Edward Stack, also known as Edward Stack de Crotto, was born in Kealid (Kelad, Gaelic Caolaid), Knockanure, Kerry, Ireland, on 28 April 1756. The Stack family was a long-established one in Ireland with historical connections to France. The "de Crotto" stems from their family seat in Crotta, which was seized by Cromwell. Staunch Catholics, many Stacks went to France to serve its Catholic kings.

Educated at the Collège des Irlandais in Paris, Stack was commissioned a second lieutenant in Walsh's Regiment of the Irish Brigade on 23 March 1777, and is said to have accompanied Marquis de Lafayette's expedition to Virginia the next year. On 05 February 1779 his service was recommended by Captain Fitz-Maurice of Walsh's Regiment to John Paul Jones, who needed men to fit out Bon Homme Richard. On 01 May 1779, Jones wrote to Benjamin Franklin: "I take the liberty to inclose the Memoire of a young gentleman who has waited here a long time of his own accord to Embark with me as I have a Particular regard for his character if you think fit to Send his paper to Court I Should be glad to have him with me- I Can find no person so proper to Disciplin the Voluntier Soldiers that I have inlisted." Stack was breveted a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps.

Stack commanded the fifteen marines and four seamen in the main top of Bon Homme Richard during her battle with HMS Serapis on 23 September 1779. Fire superiority aloft enabled the Americans to drive the British from their tops and harass them on deck. A grenade thrown from the tops fired a chain of ammunition on Serapis, causing a severe explosion which was a principal factor in her surrender. In his report of the action, Jones commended Stack for his great bravery. After the battle, the battered Serapis put into Texel, Holland. Here on 01 October some 26 deserters attempted an escape, pursued by a party led by Stack. Sixteen were recaptured, five drowned, and five escaped. It is perhaps fitting to note here that the motto of the Irish Brigade was Semper et Ubique Fidelis, meaning "Always and everywhere Faithful," which almost certainly inspired the US Marine Corps' famous motto Semper Fidelis.

On 25 November 1779, Stack was released from duty with Jones, his regiment receiving orders to embark for the Antilles. He received an award from Louis XVI of 440 livres and a commission as captain, where he served as such with the 2nd Battalion in the West Indies until 1783. He later served in Walsh's regiment (renamed 92e Regiment in 1791) on the Rhine and at Coblenz, and as an aide-de-camp to King Louis XVI. On 30 January 1791 Stack was invested as a Chevalier de St.Louis, a knight of the French realm. On 25 July of that year, he was promoted to Lt. Colonel of the 87e Regiment (formerly Dillon's regiment). While garrisoned at Bergues that October, and disillusioned by being passed over for command of the 88e Regiment, Stack and eight other officers left France for England, following the pattern of sixty percent of the French Army officer corps in the upheaval caused by events leading up to the French Revolution. In 1793-1794 he served with the Legion de Damas, formed by William of Orange from emigres on Dutch territory.

Appointed to Walsh-Serrant's Regiment of England's Irish Brigade on 01 October 1794, Stack served in Ireland until being embarked with his regiment for the West Indies in May 1796. Arriving in Jamaica in August, he and his men were in garrison due to a typhus outbreak until early 1797. the tedium of garrison duty and illness took its toll, as evidenced when Stack killed his second-in-command, Major William O'Shee, in a duel on 19 September. In September 1797 the regiment, decimated by disease, returned to England on transport Catherine. On 01 March 1798, the Irish Brigade was disbanded and Stack placed on half-pay. On 01 January 1801 he was promoted to Lt. Colonel in the British Army, and on 18 April given command of the North Lowland Fencibles.

Though appointed Brigadier General on 01 September 1803, Stack was still on half-pay. With the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 he returned to France, apparently to dispose of estates he held there. With the outbreak of war once again in May 1803, Stack was arrested as an alien subject to British Army service at Verdun and placed under house arrest. Later spending three years in captivity at Citadelle de Bitche, he was sentenced to be executed with the unfortunate duc d'Enghien, falsely accused of conspiring for the British, in 1804. However, Napoleon cancelled the order at the last moment. While in captivity, Stack was promoted to Major General 31 May 1808 and Lt. General 04 June 1813, finally being released at the end of the conflict in 1814. On 22 July 1803 he was promoted to full General, and died at Hotel Roberts in Calais on 02 December 1833.

"Edward Stack's Marines firing from the rigging of John Paul Jones' Bon Homme Richard down on the English sailors of the Serapis," ink drawing by Arman Manookian, circa 1920s. Honolulu Academy of Arts, via Wikimedia Commons.