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Chapter Five: Glory
On Tuesday, November 1, 1803, Decatur once again passed through the Pillars of Hercules and into the Mediterranean, dropping anchor in Gibraltar after a notably uneventful crossing of thirty-four days from Boston. It had been a little over six months since he had hastily left for home to escape arrest on the charge of murder. Now he was returning in temporary command of the spanking new brig Argus, of eighteen guns, and carrying with him thirty thousand dollars in gold and silver for the use of the American squadron and its new commodore, Edward Preble.
Decatur remained in Gibraltar for two weeks, occupied in turning over the Argus to his friend and superior, Lieutenant Isaac Hull, and assuming command of the older and smaller schooner Enterprise, of twelve guns. It was not until November 12 that Commodore Preble arrived in the harbor on board his flagship, the Constitution, and Decatur was able to report to him in person. He had already heard stories from the other officers of the squadron of Preble's determination to bring the war directly to the Tripolitanians, and was much encouraged by the meeting. Preble was an irascible, strongly opinionated Down-East Yankee who made no effort to curb his short temper or hide his aggressive nature. His fighting spirit contrasted sharply with that of his two predecessors, and Decatur and the squadron's other junior officers took heart.
But no sooner had Preble arrived than he disappeared again, setting sail the next day to deliver the American consul to Algiers. Before departing he ordered Decatur to meet him at the new American command post at Syracuse, where he planned to put together his campaign against Yusuf Karamanli. What neither Decatur nor Preble knew at the time was that a disaster had just occurred a thousand miles to the east that would drastically alter the balance of power in the Mediterranean and render all the American commodore's war plans irrelevant.
On October 31, the day before Decatur's arrival at Gibraltar, Captain William Bainbridge was returning the frigate USS Philadelphia to her blockading position off the stormy shores of Tripoli. For several days the wind had been blowing strongly from the west, and had driven the ship a considerable distance off station. Now Bainbridge was taking advantage of a fair breeze to run her down toward the town again.
Around nine o'clock in the morning, with the minarets of Tripoli just visible on the horizon, lookouts spotted a vessel inshore and to windward, standing for the harbor. Bainbridge was eager to overhaul the stranger -- there was prize money to be made from such captures -- but he was initially reluctant to take his deep drafted ship into uncharted waters that might well mask dangerous shoals. But the temptation of a possible capture was too strong to resist, and eventually Bainbridge overcame his doubts and decided to risk it. He gave the orders to make sail and give chase.
Another captain might have been more cautious, but William Bainbridge had his own reasons for taking a more aggressive course. In his five years of active duty he had somehow managed to compile the most woefully lackluster record of any officer in the navy, and he was eager to clear his reputation.
Soon after receiving his commission as a lieutenant, he had been put in command of the USS Retaliation. She was subsequently taken by the French, and Bainbridge became the first American naval officer forced to strike his flag to an enemy.
An even greater humiliation lay in store a year later, when he was given command of a frigate, the USS George Washington, with orders to deliver an annual tribute of gold and naval stores to the dey of Algiers. After Bainbridge discharged his cargo the dey demanded the use of his ship to carry an embassy to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. Bainbridge vigorously refused, protesting that American warships could not be used as common freighters by foreign potentates. But Bainbridge had made the mistake of mooring his ship under the guns of the dey's shore batteries. If he attempted to raise anchor and depart in defiance of the dey's demands, his frigate would be blown out of the water. As the realization of his tactical blunder finally became clear, Bainbridge was forced to change his tune. Reluctantly, he gave in and agreed to do the dey's bidding. After loading an exotic cargo of wild animals, harem slaves, and diplomatic representatives into the George Washington, the dey then added insult to injury by insisting that Bainbridge replace the American flag at the main truck with the Algierian standard. Again Bainbridge protested, but again he was forced to capitulate. Once more an American officer had been forced to strike his colors, and once more that officer was William Bainbridge.
The navy forgave him in both instances, but Bainbridge was sensitive to the fact that he now had two formidable black marks against his name, and if he wanted to wipe them away it behooved him to improve his record. It was almost certainly such a mind-set that impelled him to take an unwarranted risk that morning, and to give chase to an otherwise unimportant Arab trader.
