BLUE LIGHT

BLUE LIGHT (IN
U. S. HISTORY). In 1813 Decatur attempted, on several dark nights, to get to sea with his two frigates from the blockaded
 port of New London. On each occasion, as he claimed, he was prevented by signals made with blue lights at the harbor mouth, to warn the British fleet to be upon the alert. The story spread, and all opponents of the war, in New England and elsewhere, were stigmatized as “blue light federalists.”

—See 6 Hildreth’s
United States, 467.

A. J.