DECATUR AND NAPOLEON

The 25th October signals the Battle on Agincourt in 1415 and the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854.

Two hundred year ago the special relationship was non-existent. There was war between the United States and Britain. One incident featured on the 25^th October 1812. 

USS United States

Three days after the United States declared war against Britain, a squadron under the command of Commodore John Rogers in the President, along with Commodore Stephen Decatur of the United States, the Argus, Essex and the Hornet, departed from the harbour at New York City. As soon as Rodgers received news of the declaration of war, fearing that the order to confine naval ships to port would be reconsidered by Congress, he and his squadron departed New York bay within the hour. The squadron patrolled the waters off the American upper east coast until the end of August, their first objective being a British fleet reported to have recently departed from the West Indies.

Decatur

Rodgers' squadron again sailed on 8^th October 1812, this time from Boston, Massachusetts. Three days later, after capturing Mandarin, Decatur separated from Rodgers and his squadron and with the United States continued to cruise eastward.

At dawn on 25^th October, five hundred miles south of the Azores, lookouts on board reported seeing a sail 12 miles to windward. As the ship slowly rose over the horizon, Captain Decatur made out the fine, familiar lines of HMS Macedonian, a British frigate bearing 38 guns.

The Macedonian and the United States had been berthed next to one another in 1810, in port at Norfolk, Virginia. The British captain John Carden bet a fur beaver hat that if the two ever met in battle, the Macedonian would emerge victorious. However, the engagement in a heavy swell proved otherwise as the United States pounded the Macedonian into a dismasted wreck from long range. During the engagement Decatur was standing on a box of shot when he was knocked down almost unconscious when a flying splinter struck him in the chest. Wounded, he soon recovered and was on his feet in command again. Because of the greater range of the guns aboard the United States, Decatur and his crew got off seventy broadsides, with the Macedonian only getting off thirty, and consequently emerged from the battle relatively unscathed. The Macedonian had no option but surrender, and thus was taken as a prize by Decatur. Eager to present the nation with a prize, Decatur and his crew spent two weeks repairing and refitting the captured British frigate to prepare it for its journey across the Atlantic to the United States. 

Gance

The 25^th October 1889 is the birthday of Abel Gance, French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J’accuse (1919), La Roue (1923), and the monumental Napoléon  (1927). Here is a sequence of videos relating to his masterpiece Napoléon. Coincidentally, whilst Decatur was firing on the Macedonian Napoleon was retreating from Moscow.