Bainbridge quickly discovered that chasing that particular quarry and overhauling her were two quite different things. After a frustrating two hours in pursuit, the Philadelphia had made only the barest headway, and a little before eleven o'clock, seeing no other chance of overtaking the stranger in the short time that remained before she reached the safety of the enemy harbor, he opened fire with his eighteen-pounders. He continued firing for almost an hour, but it was at long range, and his men scored no hits. Bainbridge continued to be anxious about having committed his ship to uncharted waters and ordered three separate leadsmen to make constant soundings, to insure the frigate did not run aground. The leadsmen regularly reported depths of anywhere from seven to ten fathoms -- roughly forty to sixty feet -- as the water shoaled or deepened. The Philadelphia's normal draft was eighteen and one-half feet forward and twenty and one-half feet aft, so the ship seemed in no danger.
By half past eleven the two vessels had moved considerably to the west and the town of Tripoli now lay in plain sight about three miles distant. Bainbridge, concerned that he was still in uncharted waters, decided to give up the chase. He ordered the helm aport to haul her directly off the land and into deeper water, but it was already too late. Even as the ship was coming up fast to the wind, and before she had lost any of her way, she struck a hidden reef and shot up on it, lifting the suddenly motionless frigate five to six feet out of the water.
The disaster had come upon them so quickly that it took a moment for those on the quarterdeck to absorb just how hopeless their situation had suddenly become. To be stranded on such a coast, in plain sight of the enemy and with no other vessel to bring aid, was nothing short of calamitous.
Bainbridge watched the Arab vessel he had so recently been chasing double the edge of the shoal and sail safely into the harbor, apparently interested only in escaping. But others had heard the American guns, and now nine Tripolitanian gunboats came out to investigate. The situation was perilous in the extreme, and Bainbridge recognized there was not a moment to be lost. The little Arab gunboats might appear insignificant in comparison to the looming frigate, but they would be able to attack with impunity as soon as they understood that the Philadelphia was immobilized.
In a desperate attempt to lighten ship, the crew began smashing open the water casks and pumping out the flooded hold, and throwing almost all the guns overboard, leaving only a few for defense. The anchors were the next to go, along with the huge, heavy cables that held them. Bainbridge ordered his men to chop down the foremast, which went crashing into the sea, carrying with it all its sails and rigging. But the ship remained stubbornly embedded in the sandy shoal.
By now the Tripolitanian gunboats had come within range, and tentatively opened fire. The Americans answered with the few guns that remained in the ship. For the moment, they were enough to keep the enemy boats at a respectful distance. As yet, the Arabs had no inkling of the desperate conditions on board the Philadelphia. The business of lightening the frigate continued for several hours.
By midafternoon it finally occurred to the Tripolitanians that they had the upper hand. They grew bolder and crossed the stern of the frigate, taking a position on her starboard quarter where they could fire at will, while it was impossible for the Philadelphia to bring a single gun to bear.
Night was coming on. With every passing minute the gunboats grew still bolder. Other boats were seen approaching from the town. Bainbridge, after consulting with his officers, saw no recourse but surrender, to save the lives of his people. He ordered the ship's signal books destroyed and the ship scuttled. The magazine was drowned, holes were bored in the ship's bottom, the pumps choked. About five o'clock he signaled his surrender. Any captain must lose heart at such a time, but one can only imagine Bainbridge's feelings, knowing that this was now the third time an American warship had been forced to strike her colors, and on all three occasions he was the man responsible.
Commodore Preble did not learn of the loss of the Philadelphia until November 24, three weeks after it occurred, when his flagship fell in with the Royal Navy frigate Amazon off the coast of Sardinia, and British officers apprised him of all the sorry details. In a single staggering blow Preble had lost half his frigates and a full quarter of his firepower. All his carefully developed plans for humbling Tripoli were suddenly thrown into confusion, and the future of his squadron's Mediterranean cruise looked decidedly grim.
Losing the ship was bad enough, but there were other distressing ramifications that vastly increased Preble's problems. The bashaw now held over three hundred new hostages and could demand almost any ransom within his imagination. He would now be encouraged to continue fighting no matter what the cost. The United States could not ignore the suffering of its own people, and would be forced to take him seriously.
The British had still worse news for Preble. The scuttling of the Philadelphia had been handled so hastily and imperfectly that, when a storm raised the water level a few days after the grounding of the vessel, the Tripolitanians had been able to float her off the sandbar on which she had foundered, patch her up, and bring her within the protection of the harbor forts. Then they went back and fished up her guns from where they had been cast overboard and restored them to their carriages, and once more the Philadelphia rode proudly on the waves. All she needed was a new foremast and she could become the most powerful vessel in Yusuf Karamanli's fleet, ready to cruise against the Americans as soon as the mild season returned. In the meantime, she lay at anchor in the middle of Tripoli harbor, the most valuable prize ever taken by the Barbary pirates.
