mont on who was.

who is this person we're recognize missing here tonight and why is it relevant to the white house historical association and to recognize his birthday and this home that we as our headquarters of white house historical association. we gather on what would have been the eve of the 245th birthday of stephen decatur. he was a hero of the war of 1812. one of those little conflicts with the british and early history and. it. one had a torch connected that's a story an event for a different but but stephen

decatur was then and is still to this day the youngest to attain the rank of captain in the history of the american navy. at the age of 25 years old. he had a great and promising future. he and his wife susan built house. the architect was the famous english architect benjamin latrobe, who also built st john's church just across the rom where are this evening and he was a hero and received the monetary rewards compensation that was common in his day for that service. that heroism with those proceeds he bought this entire city block. there wereth and house was built as the closest freestanding home to the president of the united states home across lafayette park. he foolishly accepted the challenge to a duel at the hands of. another former naval officer on whose personnel review board he

had sat and this volley of correspondence went back between the two of them similar to the correspondence alender hamilton and aaron burr. and just theted the challenge that very week in the historic home that through this evening, he hosted stephen decat.his wife, susan, e wedding party for the daughter of president and mrs. monppand n knowing that later that week tur would meet his fate an early fate, an early eran hero. he left here before dawn one morning, went out toounded by commodore. baron. he was brought back here to die. and the news reports of the day say thatr 10,000 people gathered in front this home to mourn his. ve that he would follow either james monroe or, perhs on a president of the united states. it actually took qte time

before a naval veteran became president of the united states. actually, that was in the middle of the 20th century before that took place. but stephen d wasat hero whose home left to his wife. it then became theat of the of russia, the united and frit served as a uniform depot during the american civil for unnd a number of vice presidents and members of eventually became the possession of the national trust. historic preat we have a long term agreement with to. operate this as our headquarters o do so and in that relationship and in that partnership with the national trust, we think it's fitting and proper to honor the life, the leadership, the legacy of stephen decatur through this annual commemoration of his birthday. and that' why we are here tonight. and that's a little about who? stephen decatur tonight to begin

our program we're honored to have the commander of the decatur who is currently underway with his crew and it is commander michael fratto. he has recorded a greeting for us. good afternoon. my name is commandericer, u.s. g 73. i'm sorry they'll be unable to be there in person, but i'm honored to say greetings to the white house. historical association. dedication to keeping history of the theater alive through its stewardship at our house. and programs like this are an inspiration to us as we strive to experience legacy to alive by adhering to the same values principles that exemplify during the course of the war. these i wish i could be here in the room with you today. as we hear of naval operations, alfredet and the knowledgeable panelists regarding the fascinating history of the relationship betw u.s. happy birthday, commodore here bold andáx there.

our distinguished panel will be moderated tonight by diana stancy. she's a reporter for the navy times where she reports on leadership personnel policy and oversees ora issues, prior to covering theni she was the early brief editor for militaryes, covering every branch of the military. additionally, she was a breaking news reporter for the washington examiner where she covered the military international affairs as well as andrastcture policy. our first panelist is ryan ryan mewett, a permanent military professor, assistant professor history, the united states naval academy, where he teaches british history. in 2020, his ped work on the royal navy was recognized thir julian corbett prize in modern naval history. he graduate, the

naval academy and before selection as military professor served for 17 years as a submarine officer. our next panelist is dr. abby is an assistant professor of history at the united states naval academy, where she teaches courses naval, maritime and digital history. her forthcoming book to fix a 4tnational looks at how the unid into the mediterranean community while fighting against tripoli. life of henry wor naval officer who served. stephen decatur and was one of casualties of the barbary wars. finally, representing his majesty's navy. and i was so worried i was going toay, but i got i got the his majesty in there representing his majesty's tonight is rear admiral tim woods, the united kingdom defense attache and head of the

british defense staff. admiral woods career has included four tours. tours of the uk ministry of defense. he joined e royal navy in 013 and commodore in may oftain 2018. most recently, his role of defense attache attache was in kiev and head of the british defense staffeurope. for his inspiration the leadership andvi in king charles the third recently honored him as a cbe commander of the most excellent order of the british empire. john grant well, thank you everyone for being here today and thank you so much to oustfo. i'm really excited to kick off our discussion today. ted get a sense of what these two naval

