from the holding of a reel to the heaving to of a ship in a gale of wind." He was perhaps the first commander in the history of American shipping to nail a mezuzah outside his cabin door; it was a gift from his proud Jewish mother. When he took command of the George Washington, Uriah Levy was only nineteen years old.
His first command involved a cargo of com, which Uriah carried to the Canary Islands and sold for 2,500 Spanish dollars. He then took on a second cargo of Canary wine and headed for the Cape Verde Islands, off the coast of Africa.
When he arrived at the Isle of May in the Cape Verde group, Levy anchored and began what turned out to be an extended stay. He remained at anchor offshore nearly three weeks all told, and in his copious memoirs he never satisfactorily explained the reasons for his stay -- nor why, inexplicably, he never attempted to unload his wine. Did he spend these weeks studying the slave trade? Possibly. The Cape Verde Islands lie off Africa's western coastal bulge, along which was strung the chain of slaving "castles." During his stay, Levy became friendly with another American captain, Levi Joy, and the two men spent considerable time together. Captain Joy was definitely involved in the slave trade, and might have been regarded as a certain kind of expert at it. He and Uriah Levy met frequently ashore for meals and exchanged visits on each other's ships. What did they talk about? It is impossible to say, and hard to know what Uriah's feelings about the slave trade might have been, because his visit to the Isle of May was terminated in dramatic fashion.
At dinner one night aboard Captain Joy's ship, Uriah was suddenly interrupted by an excited pair of his crewmen, who clambered on board from the George Washington's dinghy, crying, "Sir, your ship has been stolen!" Uriah rushed to the rail and watched as his ship, under full sail, disappeared over the horizon. It was the last he ever saw of her. A treacherous first mate and a couple of accomplices among the crew had plotted the piracy. With them went all of Uriah Levy's Spanish dollars, and all his casks of Canary Island wine. By the time he made his way home, an impoverished maritime hitchhiker, America was at war with England for a second time.
For his war service, Uriah Levy had two choices. He could sign on a privateer -- an often lucrative occupation, particularly if one was successful at capturing enemy ships and splitting up the booty -- or he could join the United States Navy as a sailing master, at a modest forty dollars a month. Though it afforded '1ittle prospect of promotion and little gain," as he put it, the Navy "furnished the best proof of love to my country." Also, this was clearly where he was aiming. On October 21, 1812, after a visit to a Boston tailor, Uriah Phillips Levy made his first appearance in the full uniform of the United States Navy as it was in the War of 1812: "A dark blue double-breasted coat, with a rolling collar with two loops of gold lace on each side; blue woolen pantaloons and white stockings; black silk cravat with a white shirt, and a black cocked hat."
He cut a dashing figure, for he was slim and well built, with dark hair, curling sideburns, and a perfectly clipped and curled handlebar moustache. His earliest naval assignments took him frequently to Manhattan, where he attended synagogue at Shearith Israel, was entertained at the best teas and dinner dances, and was frequently seen strolling with well-placed young ladies along State Street and Battery Walk. In New York he heard rumors that the brig Argus, which had been anchored in the bay for several months, was preparing to break the British blockade. Uriah borrowed a rowboat, rowed over to the Argus, and presented himself to her commander. "Knowing that the cruise of the Argus could not fail to be a stirring one," he wrote, "and hoping she might meet the enemy in such circumstances as to permit a battle, I sought and obtained permission to join her as a volunteer."
The career of the Argus has become one of the greatest in the annals of U.S. naval history. Her first task, with Uriah aboard, was to carry-through the blockade -- America's new minister to France, William H. Crawford. During the crossing, Levy was able, as he put it, "to gain the confidence and friendship of this eminent and most upright man." This friendship was to stand Levy in good stead later on.
After depositing Crawford on the coast of France, the Argus went on to become "the dreaded ghost ship," the raider that haunted the English and Bristol channels, that cruised the English and Irish coasts, attacking and destroying much larger ships, the ship whose very name was said to strike terror in the hearts of British sailors. At one point, with Uriah Levy at the helm, the Argus found itself -- at dawn, in heavy fog -- in the middle of a British squadron. Ghostlike, it made its way through and was not spotted until it was out of reach of the enemy cannon. In its many gory encounters, the decks of the Argus were spread with wet sand so that the fighting crew of the "phantom raider" would not slither in the blood. When the Argus was finally captured, the ship was held in such respect that its crew was greeted with three cheers by the British. The final battle was "kept up with great spirit on both sides," and when the captain, who lost his leg in the encounter, was captured and taken to Britain, he became a kind of folk hero during the several months before he died of his wounds, uttering to his men, "God bless you, my lads, we shall not meet again."
