Stephen Decatur was a swashbuckling officer of the U.S. Navy in the early 19th century. Born in Maryland on January 5, 1779, Decatur grew up in Philadelphia in a seafaring family. He became a midshipman in the U.S. Navy in 1798 and fought in the Quasi-War (1798-1800) with France. He first gained fame in action in the war against Tripoli, by which time he had been promoted to lieutenant. In October 1803 the frigate Philadelphia ran aground off Tripoli and was captured. On the night of February 16, 1804, Decatur led a raid into Tripoli harbor to deny the vessel to the Tripolitans. He entered the harbor on a captured schooner named the Intrepid, seized and burned the Philadelphia, and then made a safe getaway, a success that earned him promotion to captain. He also was involved in several other engagements at Tripoli, including hand-to-hand combat, that captured the imagination of the U.S. public.

The War of 1812 (1812-15) brought both success and failure to Decatur. As captain of the frigate USS United States on October 15, 1812, he outmaneuvered a slightly less powerful foe, the HMS Macedonian, pummeling the British ship with more than 70 broadsides, killing or wounding a third of her crew, and compelling the British captain to strike her colors. This action was one of a series of spectacular single ship victories at the beginning of the war, but Decatur remained trapped in the United States for most of the rest of the conflict, unable to get into the open sea because of the British blockade. On January 15, 1815, unaware of the Treaty of Ghent of December 24, 1814, he took advantage of weather conditions to slip out of New York harbor in the frigate USS President. However, he struck a sandbar off Sandy Hook, damaging the ship, and when winds prevented his reentry to New York harbor, he continued on in his efforts to run the blockade, pursued by several British frigates. He was able to defeat the fastest of these, but his ship was almost crippled from the battle and running aground, and, while dealing with a storm at sea, he was compelled to surrender.

Following the war, Decatur served as commander of the U.S. Mediterranean Squadron. At a dinner during negotiations for a peace treaty with Algiers, he gave the toast for which he remains famous: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong!" Upon his return to the United States, he served on the Board of Navy Commissioners, in which role he supported denying James Barron's application to be reinstated in the navy. (Decatur had been a judge at Barron's court-martial after the Chesapeake-Leopard affair in 1807.) Barron took exception to comments Decatur made and issued a challenge that Decatur felt honor-bound to accept. On March 22, 1820, the two fought a duel at a field in Bladensburg, Maryland. Decatur wounded Barron in the thigh, but the shot he received in the chest was fatal, and he died 12 hours later.

Bibliography:

1) Robert J. Allison, Stephen Decatur: American Naval Hero, 1779-1820 (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2005)

2) William M. Fowler, Jr., Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy, 1783-1815 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984)

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