Stephen Decatur

Armed Forces Personnel

  • Born: January 5, 1779
  • Birthplace: Sinepuxent, Maryland
  • Died: March 22, 1820
  • Place of death: Bladensburg, Maryland

American naval commander

The most colorful and successful open-sea naval commander of his time, Decatur was a national hero of the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. However, despite his military accomplishments, his career had made little impact on naval policy and strategy.

Area of achievement Military

Early Life

Stephen Decatur’s father, Stephen, was a seafaring man who earned his living as a merchant ship captain and, during the American Revolution, as a privateer. Decatur was a sickly child during his early years. At the age of eight, suffering from a prolonged and severe cough, he accompanied his father on a voyage to the French port of Bordeaux. His malady, probably whooping cough, disappeared.

Because his father was at sea much of the time, Decatur was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by his mother, Ann, who sent him to the Episcopal Academy and later to the University of Pennsylvania in the hope that he would become either a clergyman or a scholar. However, despite his health problems and his mother’s wishes, Decatur craved the active over the contemplative life. As a young man, he was 5 feet 10 inches in height, possessed a muscular build, and had a handsome countenance with an aquiline nose.

Decatur first worked as a clerk in 1796 for Gurney and Smith, a Philadelphia shipping company, but after the United States Navy was established on April 30, 1798, and a naval war had commenced with France, Decatur, through his father’s influence, secured a midshipman place on the newly constructed ship, the United States. Built in Philadelphia, this forty-four gun frigate was familiar to Decatur. Its captain, John Barry, was both a friend and professional colleague of Decatur’s father.

The reasons for Decatur’s determination to join the Navy are unclear. Perhaps it was the lure of adventure presented by the new United States Navy and the war with France, or perhaps he wanted to follow his father’s nautical footsteps. A more murky reason was the apparent result of Decatur’s attack upon a prostitute who had solicited him. He struck her with a blow that was powerful enough to kill her. To avoid a prison sentence for their client, Decatur’s lawyers assured the court that Decatur would join the Navy.

Life’s Work

Decatur’s first real taste of glory occurred in 1804 during the Barbary Wars, when, as captain of the schooner Enterprise in Commodore Edward Preble’s Mediterranean squadron, he captured a Barbary slave ship, the Mastico. Renamed the Intrepid, it was 60 feet in length with a 12-foot beam. A scheme was devised to burn the former U.S. frigate Philadelphia, which had run aground and been captured by the Tripolitans. Decatur chose a crew of seventy-four volunteers who would sail the Intrepid into Tripoli Harbor under the guise of a Barbary ship seeking repairs from a recent storm. The Americans were to board, burn, and escape, leaving the Philadelphia in ashes. It was a daring plan well suited to Decatur’s adventuresome temperament.

Although delayed for one week because of severe weather, the attack, when executed at dusk on February 16, 1804, was a huge success. Decatur’s crew sailed within a few yards of the Philadelphia before they were found out. They quickly overcame the defenders, many of whom feared for their lives and jumped overboard. During the next thirty minutes, twenty Tripolitans were killed, combustibles were laid and ignited, the attackers returned to the Intrepid, and the Philadelphia was engulfed in flames. During all of this, only one of Decatur’s sailors was wounded. Burning the Philadelphia assured Decatur’s role as a hero. He was promoted to captain at the age of twenty-five, the youngest American naval officer to attain that rank. Lord Horatio Nelson called the attack “the most bold and daring act of the age.” President Thomas Jefferson presented Decatur with a sword and words of praise.

Later that same year, Decatur’s brother, James, was killed by the commander of a Tripolitan gunboat, who shot James when he was boarding the already surrendered vessel. Along with ten others, Decatur tracked down the commander and killed him after some brutal hand-to-hand fighting. During the melee, Decatur’s life was saved by a sailor who intentionally absorbed a blow that would have killed Decatur.

At the conclusion of the Tripolitan phase of the Barbary Wars, Decatur returned home, where he broke with his former fiancé and met and married Susan Wheeler, the daughter of the mayor of Norfolk, Virginia. She was a popular and beautiful young woman who had already rejected advances made by Vice President Aaron Burr and Jerome Bonaparte.

Decatur served in various naval positions during the six years from 1806 to 1812. In 1807 he served on the court martial panel that suspended Captain James Barron, Decatur’s erstwhile friend and former tutor, from the Navy for five years because of his behavior as captain of the Chesapeake. Barron was found guilty for failing to adequately prepare his ship for action against the British ship the Leopard and thereby humiliating the United States Navy by demonstrating its inability to prevent the seizure of four British Royal Navy deserters, three of whom were Americans impressed earlier by the British. Another more personal reason for the deterioration and ultimately fatal culmination of Decatur’s and Barron’s relationship was the latter’s implied criticism of Decatur’s attraction to Susan Wheeler when Decatur already had a fiancé in Philadelphia. Decatur thought that it was none of Barron’s concern.

When Great Britain and the United States went to war in 1812, the still young United States Navy consisted of just sixteen warships. Decatur was captain of one of them, the familiar United States. Sailing alone between the Azores and Madeira, he sighted the Macedonian, a British frigate. The U.S. ship was larger and now carried fifty-four 24-pound guns, compared to the Macedonian’s forty-nine 18 pounders. Ironically, this very encounter had been discussed prior to the war by Decatur and Captain John Carden, commander of the Macedonian. Despite the heavier gun advantage of the United States, Carden had argued that his ship would prevail because its crew was more experienced and because the Macedonian was a more maneuverable vessel.