Unfortunately, Uriah had no part in these final glories. One of the ships that the Argus had overtaken carried a cargo of sugar, which was considered a bit too valuable to be put to the torch at sea. Uriah Levy was assigned to take her and her sugar across the channel to France. A day later, the new ship, heavy with sugar, virtually unarmed, encountered a British merchantman with eight gun carronades on each side and long guns forward and amidships. To defend the little ship was hopeless. Uriah surrendered and was carried off to England, and to Dartmoor Prison.
Charles Andrews, a prisoner at Dartmoor for three years, wrote:
[quote]Any man sent to Dartmoor might have exclaimed: "Hail, horrors! Hail, thou profoundest hell! Receive thy new possessor." For any man ordered to this prison counted himself lost.[/quote]
A Philadelphia gentleman by upbringing, a Jewish aristocrat by instinct, Uriah worked at keeping up his health and his spirits. The winter of 1813-1814, which he spent at Dartmoor, was one of the hardest in British history, and the Thames froze solidly to the bottom. Levy was confined at Dartmoor for sixteen months and, by the time he was released, in an exchange of British and American prisoners, the war was over.
At Dartmoor, he had accomplished a few things. He had taught himself French, with the help of French prisoners. He had learned to fence. He had had a book, the New American Practical Navigator, which he read over and over again. But one thing he had most wanted to do in prison he had been unable to do. He had tried to organize a Jewish congregation. But Jewish law requires that there be a minyan, or quorum, of at least ten Jews before the Sabbath or any public prayer can be celebrated. Uriah could find only four at Dartmoor.
Back home again in Philadelphia, a friend took Uriah Levy aside and counseled him not to continue his Navy career in peacetime. "Nine out of ten of your superiors may not care a fig that you are a Jew," the friend warned him. "But the tenth may make your life a hell." Uriah, however, was by now a man with a mission. He struck a pose and replied, according to his memoirs: "What will be the future of our Navy if others such as I refuse to serve because of the prejudices of a few? There will be other Hebrews, in times to come, of whom America will have need. By serving myself, I will help give them a chance to serve." [i]
He was ready for his next round with the Establishment, and he did not have long to wait. Dancing in full uniform at Philadelphia's Patriots' Ball, he brushed shoulders accidentally with a young naval officer, Lieutenant William Potter. Or was it an accident? A few minutes later, Lieutenant Potter collided with him again, this time with more force. Moments later, the lieutenant crashed into Levy and his partner a third time. Uriah turned and smartly slapped the lieutenant across the face. An enlisted man had struck an officer. "You damned Jew!" Potter cried. A crowd gathered, and several of Potter's fellow officers, murmuring that Potter had had too much to drink, led him off the floor while he continued to shout insults and obscenities. The music resumed, Levy and his partner returned to the floor, and Uriah assumed that the incident was over. The next morning, however, an emissary from Lieutenant Potter appeared on board Uriah's ship, the Franklin, carrying a written challenge to a duel.
Dueling had become extremely fashionable in the United States. Duels were fought for the slightest of excuses, and an elaborate framework of rules and ritual grew up around them. Technically against the law, dueling existed in a kind of limbo within the law, with its own, unwritten set of statutes.
Law cases involving deaths through dueling had also to contend with the mystical duelists' code. And, meanwhile, all the best people dueled. In the fifty years between 1798 and 1848, deaths from dueling were two-thirds the number of those from wars, and 20 percent of those who fought in duels were killed. Perhaps one of the charms of dueling was that when a duel was over, both combatants -- the victor and the loser -- were elevated to the rank of heroes. To have fought a duel -- whether to have won or lost -- was one of a man's surest ways to achieve social success.
Uriah Levy was not at all anxious to fight a duel over the matter of a dance-floor insult from a drunken lieutenant. But when he demurred, offering to shake hands with Potter and forget the whole thing, he was warned that if he did so he would be labeled a coward. And it was true, according to the code duello, that "a man who makes arms his profession cannot with honor decline an invitation from a professional or social equal." Uriah wrote later that he "wanted to be the first Jew to rise to high rank in the Navy, not be the first Jewish officer killed in a duel." But the code left him no way out. A date was selected, seconds were chosen. The weapons were agreed upon: pistols.