"It distresses me beyond description," Preble wrote grimly to the secretary of the navy. "Would to God that the officers and crew of the Philadelphia had one and all determined to prefer death to slavery."
Shortly after hearing the dire news, Preble shaped course for his base at Syracuse. Off Cape Passaro he fell in with Decatur's Enterprise, bound for the same destination, and in the course of a courtesy visit to the flagship, Preble told Decatur of the Philadelphia's fate. The two vessels arrived in Syracuse in company, and not long afterward they left again, once more in company, headed for Tripoli to reconnoiter the Philadelphia.
Once off the North African coast, Decatur left the deep-drafted Constitution safely out to sea and ran the little Enterprise close in to the coast to scout the harbor and determine the position of the Philadelphia. The sight of the frigate, dwarfing every other warship around her, and lying directly under the protection of the bashaw's land batteries, was a sobering vision. Decatur was much moved by the sight. He had strong personal ties to the ship. As a youth he had witnessed her construction only a few city blocks from his home. Later, his father had served as her first captain. Now, suddenly disgraced, she belonged to his country's enemies, ready to be turned into the most formidable terror in the Mediterranean. Having made note of the Philadelphia's location and of the vessels guarding her, he returned to the open sea to fall in with the waiting Preble. After reporting to the commodore, he made a suggestion. He asked to be allowed to take the Enterprise into the harbor and destroy the Philadelphia. Preble was sympathetic -- Decatur's aggressive spirit matched his own -- but he rejected the idea as too hazardous. Still, he agreed that some such plan would have to be worked out, and promised Decatur that since he was the first to make the offer, he should be the one to carry it out.
It was during this brief scouting expedition that an apparently minor piece of good fortune fell the Americans' way, when they managed to overhaul and capture the Mastico, a small four-gun ketch of sixty or seventy tons, with seventy Tripolitanians on board, including forty-two slaves. She was an older vessel that had already seen much service, and was not likely to bring much in the way of prize money. But at the moment neither Preble nor Decatur was much interested in prize money. They saw a more valuable use for her. She was indistinguishable from hundreds of coastal traders in the western Mediterranean, and could sail into Tripoli harbor without anyone taking notice. She would be the means by which they would destroy the Philadelphia.
Once back in Syracuse, Preble had his carpenters examine the Mastico. They reported her basically sound and the commodore, using his discretion as squadron commander, bought her into the American navy and renamed her Intrepid. Over the month of January 1804, plans for the raid were worked out in greatest secrecy, for fear that word might get back to the bashaw. Winter was the stormy season in the Mediterranean, and the weather continued foul throughout the month. It was not until February 3, 1804, that Preble judged conditions favorable to send the little Intrepid in.
As soon as he had his orders, Decatur mustered the crew of the Enterprise -- most of whom had no inkling of the secret preparations that had been going on for weeks -- and outlined the plan that he and Preble had developed for the Intrepid. He warned them of the dangers involved, which were very real, and called for volunteers. Without hesitation, every member of the ship's company, officers, men, and boys, stepped forward in a body. The unquestioning enthusiasm of his crew to volunteer for such a hazardous mission remains one of the most telling aspects of the whole venture. It speaks volumes about Decatur's style of leadership, the high morale of his men, and their great trust in him.
Later that day, from the quarterdeck of the Constitution, Commodore Preble watched the little Intrepid sail off in company with the brig Siren, which would serve as her support vessel. The venture was dangerous, and possibly harebrained to boot, but the destruction of the Philadelphia was critical to the mission of the squadron, and for all the perils involved it was the best idea that anyone could come up with. He could only hope that not too many brave men would die in the endeavor. "I shall hazard much to destroy her," he wrote to the secretary of the navy, "it will undoubtedly cost many lives, but it must be done."
Preble had bestowed upon Stephen Decatur the greatest gift that was within his power to grant. Now he would see what the young man would do with it.
Late in the afternoon of February 16, 1804, a weatherbeaten ketch, similar to any number of Arab and Maltese traders plying the coast of North Africa, made her way toward the eastern entry of Tripoli harbor. She appeared in need of caulking and a coat of paint, and there was nothing about her to excite the curiosity of the sentries on the guard boats and in the forts that protected the harbor. The nondescript character of the ketch, and the fact that she aroused not the least interest, was just as well for those on board, for had the Tripolitanians been aware of the true nature of the vessel, they would most certainly have made short work of her.
