STEWART, CHARLES, Rear-Admiral, U. S. N., and senior flag-officer in the service, born in Philadelphia, July 28, 1778; died at Bordentown, N. J., November 6, 1869. He was of Irish parentage, and his father, a captain in the merchant service, died when he was but two years old. His mother, a woman of remarkable talent and energy, superintended his education, and guided as carefully as she could the fun loving and somewhat erratic tendencies of her son. When he was about ten years old, his mother was married a second time to Captain Britton, a former shipping-master, and then a prosperous shipping-merchant of Philadelphia, who had at one time commanded Washington's body-guard. At the age of twelve, he accompanied his step-father in a formal visit to General Washington, whom he had often seen, and for whom he felt a great reverence. The General spoke to him very kindly and showed him considerable attention, an honor which ho remembered to his last day. Some years later he had the opportunity of another interview, as the representative of Captain Barry, of the Navy, with Washington.

At the age of thirteen, Charles Stewart made his first voyage as a cabin-boy in the merchant service, and passing through many and great perils (for, in those days of revolution, buccaneering, and piracy, a sailor's life was full of dangers), he rose rapidly in his profession, till, at the age of twenty, he was the commander of an Indiaman, a position only attained at his age by nautical skill and consummate courage. But his ambition led him to seek a higher and more honorable position, and the same year (1798) he abandoned the merchant service and took a lieutenant's commission in the navy of the United States. He was at first with Commodore Barry on the West India station, but in July, 1800, he was assigned to the command of the United States schooner Experiment, mounting twelve guns, in which he cruised in the West Indies, capturing French privateers, demanding and obtaining.the release of American sailors who had been impressed on English vessels, and protecting the hapless inhabitants of the islands who were the prey of some of the insurgents and revolutionists. He was next ordered to the Mediterranean and employed in the blockade and siege of Tripoli. At the conclusion of hostilities there, he returned to New York to superintend, in 1806-'7, the construction of President Jefferson's gunboats. Subsequently, for several years, with the sanction of the Government, he and several other of the naval officers were engaged in the prosecution of mercantile enterprises in the Mediterranean, the Arctic, the Adriatic, and the East Indies. In 1812, as soon as war had been declared with Great Britain, Stewart, who already held a captain's commission in the navy, and Captain (afterward Commodore) Bainbridge, hastened to Washington to offer their services to the Government. They were met there with the announcement that the Cabinet, in view of the great superiority of the British Navy, had decided to place all the ships-of-war belonging to our navy in the harbor of Now York, for tho defense of that city. Such a decision seems now so absurd, that we can hardly realize that it could ever have been made; but the evidence is too conclusive to admit of a doubt. Against this preposterous determination, Captains Bainbridge and Stewart protested so earnestly and indignantly, that the President (Madison) reversed the Cabinet's decision, and directed tho Secretary of the Navy to send the vessels-of-war to sea, to seek their enemy, and he would take the responsibility upon himself. Rejoiced at thus gaining permission to meet the enemy, instead of remaining in tho harbor awaiting his onset, the two heroes returned to Philadelphia, and Stewart was assigned to the command of the Constellation, and assisted in defending Norfolk and Craney Island. In 1813 he assumed command of tho Constitution, of 49 guns, and during a year's cruise succeeded in capturing several British vessels. On the 19th of February, 1815, he fell in with the British ships-of-war Cyane, of 84 guns, and the Levant, of 21 guns, and captured them after a sharp combat of 40 minutes, having three men killed and 13 wounded, while the British vessels lost 35 killed and 42 wounded. The Levant was subsequently recaptured by the British squadron, but the Constitution escaped with her other prize. On his return he was received with the highest honors. The Legislature of Pennsylvania presented him with a sword, and a gold medal, commemorative of the capture of the Levant and Cyane, was ordered to be struck by Congress. The skill with which Captain Stewart had managed his ship, so as to rake both his antagonists without giving them the opportunity of damaging him, was indeed deserving of the highest praise. In 1817, Stewart, by this time a commodore, was ordered to the command of the Mediterranean squadron, which was almost in a state of mutiny, the officers in command of the vessels composing the squadron manifesting a spirit of insubordination which was exceedingly alarming. On his taking command, there was, for a time, a somewhat better spirit manifested, though there were still occasional evidences of a mutinous disposition. In June, 1819, however, these officers were guilty of an act of gross insubordination which could not be overlooked. A court-martial had been ordered to meet on the Guerriere to try a marine for some offense; but the officers preferred to meet on shore at the comfortable Sun Tavern in Naples, and there tried the culprit and found him guilty. The papers were sent to the commodore, and, as their proceedings had been entirely