When the date and hour arrived, a sizable audience had gathered. There were a number of Uriah's shipmates off the Franklin, an equal number of friends and fellow officers of Potter, the two men's seconds and their friends, the mandatory physician, a judge, and a crowd of Philadelphians who had come out to see the show. Thus what happened is well attested to by witnesses. A distance of twenty paces was chosen. This was somewhat farther apart than most duelists elected to stand. Ten paces was a commoner stand-off distance, and even shorter distances -- of two paces, or even one -- were frequently selected, with the result that both duelists, firing at each other from arm's length, were virtually guaranteed death. But both Levy and Potter were rated as excellent shots, and so the greater stretch of ground between them may have been regarded as a test of marksmanship. The judge asked each man whether he had anything to say. Uriah Levy asked permission to utter a Hebrew prayer, the Shema, and then in a characteristic gesture said: "I also wish to state that, although 1 am a crack shot, 1 shall not fire at my opponent. I suggest it would be wiser if this ridiculous affair be abandoned." "Coward!" Potter shouted in reply. "Gentlemen, no further words," the judge instructed, and began his count.
Both men turned to face each other. Potter fired first, missing Uriah widely. Uriah then raised his arm straight up and fired a bul· let into the air. The duel might have ended there, for Potter could have considered his honor satisfied, but Uriah's gesture clearly had enraged him. He began reloading his pistol for a second round and Uriah, according to the code, was required to do the same. The second volley ended with the same results, Potter missing his mark and Uriah firing skyward. Now, like a man possessed, Lieutenant Potter began reloading a third time and, perhaps because his fury was affecting his aim, the third series of shots was a repetition of the first two. But clearly the affair had gone too far for sanity, and the seconds and a number of Potter's friends rushed in to try to persuade him to abandon the duel "with honor," but he would have none of it. For a fourth time he reloaded and fired at Uriah, missing again. On Uriah's side of the field, his friends shouted to him to kill Potter, but once again Uriah merely reached into the air and fired. He then cried out to Potter's aides, "Gentlemen, stop him or I must!"
But Lieutenant Potter was at this point beyond control. He reloaded for a fifth shot and, screaming, "Stand back! I mean to have his life!" fired again, nicking Uriah's left ear. Blood spurted across his face and shoulder. This time, Uriah held his fire altogether. Then, as Potter reloaded for a sixth shot, Uriah's limits of patience and temper were reached. Shouting, "Very well, I'll spoil his dancing," Uriah for the first time took aim and fired at his opponent. From his remark about dancing, the audience assumed that Uriah Levy intended to shoot the lieutenant in the leg. But the bullet struck him in the chest, Lieutenant Potter fell to the ground without a word, and was immediately pronounced dead by the doctor.
It was, everyone agreed, an extraordinary duel. Potter had behaved extraordinarily badly, and Levy had conducted himself extraordinarily well. There were, however, some unfortunate realities to be faced. In the eyes of the law, Uriah Phillips Levy had committed a murder. In the eyes of the United States Navy, an important bylaw of the club had been breached. An enlisted man -- a mere sailing master -- had not only slapped, but now had killed, an officer. No one, least of all Uriah Levy, was sure how this might affect a man whose ambition was already "to rise to high rank in the Navy," and to set an example for future Jews to follow.
The affair created a stir of major proportions in Philadelphia. The press praised him for the way "Levy fired shots in the air, and then for the first time fired at his antagonist, and with the unerring certainty of a true marksman, made him bite the dust." Uriah was particularly idolized by his fellow crew members on the Franklin. But there was an element, and a strong one, in Philadelphia that was less than happy with the outcome of the duel, and said so. Lieutenant Potter might have been a boor and a drunk, but he had been a popular young man about Philadelphia parties. Levy might have been astonishingly coolheaded and brave, but he was, despite his proper connections, nonetheless -- to some -- an "outsider." It was, after all, a case of a Jew having killed a Christian. The Navy commodore investigating the episode decided that Uriah had been neither the provocator nor the aggressor in the case, and dismissed it without action. But the Philadelphia grand jury felt otherwise, and handed down an indictment for "making a challenge to a duel."
Almost immediately, Uriah was in another difficulty. One Sunday morning shortly after the duel, he walked into the wardroom aboard the Franklin for breakfast. In one comer of the room sat a certain Lieutenant Bond, breakfasting with two other officers. Uriah seated himself at a table on the opposite side of the room. The table was cluttered with used crockery and partly filled coffee cups, and Uriah asked a passing cabin boy to please clear it for him. Instantly, Lieutenant Bond was on his feet shouting that Uriah had no right to give orders to cabin boys. Uriah replied that he had given no orders, but had merely asked that the table be cleared. Bond answered that he had heard Uriah order the cabin boy to bring him breakfast. Uriah replied that he had not, and suddenly, amid shouts of "Liar!" "No gentleman!" and "Dictator!" the fight was on. Both men were on their feet, and it took the other two officers in the room plus two cabin boys to prevent them from coming to blows. And presently Bond was calling Uriah a "damned Jew."