Near her helm stood two men in native dress. They were Stephen Decatur and a Sicilian pilot named Salvadore Catalano, who had been recruited for the venture because he was familiar with the harbor and spoke the patois used by the sailors along the North African coast. There were perhaps another five or six crewmen in native dress visible along with the pair at the helm, but altogether they represented only a small fraction of the boat's company. A dozen or so men lay prone on the deck, hidden behind the bulwarks, and down below another sixty or so volunteers, armed to the teeth, were making the best of it among the water casks and hogsheads of combustibles crammed into the noisome hold.
As night closed in there was still enough light for Decatur to make out the town of Tripoli, two miles to the west, a collection of sun-bleached forts and minarets dominated by the bashaw's palace. In the heart of the harbor loomed the ship they had come to destroy. The Philadelphia was moored in such a way as to serve as the harbor's principal defense. She bristled with twenty-eight eighteen-pounder long guns and sixteen thirty-two-pounder carronades. Decatur had to assume that all the guns were loaded and that there might be as many as two hundred Tripolitanians on board, since it would take at least that number to fight the guns. He knew there were another 115 heavy guns in the forts surrounding the harbor and probably fifty more on the cruisers and galleys that lay at anchor within range of the Philadelphia.
The Americans hidden in the little Intrepid were fully aware of the dangers surrounding them. Their chances of death, dismemberment, and slavery were probably far higher than their chances of a safe return to base, but there was such a glorious aura of derring-do about the enterprise, such a sense that they were participants in a grand storybook adventure, that it buoyed their spirits and crowded out any fears that might otherwise have sapped their enthusiasm.
Decatur had drilled his crew repeatedly on the particulars of each man's assignment -- where he was to go once they boarded the Philadelphia, what he was to accomplish, how he was to do it. For all his zeal, there must have been a part of Decatur that recoiled at the idea of destroying such a ship. Almost certainly, during the weeks of planning for the raid, he would have at least considered the possibility of trying to save the Philadelphia, of manning her helm and bearing her away in triumph from under the noses of the enemy, that she might fight another day. But just as certainly he would have recognized that such a romantic scheme was totally out of the question. The ship was dismantled, and her bowsprit and foremast gone. Under the best conditions, the mouth of the harbor was a difficult passage for such a large ship, and it would have taken a dozen or more whaleboats to tow her to sea. The only practical solution was to burn her.
Behind the Intrepid, hovering near the horizon beyond the mouth of the harbor, lay the American brig Siren, of sixteen guns, commanded by Decatur's old friend Charles Stewart. Stewart had disguised his vessel as a trader, so as not to attract attention. The original plan, as worked out in Syracuse, had called for a number of the Siren's crewmen to join the Intrepid and augment her fighting force. But earlier that day, when the two vessels had first come within sight of Tripoli, it had been important to keep the Siren at a distance from the Intrepid, so that she would not be seen to be in any way connected with Decatur's ketch. As darkness fell, the wind, which was light from the north-northwest, prevented the Siren from closing in as quickly as had been hoped, and by seven o'clock, Decatur decided he could wait no longer. He would have to go it alone and forgo the extra fighters. He ordered Catalano to enter the harbor between the reef and the shoals, and then explained the change in plans to his men, closing with a quotation from Henry V: "The fewer men, the greater share of honor." Decatur was by his own admission no scholar, but it is typical of him that he was intimately familiar with the one Shakespeare play that dealt so specifically with honor and its many ramifications, a subject of paramount importance to him.
The original plan called for the attack to take place at ten o'clock, but Decatur had so often experienced the uncertainty of the weather on the North African coast that when he found the wind, which was now light from the north-northwest, cooperating with his plans, he ordered his helmsman to steer boldly onward, directly toward the Philadelphia, now visible in ghostly silhouette, illuminated by the cool glow of a crescent moon.
Around nine o'clock the breeze shifted to the northeast and became very light, but proved strong enough to bring them within two hundred yards of the Philadelphia. It was now half past nine, and the setting moon, still visible above the horizon, gave them enough light to see that the ship's ports were open, and her guns run out, and that there were a number of sailors on the spar deck. It had been Decatur's intention to run in under her bows and board over the forecastle, but the shift in the wind meant they would have to improvise.
