KNIGHT OF THE SEA: Story of the Great American Commodore, Stephen Decatur

There is good material here, in this story of the conqueror of the Barbary Pirates, the hero of the War of 1812, but unfortunately the tendency to write down to her readers and to over sentimentalize her character mara the quality of what might otherwise he a better than adequate book. Decatur is a grown man during most of the book; he saw his first naval engagements at a very tender age so his ""career"" starts in boyhood, where at the age of nine- the biography begins, carrying through to his death in the duel with Barron.