In the lengthy transcript of the court-martial that followed -- a trial which, in Navy history, has been called "the Breakfast Court Martial" and "the Tempest in the CoHee Cups" -- there is endless testimony not only about who accused whom of what, but also about how many dishes were on the table at the time, their degree of dirtiness, whether soiled coHee cups or tea cups were involved, and what the various participants in the fracas were wearing. It is hard to see why all this was taken so seriously, and yet it was. Uriah made a long and impassioned speech in which he added patriotism, honor, manliness, and duty to the other issues in the case. It ended at last in a draw. Both Uriah and Lieutenant Bond were ordered reprimanded by the Secretary of the Navy for un-naval behavior.
But while all this trivial and generally undignified business was going on, things were looking up for Uriah Levy again. In Philadelphia, the dueling case had come to trial in the civilian court and, despite the fact that public sentiment had been running against him, Uriah had been acquitted by the jury. The foreman, in fact, had risen from the jury box to add to its decision that "any man brave enough to fire in the air and let his opponent take deadly aim at him, deserved his life."
And so, despite the fact that naval court-martial proceedings were under way against him, Uriah took the unusual step of applying for a commission in the Navy. He was applying under the rule which stated that "Masters of extraordinary merit, and for extraordinary services, may be promoted to Lieutenant." His friends who saw him as a man involved in two actions -- one civil and one military -- begged him to wait until the fuss had died down. But Uriah, confident of his extraordinary capabilities, plunged ahead. His commission was signed by President Monroe on March 5, 1817. The U.S. Navy had a Jewish officer at last.
The first thing Uriah did when he had donned his gold-fringed lieutenant's epaulets was to have his portrait painted by Thomas Sully. Sully always romanticized his subjects -- which was certainly the key to his great popularity -- and generously overlooked their physical shortcomings. So we must not take the Sully portrait of Uriah Levy entirely at face value. But it portrays a striking figure. Uriah's face in the portrait is the face of a boy -- he was twenty-five that year -- clean-jawed, with a straight nose, wide forehead, large and arresting black eyes, a mop of dark curly hair, and dashing Rhett Butler sideburns. Sully exaggerates Uriah's slight build so that his figure appears almost girl-like, frail and delicate, the slim legs almost spidery. Yet as he stands in the portrait, arms folded across his chest, the picture pulses with haughtiness, arrogance, defiance. The picture has been described as making Uriah Levy look "a little vain, more than a little handsome, and very determined."
The officer corps of the United States Navy was not at all sure how it wished to treat this brash young upstart. The first few months of Uriah's lieutenancy were particularly difficult for him aboard his ship, the Franklin. A former enlisted man was, after all, now an officer. A man who had taken commands was now giving them. The Franklin's other officers, with whom Uriah had once worked cheerfully, as well as the enlisted men, who had once been his equals, all looked at him now with distrust and disdain. The friends who had cheered him in his duel and in the ordeal after it were suddenly chilly and aloof. Uriah had a long voyage to England, and then to Sicily, in this hostile atmosphere, before he was notified that he was to be transferred to the frigate United States.
The United States was one of the Navy's most prestigious addresses. The ship had been the heroine of several important battles in the 1812 war and she had, in the process, become known as a "gentlemen's ship." Nowhere was the clublike nature of the Navy more apparent. The great Stephen Decatur ("our country, right or wrong") had been the United States's commander when the ship had overcome and captured H.M.S. Macedonian, and now she was captained by the equally aristocratic William Crane, a man of whom it was said that he "believed his blood ran bluer than all the rest."
The day before Uriah was to report, Captain Crane dispatched a long letter to Commodore Charles Stewart, in charge of the Navy's Mediterranean Fleet. In it, Captain Crane argued vaguely about Uriah being a "disturbing influence," and suggested that he might create "disharmony" among the ship's other officers. In concluding the letter he said flatly: "Considerations of a personal nature render Lieutenant Levy particularly objectionable, and I trust he will not be forced on me."
