Armed Conflicts & the Military in the Special Collections Research Center

Correspondence and papers of Commodore James Barron relating to his career in the United States Navy, and especially relating to The Chesapeake-Leopard Affair in 1807 and to his duel with Stephen Decatur. Collection includes photocopies of patents issued to Barron for his inventions and a typescript of William Oliver Stevens' An Affair of Honor, a biography of Barron. Correspondents include John Adams, Jesse Duncan Elliott, Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Amos Kendall, Duff Green and Abel P. Upshur. Archives of the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair, 1807-1808. 300 pages of correspondence, attorneys' interrogations, court testimony of court material of Commodore James Barron. Rough drafts of published material, and some material not published. ALS from Thomas Truxton, Norfolk, Virginia, to Capt. James Sever, 26 April 1800 regarding sending the Chesapeake (ship) to sea.

Printed letter about the Chesapeake-Leopard affair, dated January 22, 1808 and written in Washington, D.C. Letter is from G.W. Campbell to Isaiah Midkiff (?) of Rutledge, Tennessee and was franked by Campbell. G.W. Campbell gives details about the Affair, the President's response and his opinion about the affair.

Includes letter, 23 December 1807, of John [Thomas] Edmunds, Cabin Point, Va. to his uncle F[rederick] Ridgely, near Versailles, Kentucky concerning the possibility of war with Great Britain and the recruiting of troops in Virginia.