On February 24, 1813, the U.S. Navy sloop USS Hornet defeated and sank the British warship HMS Peacock during a sharp engagement off the coast of South America near the Demerara River. Among Hornet’s officers was John Thomas Newton of Alexandria, then serving as a lieutenant. The decisive American victory brought national recognition: Congress awarded a Gold Medal to Hornet’s commander, Captain James Lawrence, and Silver Medals to his commissioned officers. Newton would later be buried in Alexandria’s Presbyterian Cemetery, linking this distant naval battle to the city’s own historic landscape.