It is seldom in the Navy that an officer attempts to tell a superior what to do. But Captain Crane's letter displays a great deal of confidence, and it is likely that he thought he stood a good chance of getting his way. And he may have. Though the commodore is said to have been "boiling mad" at Crane's note, his reply -- signed "Your obedient servant" -- is both a lengthy and a mealy-mouthed affair, when one would have thought that a terse note of repirmand would have been in order. It is clear that Commodore Stewart realized that he was involved in a ticklish situation, and that Lieutenant Levy's Jewishness was what it was all about. In his reply, Commodore Stewart "regrets exceedingly" having to disappoint his captain and, after several conciliatory paragraphs, he adds: "Should you be possessed of a knowledge of any conduct on the part of Lieutenant Levy which would render him unworthy of the commission he holds, I would at the request of any commander represent it to the government. As your letter contains no specific notice of his misconduct, I can find nothing therein whereupon to find a reason for countermanding the order for changing his destination."
The commodore showed both Crane's and his own letter to Uriah, assured him that "everything would be all right," and the next morning Uriah set off to present himself to his new commander. Navy protocol required that an arriving officer pay two visits to his captain -- the first, briefly and formally to present his orders, and the second, a longer social visit to be carried out within forty-eight hours. But when Uriah was admitted to his cabin, Captain Crane, without even looking up from his desk, said, "The United States has as many officers as I need or want." He ordered that Uriah be escorted off his ship and back to the Franklin. Now Crane was not merely advising, but defying, a superior officer.
This, it turned out, was too much for the commodore, who now wrote:
[quote]SIR:
Lt. U. P. Levy will report to you for duty on board the frigate United States under your command.
It is not without regret that a second order is found necessary to change the position of one officer in this squadron.
CHARLES STEWART[/quote]
In humiliating fashion, Uriah was rowed back to the United States to present his orders a second time. Crane kept him waiting outside his cabin for over two hours. Then, ordering him in, Crane glanced at the letter, handed it back to Uriah, and muttered, "So be it." He returned to his paperwork. He did not so much as rise, offer a handshake, or even return Uriah's salute. Uriah carried his gear to the wardroom. There he was told by another officer -- there were only eight others aboard -- that theirs had been "a very pleasant and harmonious officers' mess," until now.
It was aboard the United States that Uriah was required to witness his first flogging. The practice was commonplace. American naval regulations were based on the British Articles of War, which dated back to the earliest days of the Restoration, when they had been formulated by the Duke of York, Lord High Admiral of the British Navy, who later became King James II. Flogging was advocated as the most practical way to maintain discipline and order on shipboard, and its benefits had been touted by commanders for generations. "Low company," Commodore Edward Thompson had written, "is the bane of all young men, but in a man-of-war you have the collected filth of jails. The scenes of horror and infamy on board are many." Thus, the horror of flogging was merely another to be endured. By the nineteenth century, when sailors stripped to the waist to work, it was not remarkable to see that the backs of many of them were solidly ridged and bubbled with scar tissue.
Often a flogging was so severe as to destroy the muscle tissue of a man's back and shoulders, thus making him unable to work and useless to the Navy. A captain was given great latitude in terms of meting out the penalty and, needless to say, the practice was often abused by sadistic commanders. It was prescribed for such misdeeds as "keeping low company" -- a euphemism for drunkenness -- for profanity, and "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge." [ii] Flogging could also be ordered for such relatively minor offenses as "spitting in the deck," or for looking sullen." There were also more severe punishments available. Keel-hauling was still practiced in the Navy and, for the crime of murder, a man might be tied to the mouth of a cannon. Then the cannon was fired.
Uriah had been aboard the United States only a few weeks when Captain Crane issued the order for all hands to appear on deck. A middle-aged gunner's mate had come back from shoreleave drunk, and had been noisy and abusive. Thirty lashes had been ordered, a relatively moderate sentence. Uriah now saw how, over the centuries, flogging had been perfected to the point where it was almost an art form of its own. The first few blows of the lash softened the muscles of the back. The fourth or fifth blow broke the skin. Then an expert with the lash could direct his blows so that they fell in a symmetrical crisscross pattern, so that the flesh of the back was cut in equal diamond-shaped pieces. An alternate stood by in case the first man wielding the lash grew tired. Also, several extra "cats" were provided so that when one of them grew too slippery from blood to be gripped, another could be substituted. Men had been mown to remain standing through as many as sixty strokes of the lash, but the gunner's mate, not young, fainted several times during his ordeal, and was unconscious when it was over. He was at last cut down from the rack where he had been tied, spread-eagled, and pails of salt water were poured over his raw and bleeding flesh.