When they got within a hundred yards of the Philadelphia, the wind died completely, and they were momentarily dead in the water. The huge bulk of the Philadelphia was blocking any wind and leaving the little Intrepid becalmed. Eventually the breeze picked up from the opposite quarter, still very light. The change brought the two vessels nearly parallel to each other at a distance of little more than twenty yards, their heads in the same direction, and the Intrepid abreast of the larboard gangway of the Philadelphia. Some ten or twelve Tripolitanian sailors were looking over the ship's hammock rail.
The ketch was almost within an oar's length of the frigate when there was a sudden warning call from high above in the Philadelphia, ordering her to keep away. Catalano answered, explaining that she was a Maltese boat, and had lost her anchors in the late gale under Cape Mesurado. He asked permission to run a warp to the frigate, and ride by her until the following morning when they could get new anchors from shore. The man on the Philadelphia, who seemed to be in charge, considered the matter briefly, and then agreed.
He was curious about the brig that had stood in the offing most of the day -- the Americans knew he was referring to the Siren -- and asked Catalano if he knew anything about her. The Sicilian told him that she was the Transfer, a former British man-of-war that had been purchased for the Tripolitanians at Malta, and whose arrival was anxiously expected. The man in the Philadelphia seemed pleased with the information.
During the conversation, the wind shifted still again, and once more left the ketch, helpless and motionless, right under the frigate's guns. Fortunately, the Intrepid's small boat was still in tow. Crewmen from the ketch, disguised in the same manner as Decatur and Catalano, clambered into it with as little show of haste as possible, and took a line from the Intrepid and made it fast to one of the ring bolts of the Philadelphia's fore chains. The unsuspecting Tripolitanians, in a spirit of cooperation, manned one of their own boats and brought a line from the after part of their ship to the Intrepid's boat, gave it to the Americans, who made gruff but incoherent murmurs of thanks, and brought the line back to their ketch. Then those men hidden behind the Intrepid's bulwark began slowly to haul in the rope, bringing them gradually nearer their prey.
Every man on board the Intrepid knew precisely where he was to go once they boarded. None of them carried firearms. In accordance with Preble's written orders, they were to "carry all by the sword." The commodore did not want the noise of pistols or muskets to alert those on shore.
As the moment for boarding grew imminent, each man concentrated on the fury to come. Boarding a ship -- particularly at night -- calls for an extreme form of hand-to-hand combat, not only dangerous but chaotic, the sort of fighting where plans can change in the flick of a saber, and where the confusion of bodies and blades can baffle and terrify even the hardiest of souls. The Americans were dressed in Arab disguises, and in the dark it would be easy to make fatal mistakes. The only means of identification was the watchword "Philadelphia." That alone might save a man from being slaughtered by his own friends.
Whether it was the unusual rapidity of the approach of the Intrepid that aroused suspicion or whether the Tripolitanians noted the movement of shadowy figures on the deck is not known, but just as the ketch was on the point of touching there was a startled cry from the Philadelphia, "Americanos! Americanos!" Catalano panicked and shouted "Board, Captain, board!" but Decatur saw there was still more than six feet of open water between the two vessels and shouted, "No orders to be obeyed but that of the commanding officer!" His instantaneous response undoubtedly prevented what would have been a debacle. Moments later as the Intrepid touched the Philadelphia, he shouted "Board!" and sixty men, led by Decatur and Midshipman Charles Morris, scrambled over the channels and rail and up onto the Philadelphia's spar deck, and through the gunports onto the main deck below.
Despite the alarm from the Philadelphia the surprise was complete, and the terrified Tripolitanians made only a feeble resistance. A few of the more coolheaded managed to remove the tampions from some of the guns, but they never got a chance to fire them. The deadly sabers and tomahawks of the Americans proved irresistible. Decatur first led an attack on the large number of the crew that had gathered on the forecastle. All those who did not jump into the sea were killed. The lower decks were cleared with the same ruthless dispatch, and in five minutes, the ship was in the hands of her attackers.
Despite Preble's ban on firearms, there was no way to stop either side from yelling, and the noise of the fight raised the alarm on shore and in the cruisers and boats lying nearby. The situation remained perilous, and the Americans expected a bombardment at any moment. There was a hurried call for the combustibles, which were instantly passed up from the ketch and distributed to the gun room berths, the cockpit, the berth deck rooms, and the forward storerooms. The men were supplied with short lengths of sperm oil candles, and at a shouted order from Decatur they set fire to the combustibles. The oily rags and old ropes roared instantly into a blaze, and flames began spilling wildly out of the spar deck hatchways and gunports. So rapidly did the flames spread that the little Intrepid was in danger of catching fire as well. Decatur, making sure that everyone was off the burning frigate, was the last to leave, leaping into the rigging of the ketch as she swung away from the blazing Philadelphia.
