Decatur, Stephen (1779-1820) U.S. naval officer, born in Sinepuxent, Maryland. Decatur attended the University of Pennsylvania before joining a merchant shipping firm as a clerk. In 1798, he obtained a midshipman's warrant and sailed for the West Indies with Captain John Barry aboard the USS United States to hunt for French shipping. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1799 and distinguished himself during the Barbary War (1801-05), notably in sailing the captured Tripolitan ketch Mastico, renamed the USS Intrepid, into Tripoli harbor on February 16, 1804, in order to set fire to the USS Philadelphia which had run aground there. For this daring twenty-minute action Decatur was promoted to Captain, the youngest person to hold that rank up to that time. He subsequently commanded in turn the USS Constitution, the USS Congress, a gunboat flotilla in the Chesapeake Bay, the frigate USS Chesapeake, and the USS United States. His greatest naval victory came as commander of the USS United States during the War of 1812. On station between the Azores and the Canary Islands on October 25, 1812, Decatur engaged the thirty-eight-gun British frigate HMS Macedonian. The superior guns of the United States and Decatur's seamanship led to the surrender of the Macedonian. Forced to keep to harbor during 1813-1814, Decatur put to sea on January 14, 1815, in command of the USS President, but after an extended battle with four British warships, the President was captured and its captain and crew were interned in Bermuda. Decatur was later absolved of responsibility and served with distinction in operations in the Mediterranean against the dey of Algiers. From 1815 to his death, Stephen Decatur served on the Board of Navy Commissioners and was a prominent member of Washington society. In 1820 he was killed near Bladensburg, Maryland, in a duel with James Barron, a former naval officer on whose court-martial Decatur had served in 1808.
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