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245  Robert Fowkes started me on the trail of Stephen Decatur by asking if there was a good biography. As a teacher himself, he knows we can never anticipate where a question will lead. I thank him for setting the process in motion, and Paul Wright at the University of Massachusetts Press for patiently but persistently helping me finish it. Our longtime friendship has not only survived writing of the book; it has prospered. The only surviving ship Decatur commanded is in Boston, and I thank the U.S. Navy for keeping Old Ironsides here. The staff at the USS Constitution Museum are almost an extended family. Burt Logan and Anne Grimes Rand have been generous in their assistance; Kate Lennon in the Samuel Eliot Morison Library has provided an elegant workspace and reference help. Sarah Watkins and Gary Forman have been able to answer offbeat questions on a moment’s notice; Christopher White has kept me apprised of other Decatur scholars; and Harrie Slootbeek has generously shared his own insights into the Barbary Wars. Above all, I must thank Margherita Desy, who put me on the trail of many Decatur artifacts and works of maritime history, and corrected many of this landlubber’s mistaken notions about life at sea. In Philadelphia, the staff at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania made my exploration of Decatur’s papers pleasant as well as efficient. In Washington , D.C., the staff at the National Archives and the Naval Historical Center have been extraordinary exemplars of public service. The Phillips Library at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Boston Athenaeum, and the Boston Public Library have been wonderful places to work. The Georgetown University Library has put its own Decatur letters on-line, which will make these special collections more widely available. The friendly and capable curators at the Stephen Decatur House in Washington make that elegant place what Stephen and Susan Decatur hoped it would be, a true treasure in our nation’s capital. Thanks especially to Mary Doering and Marty Zell for insight into the Decaturs’ brief life there, and to Sarah Taffer for tracking down illustrations. Friends and family have generously assisted by listening and by reading. William M. Fowler and Bernard Bailyn have been generous with counsel; Rear Admiral George Emery (Retired) has read several versions of the manuscript and I hope will be satisfied with this one. Michael Crawford made astute suggestions about an early draft, and Dr. William J. Reid read successive drafts and urged me along with the project. William M. Bulger Jr., Hal Hansen , Anouar Majid, Louis P. Masur, Robert Rabil, Francis “Flyer” Santos, Doug Shidell, Svat Soucek, and Edward L. Widmer have offered their own 246 acknowledgments comments and support; Dean Kenneth S. Greenberg at Suffolk University has kindly found ways to allow me to research and write while also teaching. Michael Shinagel at the Harvard Extension School has made it possible for faculty to engage student researchers, benefiting both students and faculty; through his generous support and Suzanne Spreadbury’s able administration , I was able to find Cathy Perlmutter, a peerless scholar and researcher, who has combed early-nineteenth-century newspapers for news of Stephen Decatur. I am deeply indebted to Carol Betsch, managing editor at the University of Massachusetts Press, for her thorough professionalism. I am grateful that she placed this book under the extraordinary eye of copy editor Amanda Heller, to whom both the reader and I owe an incalculable debt. Amanda Heller has a gift for the language; she should be given free rein over all written works. I would paraphrase our book’s hero and say, “My copy editor, Right or Wrong!”—but Amanda, I think, is never wrong. Peggy Gaudiano provided me a place to stay while doing research, and probably listened to more Decatur stories than she needed to. My wife, Phyllis , has endured much for the sake of Stephen Decatur. She and our two sons, John and Philip, continue to inspire me. ...

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