powers were like at particular juncture in history during the war of 1812, where we have a very young united states at war with, great britain. so first, from the american perspective, i wanted to ask how the us navy modeled itself after the royal navy in its early stages. and what similarities theysharef 1812. and thenish view the us navy ans own influence upon the us navy at the time thithis time? yes, that's a really great question. of course, the us navy is found in the there is a continental navy during, the revolution, but then it is completely disbanded and it doesn't get reformed 1794. so that's really navy we're talking about. here is the one that gets un ande know for a fact the us navy models itself on royal navy for a lot of reasons.ecause the first secrety of the navy, benjamin's daughter

says it out loud. he se's,re going to try to follow the royal navy in so far as we can. ofougnificant differences between the royal navy and the us navy. the fact that there'aristocracyr corps is very different. the fact that it's noperial navy different for the united states. but we can actually see how the us navy models itself, the royal navy, by looking at the way that they talk about what navy is supposed to look like and. the most prominent way they do this is in regulations. soal navy has a set of regulations and instructions. if you compare those regulations, instructions to what the us navy produces in the 1790s then in the early 1800s, we that about 75% or more of the us instructions are exact duplicates of things that come from the royal navy. so there's no question that the vy is a model for the us navy and. that's not about regulations. there's also a customary

practice is a from the uk, from the royal navy into the us navy. we can see it very clearly in the sources. so i'll stop talking about that d talk about one of you can talk about something else. so i'd say the that the royal navy thought about us navy in the run up to the war 1812 and at the beginning of the war, i hate to say, but they didn't abothin us at all because. they they were actually locked in this war for for as they thought of it, sort of texistenl at this point 20inst napoleon. years, nearly the french revolutionary and napoleonic wars. and that was what had consumed ll all their attention for the previous 20 years. ey h with the battle trafalgar seven years before, a sort of fairly firm command of the sea over the french. but at that point in 1812,

britain was the only nation that stood alone against against. and so they were mostly concerned about the french in terms of thinking about the i think the british at that point had a sort of vaguely racial, cultural thinking that in which they thought, well the americans, at least they have the right sort of stock to to be is ny thing. they they knew that the american st in some ways model itself, after them. there was not really any critical there was no question in minds that the way to navy was way the royal navy, navy. so i think fair to say that they thought of the americans as sort of provincials that they probably had thebe good but there wasn't a ton of evidence it yet. they had had some interaction with the americans. i can talk, i think, a little more about this in/ñ&z the mediterranean during the first barbary war and the west indies,

during thesi with in the 1790s. so they thought that the americans had the potential. they knew that the americans had very good. but it remain to be at the beginning of the war, sort of whether the united states navy would be able to live up that potential or not. i think it's a very good point that if you look back to 1812, the focus for was very much on europe and you had, you know, in sort of the iberian, you had wellington doing his thing whilst in east. you had sort of napoleon getting bogged moscow whilst the royal navy was trying tontae time. so you hous had some leftovers on the western atlantic at that particular point where i would say that the us navy had modeled on the royal navy was in the fighting spirit which was epitomized so much by stephennumerous instances throut his life, whether was in 1884, which got that apocryphal quote from admiral lord nelson of bolton daring or or even the,

you know, the taking of the macedonian. i think that is where you saw th difference between the two navies. and that's where whether they were know. but certainly the provincialsnad outgun. the royal navy, which seven ha been unheard of, a navy that prided itself on its training we looked at the storyf the 19th century, you would have seen a navy not so much in physicalthe moral component of g had lost its way. and i thinats where relearned that from the us navy rough 1812 to 1814, i. excellent. well, given the iluence of the royal navy upon the us, what did each of these navies expect? the onset of the war of 1812? going head to head against another, espll the us only had 16 warships at the time,here britain had roughly 500. so what were kind of the expectationsng into the war