Uriah, sickened by the hideous spectacle, nonetheless forced himself to watch it, never once diverting his eyes. For weeks after the experience, he could talk of nothing else but the brutality of flogging as a punishment. This did little to further endear him to his fellow officers. Not only was he a Jew, but there was also something subversive about him. It was whispered that Uriah Levy disapproved of Navy discipline, but Uriah had found another crusade.
Uriah had been able to make only one friend on the ship, its executive officer, a young man named Thomas Catesby Jones, who had counseled him: "Do your duty as an officer and a gentleman. Be civil to all, and the first man who pursues a different course to you, call him to a strict and proper account." It was good advice, but advice that was difficult for Uriah to follow. One night, for example, when Uriah was standing watch on deck, he saw two young cabin boys dash up a companionway, pursued, it appeared, by a boatswain's mate named Porter, who held what looked like a whip in his hand. When Uriah halted Porter, and asked him why he was whipping the boys, Porter answered him in what Uriah considered an "insolent and mocking" tone. Uriah slapped Porter across the cheek with the back of his hand. Within an hour, Uriah was called before his superior officers and -- in the presence of Porter -- was asked to explain his actions. Uriah considered this a severe breach of Navy etiquette, and cried out, "Sir, I am not to be called to account in this way in front of a boatswain!" Warned that he was being disrespectful, Uriah replied, "And you, sir, are treating me in an equally disrespectful manner." Uriah was then ordered to his cabin and warned, "You will hear more of this." He did -- his second court-martial, in which he was charged with disobedience of orders, contempt of a superior officer, and unofficerlike conduct. The president of the court-martial was Captain Crane, a circumstance not likely to benefit the defendant. He was found guilty on all three charges and sentenced to be "dismissed from the U.S.S. Frigate United States and not allowed to serve on board."
Actually, such a sentence -- over such a petty matter -- was so unusual as to be considered irregular, and when the case was reviewed by the naval commander in chief, President James Monroe reversed the sentence. But when this news reached Uriah Levy he was already in trouble again over a matter that was, if anything, even more trifling. This time it was a rowboat. Lieutenant Levy had ordered a boat to row him ashore. Told that his boat was ready, he arrived on deck. When he was about to board the boat, another lieutenant, named Williamson, told him the boat was not his. Uriah insisted it was. Williamson repeated that it wasn't. Presently both men were shouting epithets at each other, including "Liar!" "Scoundrel!" "Rascal!" "Coward!" and so on. In a rage, Uriah went back to his cabin and dashed off the following note to Williamson:
[quote]SIR:
The attack which you were pleased to make on my feelings this afternoon, in saying I prevaricated, thereby insulting me in the grossest manner without any cause on my part, demands that you should make such concessions as the case requires before these gentlemen in whose presence I was insulted -- or to have a personal interview tomorrow morning at the Navy Yard, at which time, if you please, I expect a direct answer.[/quote]
Uriah delivered the note to Williamson's cabin in person. The lieutenant Hung the note, unread, in Uriah's face and slammed the door.
Brandishing his letter, Uriah went ashore that night, according to subsequent testimony, into "taverns and divers places," reading the letter to anyone who would listen, giving a high-pitched account of the rowboat incident, and, in the process, he "wickedly and maliciously uttered and published false, slanderous, scandalous, and opprobrious words concerning Lt. Williamson, including poltroon, coward, and scoundrel, as well as rogue and rascal." This was very bad Navy form. Lieutenant Williamson took action the following morning, and court-martial number three was under way. Uriah was charged with "using provoking and reproachful words, treating his superior officer with contempt, and teaching others who chose to learn from his example to make use of falsehood as an easy convenience, with scandalous conduct tending to the destruction of good morals, and attempting to leave the ship without permission from the officer of the deck." These were much more serious charges than any that had been leveled against him before, and to these was added an even graver one. He was accused of ''being addicted to the vice of lying."
For his defense, he turned to the only course that seemed open to him. He accused his fellow officers of anti-Semitism. At the end of his trial, he took the stand and said:
[quote]I am of the faith which has never been endured in Christendom 'til the Constitution of the United States raised us to a level with our fellow citizens of every religious denomination. I need not apprise you that I have been designated in the language of idle scorn "the Jew!" Perhaps I have been thus reproached by those who recognize neither the God of Moses nor of Christ. May I not say that I have been marked out to common contempt as a Jew until the slow unmoving finger of scorn has drawn a circle round me that includes all friendships and companions and attachments and all the blandishments of life and leaves me isolated and alone in the very midst of society....
