Combat· First Barbary War
Enterprise captures ketch Mastico
On 23 December 1803, the USS Enterprise, working with the Constitution, captured the small Tripolitan ketch Mastico in the Mediterranean.
The Marines aboard the Enterprise took part in the boarding. By itself the capture of a minor coasting vessel meant little, but the Mastico would soon become one of the most famous small ships in American naval history. Taken into the squadron and renamed the Intrepid, she was the disguised craft Stephen Decatur slipped into Tripoli harbor a few weeks later to burn the captured frigate Philadelphia. As McClellan noted, the Mastico, as the Intrepid, brought fame to Decatur and his companions, a quiet capture in December that set up the war's most celebrated exploit in February.
Podcast episodes on First Barbary War
Record no. 199