Stephen Decatur, Celebrated Hero of the Tripolitan War, 1804 Stephen Decatur, just twenty-five, won soaring praise from the American public for his daring nighttime raid into Tripoli’s harbor to burn the USS Philadelphia. Decatur’s fame grew when, six months later, he led ten men into combat against some fifty Tripolitan sailors. An 1850s artist re-created the dramatic moment when a wounded American took a saber blow for Decatur, who forthwith shot his attacker.