Stephen Decatur

* The story of one of America's great naval heroes
*Provides insights into life aboard ship in the war of 1812
*Explores the tragic death of this extraordinary naval officer

Brave, energetic, intensely patriotic, Stephen Decatur was America's first great naval hero after John Paul Jones. Decatur's raid into Tripoli Harbor in 1804 to burn the Philadelphia, a major US warship captured when it ran aground during the Barbary Wars, earned him international fame. An admiring Horatio Nelson described the feat as`the most bold and daring act of the age'. The tremendous impact Decatur's action had on the early US Navy set a standard of audacity and courage for generations of future officers. At the age of twenty-five, Decatur was promoted to captain, becoming the youngest naval officer ever to attain that rank.

The book chronicles Decatur's rapid rise in the Navy during the War of 1812, when he captured the British frigate Macedonian off the Azores. It also recounts the cruise that many call his greatest triumph: his sailing into the Mediterranean to punish the dey of Algiers for raiding American merchant shipping. The book also examines Dacatur's relationship with James Barron, a navy captain who fatally shot Decatur during an 1820 duel.