On this day...

[revwardoc]

...In 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U-S Navy frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of pirates.
Admiral Lord Nelson is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age."

In 1820, Commodore James Barron challenged Decatur to a duel, relating in part to comments Decatur had made over what he considered Barron's poor conduct in the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair of 1807. Decatur had served as one of the members of the Court Martial that had found Barron guilty of unpreparedness in the affair, and had barred him from a command for the next five years.

Barron's second was Captain Jesse Elliott, known for his antagonism to Decatur. Decatur asked his supposed friend Commodore William Bainbridge to be his second, to which Bainbridge consented. However, Decatur unknowingly had selected a man who had harbored a long-standing jealousy for Decatur.

The two officers fought at Bladensburg Duelling Field in Bladensburg, Maryland (now in Colmar Manor, Maryland), on 22 March 1820. Before the duel, Barron spoke to Decatur in words of suggestive conciliation, but the seconds did nothing to halt the altercation. Decatur, an expert marksman with a pistol, intended only to wound Barron. However, Decatur was mortally wounded by a shot in the abdomen. (Decatur had likewise inflicted a severe, though not mortal, wound to Barron's hip.) As Decatur lay slowly dying in his home on Lafayette Square, he is said to have cried out, "I did not know that any man could suffer such pain!" He died childless. Though he left his widow $75,000, a considerable sum in 1820, she died penniless in 1860.

Decatur's funeral was attended by the Washington political elite, including the President and Supreme Court, as well as most of Congress. More than 10,000 citizens of Washington attended to pay respects to a national hero.