and then how did that change as the war continued and went on. so in? i think so first of all, it's important to know that the us navy and the royal navy on a personal level, officers knew each other very well because. there are royal navy ships at off coast of the united states. they make port calls in america and port stephen decatur a conversation and even has dinner. the captain of the macedonia, which he later takes as the of the states, so they know each other and they're familiar with the fight the force, the fighting spirit, all of that stuff. but i do think that. re royal navy is not expecting much from the us noute frigate battat happened at the beginning of the war. it very quickly becomes evident that the royalav actually is the superior force and is very capable of locking the us navy

into port and blockading the entire coast of the atlantic seaboard. so yeah, i think, they, they knew each other well and the royal navy was a little surprised at some of the successes. but then quickly its dominance. yeah, i think i'd like the second that that as i said before i the royal navy thouathy potential certainly had good ships had officers with wita sps dictator had shown. but i think as americans the greathe war of 1812 is it gives a little bit to everybody. everybody can think that they want it. cotries that think they won the war of 1812. the canadians, even a country yet because we have stage of about six months when thereams frigate victories, a couple of other smaller ship duels that the

united w and. pulation of the united states is very encouraged by that. and the potal navy could do and that it can stand up against most po nation in the world that has been fighting this war almost single handedly against the frenchor 20 years. that does a lot american morale. and for the moralen, t american navy on the british side, it is certainly to the morale of many british naval officers. but to the public, more than it to the officers he because the officers of the navy know a thing that as america■fn, which is the material mismatch involved. won was significant. e the three british ships that were defeated by american frigates were about 50% had had crews that were about 50% smaller had oa weight of metal that was about 50% smaller. so while wethan american frigate be beat a british frigate, we're really talkinou of ship.

and sohe british officers while found it distasteful to lose to the americans the' did necessarily view those individual battles as the outcome being particularly unexpected. that doesn't meant dn't want toe themselves, and they did very much so that that personal desire■-■o sort restore the navy's good name drove many individual naval officers, including brooke, who sort of set the record straight between cheske shannon, 1813. yeah. i numerical superiority one that one won the day in the end, itup call and it was it against, as i said, the superior gunnery in 1812 that led to the taking of the macedonian, which would have horrified nelson. but, you know, the wake up call was there and end 1814 spoke for itself. but i do like your point that,

know, three nations they won a bit like at jutland years later where both sides claimed victory. excellent. ou mentioned, one pivotal event during the war of 1812 was when u. frigate united states, led by commodore decatur, engaged the british ig macedonia. and in october of 1812. couldoupeak a little bit about the significance, this event that led to the surrender of the macedon inn, and then also how it shaped the course of events afterwards for the rest of the war? i probablythleast to say about this. so i'll start it in this that cleay as the admiral a case of superior gunnery, superior training. but as abby mentioned, captain and, captain commodore, decatur had dinner beforehand. they actually knew each other quite well. carden underestimated the americans he underestimated both the armament much difference the

guns and the 24 pounds guns on united states pounds guns on macedonian would make and. s t prepared for the level of training that the americans brought to the fight. tethat that years of fighting experience in the royal navy make it a wko and it and it proved not to be. yeah and i think the other thing that's important to know about this battle is the thing significant about it is the second of the three main frigate victories for the united states, the first one being constitution carrr, awesome and people thought it was great and it was a redemption for the united states who had just seen a general hull essentially surrender fortitithout a shot and the same day that that news arrived in washington and luckily the news of constitution carrier also arrived in washington,hi great because the person who won victory was whoappened to be the nephew of hull, who had just

surrret. so it all kind of, you know, made everybody feel a little wa declared. but then macedon in the united states was the second one of those. and what significant about that bathttle garrison had been sunk? it was not recoverable, but macedonian able to be brought into the us fleet, which was impressive and unusual. and it took captain decaturt two that could come back to the united states in functional but it was a big deal for the united states to be able to say, not onid garry and that was awesome, but we beat a frigate thatw have and that was a really big deal. in also was sort of a tipping point for the british public in somes.one constitu grt have been a fluke, but like two. and now they have one of our ships that's. not so oc. so i think that was really

