68 HEREDITY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NAVAL OFFICERS. 



prisoners at Libby Prison and Belle Isle. V 5, John Dahlgren (born 1844). V 6, Paul Dahlgren 

 (1846-1874) (see text). V 7, Lawrence Dahlgren, died young in 1851. V 8, Eva Dahlgren, died 

 in 1870. V 9, Eric Dahlgren, of St. Paul and New York. V 10, Mary Drexel. V 11, Elizabeth 

 Drexel. V 12. John Vinton Dahlgren (1868-1899), a brilliant lawyer who died prematurely. 



VI 1, John A. Dahlgren. VI 2, Ulric Dahlgren (born 1870), professor of biology at Princeton 

 since 1911. VI 3, Katherine Drexel Dahlgren. VI 4, Lucy Dahlgren, entered a Roman Catholic 

 sisterhood. VI 5, Madeleine, Ulrica, and Olga Dahlgren. VI 6, Joseph and Eric Dahlgren. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



DAHLGREN, M. V. 1882. Memoir of John A. Dahlgren. Boston: J. Osgood and Co. xi 

 + 3 + 660 pp. 



15. STEPHEN DECATUR. 



STEPHEN DECATUR was born January 5, 1779, at Sinepuxent, Worcester 

 county, Maryland. He went on a cruise with his father at 8 years of age, and 

 "was thus early introduced to the sea, toward which his inclination and ancestry 

 ever urged him." He went to school until he was 17 years of age, when he entered 

 the counting-house of a firm of ship-owners, but, at the beginning of the war 

 with France, he showed such desire for naval service that he was taken by Com- 

 modore Barry on his ship United States as midshipman, 1798, and the next year 

 was promoted to be lieutenant. In 1801 war had broken out with the Barbary 

 States, and in 1802 Decatur sailed as first lieutenant for the Mediterranean, but 

 was sent home for arranging a fatal duel between two young naval officers. He, 

 however, soon returned to the Mediterranean fleet, under Commodore Preble, 

 and was given command of the schooner Enterprise. In this he captured a Tri- 

 politan ketch which was renamed the Intrepid. The American frigate Philadelphia 

 having been captured, with all on board, by the Tripolitans, Decatur volunteered 

 to "cut her out" with the Intrepid and was instructed by Preble to do so. The 

 Philadelphia lay at anchor under the batteries (200 guns) of Tripoli, surrounded 

 by 25 of the enemy's war vessels, and protected by nearly 30,000 men ashore and 

 afloat. To oppose this force Decatur had one small (50-ton) ketch filled with 

 combustibles and 84 armed men. At night he and his men, mistaken for traders, 

 were allowed to come alongside of the Philadelphia to moor. They boarded the 

 ship, killed 20 men, and routed the rest, without the wounding of a single American. 

 They then set fire to the Philadelphia and rowed away just as the shore batteries 

 began to fire upon them, but they were soon out of range (February 1804). Five 

 months later Preble set sail to destroy the fleet in the harbor of Tripoli. Decatur 

 was in command of one division of three gunboats and had to face, almost alone 

 at first, the much more numerous fleet and the shore batteries of Tripoli. Stephen 

 Decatur captured one gunboat by boarding her in a desperate encounter. His 

 brother James had been treacherously killed while attempting to take a gunboat 

 that had surrendered to him, and Stephen, learning of this, set out for the gunboat 

 with 11 men, and killed and wounded so many of the officers and crew that the 

 boat surrendered. The Tripolitans did not, thereafter, venture into a hand-to- 

 hand encounter. Decatur was made captain at the age of 25. 



In the War of 1812 Decatur was given command of the famous United States 

 to hunt for English vessels. On October 25, 1812, he came upon the Macedonian, 

 a new frigate somewhat inferior in fighting strength to the United States, as 5 to 7, 

 and captured her with a loss only one-ninth that of his opponent. Returning 

 to New York, he was transferred to the frigate President. In January 1815 he 

 decided to run the blockade. The President grounded, on running out in a half 



