Born to an immigrant Philadelphia family in 1779, Stephen Decatur became at age twenty-five the youngest man ever to serve as a captain in the US Navy. Although he died prematurely, Decatur played a significant role in the shaping of the nation's identity at a time when the American people were deciding what kind of nation they would become.

Robert J. Allison is professor of history at Suffolk University and author of The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776-1815.