significant. then when the third one happens4 on again, hmsy feels like the momentum is moving in the direction of the uniteds's significant even though after that point the blockadeth united states essentially shuts down all future battles except for chesapeake shannon which rand mentioned, which was a defeat for the states. so from a strategic standpoint, the battle maybe wasn't so significant, but from a morale standpoint it was huge. yeah i think tactically it was significant and also strategically because that was the tipping point. that enough, you know, we've got to take this seriously. i k underestimated the us navy. you know, that's that's two, two significant losses. now even though and i've talked about the gunnery between the two ships actually you know they're going to the us navy will outgunning twice of macedonian so the should have not been in any doubt but that was definitely the wake up call

that enough's enough got to take this seriously hence the blockade and hence you know leading to a suit pie in in 1814 crete. now war of 1812 obviously ended two years later with the british keeping, their canadian territory and the us with various victories at lake erie among. so i wanted to ask what kind of impact did this war have upon? the future of the us and royal navy's and how did it drive thnaons to become allies? so i'it back to the timing with respect to world events. ce again, the british never wanted the in the first place. i think the sense of satisfaction at its end in a in a draw that both sides could claim as a win. they just wanted to get on with things they had been war for 20 odd years at this point had financed that war with debt financing hugely were wanted to immediately get about the business of demobilizing the and

the navy that the of napoleon was going to allow the first defeat ofoln in 1814 started to allow and so they just wanted to get it over with and in the wake of the war that that was already happening in 1814 and it allowed for the british and the americans to come to a treaty in 1816 and another one in 1818. that one of the major steps that it did wasitarize the great lakes, all of the northern lakes. the british and the americans boththeyould not keep more one ship of some 100 tons, i think it was and not more a couple of guns so that the lakes not bfo did not have o pour a tremendous amount of spending into managing navies on the lakes. and that was first a real first step to to softening the relationship that had been one of tension for the last 40 years on the northern border. and thof a first up. that then into a more a cooling

or, i should say a warming up of relations sort of around the world that wasn't solidified into a meaningful i don't think yet for another hundred years. but but it was a it was a first step coming out of the war. yeah, i think we expansion of the us navy into, places that it hadn't been before 1812. so a movement of squadrons into the pacific, a squadron off of the coast of africa to do anti-slavery.werelaces where there were for the united states to partner the royal navy sometimes. they partnered with them. sometimes they were a little bit antagonistic toward them, just kind of depended on where they were. they did anti-piracy stuff together, the caribbeay did anti-slavery stuff as said pacific it was a little more complicated because there were still some imperial jockeying o. and the united states was kind of the way sometimeshere was a n there, but it was definitely thd

the royal navy on a personal level or a ship, ship level or even squadron to squadron level, were able to work in the same space without, causing each other problems, even if wasn't necessarily a partnership per. se in the 19th century on sort of big level, but on an ad hoc or event to eventthere definitely was some cooperation. and then of course, when we get into t 20th century moving into things like world war one at the washington naval nfee a more a stronger solidification of those relationships. i think it's probably fair to say that the war established certainly professional respect between the two services that made theme de each other in the future. yeah, it was definitely that mutual respect. i think afterwards. and you know, there were frictions, you know, the monroe doctrine every time, you know, ships in those areas, you know, it was, you know, you get out. we saw the development of the royal navy in

the 19thentury, we had the first ironclad ships. we then had steam propulsion. sorms of the technological development, the royal navy was leading the way that the us ve keeping up. and we saw both navies developing together to. th in the early 20th century we got the first battleships, the treadmill which was followed by the us in keeping in close station astern at that point where i would say that the royal navy did need to th was in that moral component. so the physical component was leading the way and even the conceptual component leading the way, the navy's high, high watermar as it were was probably trafalgar. and after that we saw this not not so much malaise, we certainly saw a decline. and thereas kind of really, really marked this. and that wasuld become slaves all all rather than the sort of mission command of nelson, wasust get out there, place your ship against the enemy. you know what to do you know