To be a Jew as the world now stands is an act of faith that no Christian martyrdom can exceed -- for in every corner of the earth but one it consists in this, to be excluded from almost every advantage of society. Although the sufferers of my race have had the trust and confidence of all their Christian Revilers as their commercial agents throughout the world, they have been cut off from some of the most substantial benefits of the social company in Europe. They cannot inherit or devise at law, they could not 'til lately sit as jurors or testify as witnesses. They could not educate their children in their own faith. Children were encouraged to abandon their parents and their God, to rob a father of his estate -- a rich Jewess might have been ravished or stolen and the law afforded no remedy -- these heart-rending cruel distinctions have been gradually and imperceptibly worn down by the resistless current of time, but they have in no instance been voluntarily obliterated by an act of Christian charity.
But I beg to make the most solemn appeal to the pure and heavenly spirit of universal toleration that pervades the constitution of the United States in the presence of this court; whether before a court-martial in the American Navy, whoever may be the party arraigned, be he Jew or Gentile, Christian or pagan, shall he not have the justice done him which forms the essential principle of the best maxim of all their code, "Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you."[/quote]
With its references to "the social company in Europe," and to ravished Jewish maidens, Uriah's speech must have seemed completely beside the point. Though everything he said was true, and though his remarks reveal much of what he was feeling at the time, certainly none of this sank in with the officers of the court-martial. After all, in early-nineteenth-century America, the concept of anti-Semitism, or even of religious prejudice, was such an exotic one -- so removed from what most Americans thought about and talked about and read about -- that, to the judges hearing Uriah's case, a charge of prejudice seemed a non sequitur.
The court reached a quick and unanimous verdict: guilty. Uriah was sentenced "to be cashiered out of the Naval service of the United States."
It was early spring, 1819. He was only twenty-seven years old, and his Navy career appeared ended. He entered a long period of funk, and for many months he disappeared from sight, refusing to go back to Philadelphia, where he would have to face his family, disgraced. For nearly two years he wandered about Europe. At one point, his widow wrote many years later, he lived in Paris, where "he met a lady of title in whom he became very much interested, and they were very much in love with each other. Lieutenant Levy would have married her, only she refused to return with him to America. But as his one ambition in life was to rise in the navy, he returned to his beloved country unmarried."
He returned to America because an astonishing thing happened. It took twenty-three months for the court-martial proceedings to reach the President's desk for review, but when they did, Monroe once more reversed them, noting that: "Although Lieutenant Levy's conduct merited censure, it is considered that his long suspension from the service has been a sufficient punishment for his offense. The sentence of the court is therefore disapproved, and he is returned to duty."
Once again his honor had been satisfied. On the other hand, he found now that wherever he went his reputation as a hothead had preceded him, and that now he was expected to throw tantrums and slap senior officers with gloves. Instead of becoming the conscience of American Jews, the "terrible-tempered Lieutenant Levy" was becoming something of a legendary Navy figure. Uriah found himself good-naturedly teased and goaded about his dueling and multiple courts-martial, and egged into arguments. And so, not surprisingly, it wasn't long before he erupted again.
This time his adversary was a lieutenant named William Weaver. In the presence of one of Uriah's friends, Weaver had called Uriah a "great scoundrel" and a "thoroughgoing rascal." His friend reported these slurs to Uriah, who was typically enraged and who immediately dashed off one of his indignant letters to Weaver. The letter was not answered. A few days later, however, an article, heavy with suggestive italics, appeared in a Washington newspaper:
[quote]If convicted of charges proved, the leniency of naval courts-martial has become proverbial -- so that the sitting of a court-martial generally eventuates in a reprimand. If, however, and what is very common, the guilty officer should be cashiered, as in a recent case, he sets himself to work with political friends of his tribe, and loaded with papers, presents himself at Washington, the strong arm of the executive is palsied. He dare not approve the justly merited sentence; the culprit is retained.[/quote]
The allusion was obviously to Uriah. The article was unsigned, but Uriah was able to discover that its author was Weaver.
Uriah's first assignment on being reinstated was to the Spark, on duty in the Mediterranean. He boarded the Spark in June, 1821, and remained aboard her until the following March, when the ship docked at Charleston, South Carolina. In those intervening months, it seemed, Uriah had done nothing but vilify the character of Lieutenant Weaver, making, to anyone who would listen, such comments as: "Weaver is a coward, a damned rascal, a scoundrel and no gentleman," "Weaver is an errant bastard," and "If I ever run into the damned rascal, I'll tweak his nose." These remarks had made their way to Weaver, now stationed at the Charleston Naval Yard. Uriah, upon debarking, was met with a summons to a court-martial, his fourth, charged with "scandalous conduct -- using provoking reproachful words -- ungentlemanly conduct -- forgery and falsification."