illegal, he disapproved them, released the prisoner, and called the court together to inform them of his decision. "When they were assembled, he addressed a communication to them, stating what he had done, attributing their conduct to inadvertence, saying that therefore he should take no further notice of it, and recommending greater carefulness in the future. The officers, ready for a mutiny, took offence at this very mild rebuke, and a series of resolutions were offered which were grossly insulting to the commodore; and, as their vessels were getting under weigh for another port of the Mediterranean, they adjourned to meet at the call of their president. At their next meeting, the resolutions were passed, and the commodore immediately suspended from command, and sent home under arrest, Captain Thomas McDonough, of the frigate Guerriere, Master-Commandant Henry E. Ballard, of the ship Erie, Master-Commandant I. I. Nicholson, of the brig Spark, Lieutenant-Commandant John Gallagher, of the ship Franklin, and Lieutenant Benjamin Page, Jr., executive officer of the same ship. Lieutenant (afterward Commodore) Stockton commanded the vessel in which these officers made their unwilling voyage homeward. This sudden blow had an excellent effect. There was no more insubordination, and the Mediterranean squadron, from being the worst, became the best disciplined and most orderly squadron of the navy. The President and Cabinet approved Commodore Stewart's course, but, as the officers were deeply humbled and penitent, they were let off from any further punishment with a reprimand, the commodore himself interceding in behalf of one or more of them. In 1821 Commodore Stewart was transferred to the command of the Pacific squadron, another position of great difficulty, owing to the revolutions in progress in the South American states, the Spanish blockades, and the frightful piracies of the buccaneers. His administration of affairs, and defence of our rights on this coast, were able and satisfactory to all rightminded men. There were, nevertheless, some of those whose selfish and nefarious projects had been thwarted by his straightforward management, who filled the ears of the Government with their clamors against him, and on his return home, in 1824, the Naval Department thought it best that these accusations should be submitted to a court-martial. The result was eminently satisfactory to the commodore. The court, not content with acquitting him from all charges of mismanagement or dereliction of duty, felt itself compelled to make this declaration to the world: "So far from having violated the high duties of neutrality and respect for the laws of nations—so far from having sacrificed the honor of the American flag, or tarnished his own fair fame, by acting upon any motive of a mercenary or sordid kind—so far from having neglected his duty, or betrayed the trust reposed in him, by refusing proper protection to American citizens and property, or rendering such protection subservient to individual interests, no one circumstance has been developed, throughout the whole course of this minute investigation into the various occurrences of a three-years' cruise, calculated to impair the confidence which the members of this court, the navy, and the nation, have long reposed in the honor, the talents, and the patriotism, of this distinguished officer, or to weaken in any manner the opinion which all who know him entertain of his humanity and disinterestedness. These virtues only glow with brighter lustre from this ordeal of trial, like the stars he triumphantly displayed, when valor and skill achieved a new victory to adorn the annals of our naval glory."From 1825 to 1887, Commodore Stewart was almost constantly employed on naval boards and commissions, naval courts-martial, etc. In 1837 he succeeded Commodore Barron as commander of the Navy-yard at Philadelphia, and remained there until 1861, when he was relieved at his own request. In 1855 the retiring board, created by act of Congress in that year, placed him on the retired list. He was at this time seventy-seven years of age, but he appealed in eloquent terms to Congress against this indignity,feeling that he possessed as yet the vigor and the intellectual ability to do his beloved country service. On the death of Commodore Barron he became the senior officer of the service, and when a special act of Congress was passed in 1861, conferring upon him the title of senior flag-officer on the active list, he refused the commission, claiming that he already held that rank. In July, 1862, he was commissioned as the first rear-admiral under the new law. In 1841 a resolute effort was made by some of his friends to place him in nomination for the presidency, but, failing to receive his sanction or approbation, nothing came of it. He sympathized most heartily with the Union cause in the late war, and, though eighty-three years of age at its commencement, pleaded most earnestly to be allowed an active command. His counsels, clear, and wise as ever, were of great service to the Administration. He had purchased a home in Bordentown, in 1816, but his long absences and official duties had prevented his occupying it very constantly until after 1855. His last illness was protracted and attended with intense suffering, but it was endured with the most heroic patience.

From the Google book - Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events: Embracing Political, Military, and Ecclesiastical Affairs; Public Documents; Biography, Statistics, Commerce, Finance, Literature, Science, Agriculture, and Mechanical Industry by D. Appleton, 1873.