It had taken only about twenty minutes to capture the frigate, set her on fire, and return on board the Intrepid. Not a single American life had been lost, and only one man slightly wounded. Some twenty Tripolitanians had been killed outright. Undoubtedly others, who had hidden themselves below decks, died in the flames, while some of those who leaped into the sea probably drowned. At least one boat full of enemy sailors escaped in safety to the town. Only one prisoner was captured. After being severely wounded, he jumped on board the Intrepid, where his life was spared by Surgeon Lewis Heerman.
The expedition had been a spectacular success so far, but they were by no means out of danger. Sparks and fragments of fiery canvas floated about everywhere, threatening to ignite the additional barrels of highly flammable combustibles on the Intrepid's quarterdeck. The first order of business was to get away from the burning frigate, but as they raised the jib to catch the wind, the ketch was suddenly sucked back toward the inferno. The huge blaze was devouring all the air around it and creating a vacuum that threatened to pull the Intrepid into the fire. It was only by frantic use of the sweeps that they managed to escape from the holocaust they had risked their lives to ignite.
Once safely out of reach of the fire they faced a new danger. The batteries on shore and the cruisers in the harbor began firing at the retreating ketch, but the Americans, intoxicated with their own gallantry, seemed oblivious to the danger. One of the participants, Midshipman Morris, remembered the scene over fifty years later in his memoirs. "While urging the ketch onwards with sweeps, the crew were commenting upon the beauty of the spray thrown up by the shot between us and the brilliant light of the ship, rather than calculating any danger that might be apprehended from the contact."
The sight of the burning Philadelphia, in the middle of the small harbor, must have been breathtaking. "The appearance of the ship was indeed magnificent," Morris remembered. "The flames in the interior illuminated her ports and, ascending her rigging and masts, formed columns of fire, which, meeting the tops, were reflected into beautiful capitals."
The town itself was equally spectacular to see. The castles, forts, and minarets were all lit up by the splendor of the conflagration, and shone like an illustration out of the Arabian Nights.
The Philadelphia's loaded guns were in the midst of the fire, and as their metal heated, they fired haphazardly from either side. Her starboard battery, which was aimed directly at the shore, smashed blindly into walls and doorways. When the frigate's anchor cables burned through and parted, the Philadelphia drifted slowly and grandly toward the town, an aimless funeral pyre and a hazard to every vessel in its path.
The breeze picked up and moved the Intrepid toward the harbor mouth, but the guns from the forts and the warships in the harbor continued firing. The shot fell thickly about her, but with little accuracy. One ball passed through her topgallant sail, the only hit. Near the entrance to the harbor, the Intrepid was met by the boats from the Siren, and together the victorious Yankees made good their escape. By six in the morning the two vessels were forty miles north of Tripoli. From the deck of the Siren, the light from the burning frigate was still visible.
Two days later both vessels returned in triumph to Syracuse and an ecstatic Commodore Preble. He ordered a glorious celebratory dinner for the heroes, and within days the raid was the talk of the Mediterranean. When Admiral Nelson heard the story on board his flagship Victory off Toulon, he roared with laughter and pronounced it "the most bold and daring act of the age."
Commodore Preble wasted no time in getting off a recommendation to the secretary of the navy. "Lieutenant Decatur is an officer of too much value to be neglected. The important service he has rendered in destroying an enemy's frigate of forty guns, and the gallant manner in which he performed it, in a small vessel of only sixty tons and four guns, under the enemy's batteries, surrounded by their corsairs and armed boats, the crews of which stood appalled at his intrepidity and daring, would, in any navy in Europe, insure him instantaneous promotion to the rank of post captain. I wish, as a stimulus, it could be done in this instance; it would eventually be of real service to our navy. I beg earnestly to recommend him to the President that he may be rewarded according to his merit."
It would take many weeks for the news of Decatur's triumph to reach America, but when it finally arrived his life would change forever. From that day on, presidents would seek out his company. Strangers, speaking in deferential tones, would point to him on the street. At gatherings, voices would drop and conversations pause when he entered a room. Every fschoolchild in America would know his name, and countless little boys would reenact the burning of the Philadelphia and vie for the privilege of leading the boarding party. Stephen Decatur, still only twenty-five years old, had found the fame and potential immortality for which he had so long yearned. For the rest of his life, he would be a man apart.
Copyright ©2004 by James Tertius de Kay