Forgery, of course, was a new charge. It related to the fact that Uriah had carried around a copy of his indignant note to Weaver, with its challenging accusations, had shown the note to many people, whereas Weaver now maintained that he had never received the note, and that it was a forgery. The court found Uriah guilty of scandalous conduct, and noted that "he did suffer others to read a note purporting to be a challenge." The other charges were dropped. The court ordered that Uriah be "publically reprimanded." But the court also scolded Lieutenant Weaver. "The court," the judges wrote, "in passing this sentence, cannot, however, forbear expressing their disapprobation of the behavior of the prosecutor toward the prisoner in so far as the circumstances thereof have come before them in evidence." So Uriah's court-martial number four ended more or less in a draw. But it began to seem as though sooner or later either he or the United States Navy would have to change its ways.
In 1823, Uriah was assigned as second lieutenant on the Cyane, which was being transferred from the Mediterranean to the Brazil Squadron. The ship made a slow crossing of the Atlantic, putting in at various West Indies ports before heading for the northern coast of South America. At Rio de Janeiro, the ship anchored for repairs to its mainmast, and Uriah was put in charge of these. Normally, it seemed, such repairs were handled by the executive officer, but the captain had casually commented that Uriah could supervise the repairs as well as anyone. This angered the Cyane's executive officer, William Spencer, and presently word had reached Uriah that Spencer was "out to bring him to his knees."
One afternoon while the repairs were going on, Uriah came aboard carrying a wide slab of Brazilian mahogany with which he intended to build a bookshelf for his cabin. A certain Lieutenant Ellery, a friend of the wounded Spencer, commented in "a sneering tone" that he thought rather little of officers who stole lumber from ships' stores. Uriah replied that he had bought the wood in town, and had the bill of sale in his pocket. Ellery said that he doubted this, since Uriah was known by everyone to be a liar. In a rage, Uriah challenged Ellery to a duel, to which Ellery answered that he would not fight a duel with a man who was not a gentleman. He would, furthermore, report the challenge to the commanding officer.
For several days, the affair simmered, and seemed about to die down until it bubbled up again in another burst of pettishness. In the officers' mess someone said loudly that "some damned fool" had dismissed the steward. "If you meant that for me ... " Uriah put in quickly, always the first to detect an insult. "Don't speak to me, Levy," said Executive Officer Spencer, "or I'll gag you." Instantly Uriah was on his feet, crying, "If you think you're able, you may try!" And there it was, all over again -- shouts of "No gentleman!" "Coward!" "Jew!" In the morning, court-martial number five had been ordered started, with the drearily familiar set of charges against Uriah: "Conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman, using provoking and reproachful words, offering to waive rank and fight a duel with Lieutenant Frank Ellery, and, in the presence and hearing of many of the officers of the Cyane, inviting William A. Spencer to fight a duel."
Once more the findings were against Uriah, with the curiously worded verdict that he was "Guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer, but not of a gentleman." The sentence was humiliating. He was to be reprimanded "publically on the quarter deck of every vessel of the Navy in commission, and at every Navy Yard in the United States." Uriah retaliated by bringing a counter-suit against William Spencer -- and won, with the result that Spencer was suspended from the Navy for a year for "insulting and unofficer-like and ungentlemanly expressions and gestures against the said Uriah P. Levy."
Uriah may have felt himself vindicated. But this action did nothing to endear him in the eyes of his fellow officers. To bring a superior officer to court was something that was not done. At the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Uriah Levy was put "in Coventry" -- ostracized and ignored by everyone. Restless and bitter, Uriah applied for a six-month leave of absence. The request was quickly granted and, in granting it, his commanding officer said to Uriah with a little smile, 'Vie would be happy to extend your leave indefinitely." When his words had sunk in, Uriah said, "It's because I'm a Jew, isn't it, sir?"
"Yes, Levy," the officer said -- he did not use "Lieutenant," or even "Mr." "It is."
He had been asked to leave the club. In his long battle with the Navy Establishment, he seemed to have lost the final round.
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[b]Notes:[/b]
i. Uriah Levy's style of speech, which sounds a little pompous, is, we must remember, the speaker's recollection -- and reconstruction -- of it years later, when he could devote himself to his memoirs. He may not have spoken in precisely these words, but doubtless they express his true sentiments at the time.
ii. The phrase "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" -- abbreviated with the letters "F.U.C.K." in ships' logbooks, next to records of punishments -- thus contributed a vivid four-letter word to the English language.
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