your plan everything was so choreographed by signal telegraph at this point that you remove the free fiflaifrom commanding officers, which is something that the us navy ■r t spirit of the carter. and so in 1893 and in the mediterranean you have this sort of mediterranean fleet constantly practicing maneuvering and, stationing at sea and was all very tightly choreographed by station, by telegraph. and it led to the collision between flagship hms victoria with the the flag officer himself on board and one of the ips. because the turning circle was wrong no one dared to tell admiral george tyron that he'd got his calculations wrong and the ships collided head on. suddenly the victoria sank, capsized sank in 16 minutes with a loss of 358 on board. and so that almost that that seamanship, that free thinking that disappeared from the royal

navy, which culminated actually at where, you know, the armies of the day said, you ships? so we had a lot of lessons to learn. you know, the royal navy whilst the us navy, you know you had that indepde spirit, you had that sort of, you know, you've come you've come fr almost and suddenly you are hot on the heels. and thenin t 20th century, the us navy just comes its own and expands. great. hothe us and the uk haveo become such strong partnerthat n recent years there's been a lot of work together ance interoperability. so i wanted to ask if you could speak wht to this point as allies share more today between the us and the uk and what we can anticipate to see in the future. i'll defer. okay.

yeah, i think to see if naval operations is all that. okay. i mean, obviously, you know, throughout the 20th century we'd been orating together and i'll come back to some of this, but delivering combined sea power is is the present and the future is it's been around for about a decade now. we heard about the four lines of efforts. and i'll just sort say a bit abt e wi the vignettes about where it's thingly. today. so we heard about line of effort once t c strike and we heard about the carrier strike deployment for years ago where we had, you know, a us ship, the sullivansctually the air defense commander of the queen elizabeth carrier strike one of anti-submarine warfare was drivencaptain there. hugh got in the front row, who is now embedded in the raf staff and what a lot of you wouldn't know is that hugh drove his ship, the taiwan strait, to demoat of during that particular deployment

deployment. officer or rather roger staff of aviation officer was also on the same deployment in command of hms defender. that ship detached went into the black sea and sailed through the imeaeparation scheme with four ri 20evens in close attention. you know, we we're sending our brightest and our best officers here to serve in the united states, you know, two commanding deployment in two pretty pretty key roles here we heard about the recent deployment particulae deck landings of v two ospreys f-35 bravos, you know us pilots coming on board and also one of the largest uncrewed systems based on the gray eagle w and recovered the largest us outside of the us. so all of this interchangeability doing and as a thing and then as a submariner

i'm really passionate as about line of effort to and roger and i earlier last year we wupthe ch energy rickover now rickover has ial place our hearts because it was back 1958 we siagreement that allowed you to trust us with the snuclear propy and what that meanth the navy. and then roger and i were also with a number of us officers past and present in the paint. it all at greenwich last may, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the power sales agreement. and i'm man myself, amongst other things, and i've served alongside many us submariners. we we constant point in october and we were watching the construction of your future. columbia class common missile compartments. but they're exactly the same. the reason it's common is because they're exactly the as the ones that we'll put into our

t submarines. th interchangeability working hand-in-glove on everything we do in th the marines and the us 15 operating at high altitude together. so everything we do today, we do to, we do it hand in glove. and then i guess in closing, we' satven tonight in red sea, you know, where you'veot we us ships protecting merchant shipping and keeping the global cmons open. so that is that is the present and that is the future. great. well bringing it back to dictator himself, i wanted to leership influence, the future of both the us and royal and what kind legacy he leave upon each from then until now.

so as stuart said, unfortunately his personal legacy didn't last too much longer after thr of 1812, he was killed commodore james barron in 1820 in a duel. but his the way that the navy thought about what it meant be a fighter or to be able to be certainly dictators legacy is in that i would more than anything and we that in the civil war with david glasgow farragut and even moving into the spanish-american war and many other where that sort of spirit of just going straight at them or doing things that are bold and sometimes little bit inexplicable is risky. that how stephen decatur rolled. and i think that's certainly something that we see in commanding officers going forward as well. the second that i have have nothing in particular that i

