Capture of the Tripoli by the Enterprise

Thomas Birch, the first American painter to devote himself to the sea, commemorated one of the most daring feats of the Barbary Wars in this canvas of 1806–12: the night raid in which Lieutenant Stephen Decatur and his men burned the captured frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor, denying it to the pirates. Birch, an English-born artist who settled in Philadelphia and learned marine painting from his father, gave the episode a dramatic moonlit stage — the dark hull of the ship, the first tongues of flame, and the crowded boats pulling away — while keeping the exact rigging and sea-marks of an eyewitness record. It is at once a proud chapter of early American naval history and a fine example of the young nation’s Romantic marine art. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.