Alexander Laws

Alexander Laws was an American sailor commissioned as a midshipman on 15 May 1800, and served in the ship Ganges during the Quasi-War with France. Discharged under the Peace Establishment Act on 12 August 1801, he was again appointed midshipman on 25 August 1802. Initially assigned to the frigate Constitution, he volunteered to take part in the daring expedition under Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr., to board the captured U.S. frigate Philadelphia, moored “within half gunshot of the Pasha’s castle” in Tripoli harbor and put her to the torch.

On 16 February 1804, Decatur laid his command, the ketch Intrepid, alongside the captured frigate and, as Captain Edward Preble later wrote, “in a Gallant and Officerlike manner, boarded and carried her against all opposition…” Silence cloaked the bold American attack. “Not a musket or Pistol was fired on our side,” Preble reported, “everything by the sword and tomawhawk.” Laws served under Lieutenant James Lawrence, who, with Midshipman Thomas Macdonough and ten men (all cautioned “to use firearms only in case of urgent necessity”) seized Philadelphia’s berth deck and forward storerooms. While the “Tripolines” suffered between 20 to 30 men killed in the action that Lord Horatio Nelson was said to have lauded as “the most daring act of the age,” Decatur’s force of 70 volunteers suffered only one man wounded in taking the ship to begin her destruction by fire.

After a stint of detached service in gunboats (26 August to 19 October 1804) during the siege of Tripoli, Laws was detached from Constitution on 29 November 1804 and ordered to frigate Congress, wherein he performed the duty of master’s mate. Returning to the United States on 5 December 1805 from Mediterranean service, he was furloughed to the merchant service on 15 August 1806. Ultimately appointed lieutenant on 8 January 1807, he resigned his commission, such being accepted on 13 April 1807.