As it turned out, even though Carden had the wind advantage, he failed to recognize the United States and instead assumed it was a smaller frigate with guns of lesser range and shot than his own. Carden’s tactics played into Decatur’s hands by allowing Decatur to press his advantage of more guns and greater destructive shot. Carden surrendered the Macedonian after losing one-third of his three-hundred-man crew in a two-hour fight, while seven were killed and five wounded aboard the United States. Decatur’s reputation as a hero reached its summit. The government also awarded him thirty thousand dollars in prize money. Decatur’s achievements during the remainder of the war were a good deal less dramatic, although his status as a genuine American hero remained high.

By tightening their blockade along the Atlantic coast, the British were able to prevent most ships from entering and sailing from U.S. ports. On January 14-15, 1815, unaware that the war had ended three weeks earlier, Decatur attempted to liberate his ship, the President, by escaping from New York Harbor. Heavy winds caused the ship to run aground for two hours and compelled Decatur to make a fifty-mile run along the Long Island coast. Four British warships chased him, and, although the frigate Endymion had to retire because of battle damage, the remaining British ships forced his surrender. British losses were less than half of the twenty-four Americans killed and the fifty-five who were wounded. Despite the defeat, Decatur maintained his status as a hero. A naval court of inquiry not only exonerated him but also determined that the surrender of the President was an American victory.

Two months after the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, the United States was at war again, this time with Algiers. Decatur, now a commodore (at that time the highest rank in the United States Navy), assembled a squadron of ten ships, including three frigates, one of which was the Macedonian. After capturing the Algerine flagship and killing the grand admiral of the Algerine fleet, Decatur’s entire squadron sailed into Algiers Harbor. A treaty favorable to the United States was the result. Additional concessions were later made by Tunis as well. Decatur was the principal negotiator in both cases.

After returning home, Decatur was appointed to the three-member Board of Naval Commissioners. The Decaturs (they had no children) moved to Washington, D.C., where Decatur continued to contribute to naval affairs.

Decatur died as he had lived: defending his honor. The cashiered Barron returned to the United States from Denmark in 1818 and unsuccessfully applied for reinstatement in the U.S. Navy. Barron blamed the Board of Naval Commissioners and Decatur in particular. He initiated a correspondence with Decatur that ended when Barron challenged Decatur to a duel. They met at Bladensburg, Maryland, on March 22, 1820. Although Decatur, an excellent pistol marksman, aimed to wound his opponent, Barron aimed to kill—and succeeded. Shot in the groin, Decatur died twelve hours later. Congress adjourned to attend Decatur’s funeral, naval officers wore crepe for thirty days, guns on ships at Washington and Norfolk fired at thirty-minute intervals, and numerous eulogies were presented by people of all ranks and classes. President James Monroe and his cabinet marched in the funeral procession.

Barron was finally reinstated in 1824. He was given command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard and later the Norfolk Navy Yard. He died in 1851 at the age of eighty-three.

Significance

Decatur’s contributions to the United States were revered a great deal more during his lifetime than by subsequent generations of Americans. Although no naval history of the post-Revolutionary War period would be complete without devoting considerable attention to Decatur, his heroic accomplishments, impressive as they were, made a limited impact on naval policy and strategy. Early nineteenth century Americans needed a hero to help represent and justify their nation’s brief history and its full membership among contemporary nations. Decatur was the right person at the right place at the right time. Perhaps his dedication to his country was best expressed by a toast he made at a dinner held in his honor in 1816: “Our Country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right, but our country right or wrong.”

Bibliography

Anthony, Irvin. Decatur. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931. Anthony’s book is subjective but remains one of the few book-length biographies of Decatur. Includes much personal detail.

Blassingame, Wyatt. Stephen Decatur: Fighting Sailor. Champaign, Ill.: Garrard, 1964. This volume is suitable for early elementary students.

De Kay, James Tertius. A Rage for Glory: The Life of Commodore Stephen Decatur, U.S.N. New York: Free Press, 2004. A comprehensive, popular biography. De Kay, a naval historian, recounts the origins of Decatur’s fierce patriotism and provides new details about his death.

Guttridge, Leonard F., and Jay D. Smith. The Commodores. New York: Harper & Row, 1969. This volume includes pithy accounts of Decatur and Barron, along with other high-ranking naval officers. Especially valuable for the Bladensburg duel.

Lewis, Charles Lee. The Romantic Decatur. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1937. This is the standard book-length biography of Decatur. For the most part, Lewis remains objective throughout the book.

Schroeder, John H. “Stephen Decatur: Heroic Ideal of the Young Navy.” In Command Under Sail: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, edited by James C. Bradford. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1985. Most of this overview of Decatur’s naval career is supported by primary sources.

Tucher, Glenn. Dawn Like Thunder: The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963. Tucher details Decatur’s participation in the Barbary Wars.

Tucker, Spencer. Stephen Decatur: A Life Most Bold and Daring. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2005. A biography, in which Tucker relates Decatur’s military achievements to the rise of the United States Navy in the nineteenth century. In his description of Decatur’s raid at Tripoli Harbor, Tucker explains how Decatur’s heroism set a new standard of courage for future naval officers.

Summer, 1801-Summer, 1805: Tripolitan War.