think he also demonstrated a real moral courage as well as physical courage. so whether it was his acts in 1804, 1812, even try escape from the british, the us as president you know, everything he was doin you he was a man of flair and an inspiration to the officers around him. even in his death, you know, accepting a understand was a bit of a blight at the time, you know, the us navy was losing too many time through the accepting of i think it was, you. you're going to be kicked out if you accept a jewel or something like that or discharged. u kn, even there you this is not a man who would shrink back from from a duel or, would turn away from a fight. and that was inspirational to many so i think it was it was that and also mission command i talked about earlier which was just trusting and, delegating and expec, , ur men and now they know that place in then yo trust them to get on and do right. well, we're going to open up the

room to questions from the audience. so please raise your hand. and we have cr will going around so you can use those. ask your question of the panelists. thanks i was going to ask my name's kevin wincing, retired navy captain. i was going to ask sort of the leadership styles back in the war of 1812 of like stephen decatur how he treated his sailors, how the royal navy treated their sailors and so forth, because nelson had a great legacy of of, you know, being respected by his by his crew. so what was the leadership style with the crew back in those days? so i think there's something to be said about the specific to united states versus macedonia, the oil which that captain carden had just recently taken command macedonian. and there was sort of a there had been a kind of reign of terror on the ship that the crew had had a really really bad relationship with their previous captain mostly because the previous captain allowed the first lieutenant, the contemporary equivalent of the executive to to do what he wanted, to tyrannized the crew

and be an extremely harsh disciplinarian. and he captain carden had not done anything to to sort of repair that since he had come to command and but that was a thing that contemporaries commented on that macedonian did not capabil. the crew didn't trust their captain anything like the way that united that the men that served aboard united trusted d i think that goes back even further with dictator in partic wn for being liked by his crews and i think we can see that most in the expedition that he led in 1804 to burn the uss philadelphia in tripoli harbor. he was a lieutenant the time he ptai and he was given this very important of trust by comme edward preble. but then he asked for volunteers, johe and pretty much everyone on his ship the constitution voluner he had to tell some of them

like, sorry, you can't. you can't come. we can only take 80. i think even back when was very yng, 25, he had the respect his men and they were willinghim to something that could have been incredibly dangerous andso i think from th, he had a really strong relationship with his crew and drons well.ficers in the i mean opposite agree i mean, he inspiration and as stuart said at the start, you know 184h within hours you h0,leourning, s death. so so that that was the kind of individual we're talking about. and it really wasn't a british versus american thing to there were very many american captains at the same time who were not at all well-known for having a good relationship who were regarded as tyrants. so it was, i think, actually one of the other friga captains of constitution and constitution william did not have a similarly

was mixed bag.ip with his crew, it wasn't just like everybody in the united states was awesome y in the navy was terrible, wasn't like that at dictator was a remarkable dictator. it was a relationship yeah, yeah. right next. question anybody in the room? okay, right over here. did there a time going back to your early years, the 19th century? did you come a time when it became apparent the internal tensions and the political pressures generated by slavery began to eat away at the unity and the good discipline of the american that's a really great questioyeh in even the era

serving, but definitely by theng time we move into the and certae 1850s, we see southern officers having a hard time serving on the same ship as northern officers. , of course, everything breaks. in 1861. you have extremely us naval officers who join the confederacy. bei franklin buchanan, the first superintendent of the us naval academy wh t confederacy, then was the captain of the uss virginia. so there are certainly were tensions in the navy and out how to manage all of those tensions was a real challenge for the navy. and of course then question is still afterwards the confederacy is no longer. what do you do with all those ed officers of them wanted to come back and i think rightfully so. the us navy decided no, if you served in the confederate navy, you're not welcome in the us navy, right.

we'll take one final question. anyone has. perfect. all right. well,t th concludes our panel for today. you so much for being here. and thank you so much to paneli. lnwell, hello, everyone. we're so exd to have you guys with us today. i'm ronald angel johnson. i'm the lynch here of history at baylor university, the coeditor of the journal of the early republic. i'm delighted to welcome you all to this afternoon's roundtable to discuss and outstay ending new book by one of the profession freshman's best scholars on the