The Interesting Story of Col. Eugene Lietensdorfer-- Part 3

According to one account I read, Col. Eugene Lietensdorfer was William Eaton's chief of staff for the move on Derna, in which the Marines earned the line "Shores of Tripoli" in the Marine Corps Hymn.

After the evacuation of Derna, Lietensdorfer continued his wanderings until 1809, when he arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, and looked up William Eaton.  He then made his way to Washington, D.C., and armed with letters of recommendation from Eaton, got a job with Thomas Jefferson's chief architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, as surveyor of public buildings.

In 1833, as part of his role in the March to Derna, he received 300 acres in Missouri, where he lived until his death in 1845.

That is all I can find out him.  Sure wish there was more.

But, Quite a Life.  --Cooter

The Interesting Story of Col. Eugene Lietensdorfer-- Part 2: From Here To There To Everywhere

However, the French suspected him of being a spy and threw him into jail.  He escaped by poisoning his guards and changed his name again, this time to Jean Eugene Lietensdorfer and rejoined the French Army and had been part of the force that invaded Egypt, but had switched sides, later joining the British.

After that he wandered and even ran a coffee shop for British officers in Alexandria, had married a Coptic maiden, his second wife.  But, when the British withdrew, he left as well, leaving his wife and eventually making his way to Messina.  There, he entered a Capuchin monastery as a novice friar.

He found this live wasn't for him so made his way to Constantinople where he became a dervish and Muslim.  He went by the name of Murat Aga and wandered through the Middle East, eventually making his way to Mecca and Jedda.

Finally, he got the job of interpreter to Lord Gordon and accompanied him on a tour of Abyssinia and returned to Egypt where he met William Eaton.  This is where he was involved in the First Barbary War.

And, we're not finished with his story yet.  Wonder where he went next?

Quite A Bit of Moving On For This Man.  --Cooter

The Interesting Story of Col. Eugene Lietensdorfer-- Part 1: Member of the Austrian and French Armies

Still from the Small Wars Journal on the First Barbary War.

This was a man of many, many stories indeed.

He was William Eaton's chief of staff during the march on Derna.  Eaton had met Lietensdorfer in Cairo.  But how Lietensdorfer  had come to be in Cairo is an interesting story in itself.

His real name  was Gervasso Prodasio Santuari and he was 33 years old Italian from a village  near Trent in the Tyrol.  His parents had wanted him to become a priest but he quit school at the age of seventeen, got married, and then joined the Austrian Army in its campaign against the Turks.

He fought at Belgrade from 1789 to 1790. and continued serving in the Austrian Army  during the siege of Mantua.  But in 1797, the Austrian collapsed, surrendering to Napoleon.

Santuari did not wish to remain with the losers, so he changed his name to Carlo  Hossando and joined the French Army.

A Man of Two Armies.  --Cooter