Background
Stephen Decatur was born at Sinnepuxent, Maryland, United States on January 5, 1779 in a seafaring family. Decatur's father, Stephen Decatur (1752 - 1808), was also an American naval officer.
Stephen Decatur was born at Sinnepuxent, Maryland, United States on January 5, 1779 in a seafaring family. Decatur's father, Stephen Decatur (1752 - 1808), was also an American naval officer.
After receiving his secondary education he studied one year at the University of Pennsylvania.
In April 1798 he was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy and cruised in the West Indies. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1799. Decatur was a first lieutenant on the Essex when it and three other vessels were sent against the Barbary pirates at Algiers. He returned to the United States in July 1802, but was sent again to the Mediterranean the following November in command of the Norfolk and later of the Enterprise. In 1804 he led an expedition into the harbor of Tripoli to burn the Philadelphia which had fallen into Tripolitan hands. He was successful in his mission and escaped under heavy fire from the enemy. This exploit earned him his captain's commission and a sword of honor from Congress. Decatur and his superior officer, Com. Edward Preble, probably contributed more than any one else toward ending the war with Tripoli, in June 1805. He was temporary commander of the Constitution ("Old Ironsides") from September to November 1804. In 1810 he became commander of the navy's southern squadron. In 1814 he was in command of a squadron composed of the President (his flagship), the Peacock, the Hornet, and the Tom Bowline. Against heavy odds the President was captured by the British, January 15, 1815, off Long Island. In June 1815, Algiers having broken its peace treaty, Decatur compelled it to cease all attacks on American ships and surrender all Christians held by the Tripolitans. In January 1816 Decatur became a member of the Board of Navy Commissioners. He received a fatal wound in the duel with the suspended Commodore James Barron near Bladesburg on March 22, 1820. The elder Decatur commanded privateers during the Revolution and a naval squadron thereafter.
Quotations: He is remembered for a famous toast: "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right--but our country, right or wrong. "
Board of Navy Commissioners
Quotes from others about the person
One of his biographers called him "the first ornament of the American navy. "
On March 8, 1806, Decatur married Susan Wheeler, the daughter of Luke Wheeler, the mayor of Norfolk, Virginia. The couple never had children during their fourteen years of marriage.