Terry, You might want to get a hold of the Congressional Record for particulars of Barron's commission at such a young age. I do not have a copy and have not perused it for some time. I can state that the commission had symbolic import, that the young Navy was here to stay as an entity and was to age with tradition. The period of Barron's Midshipmanship was a time of growth, beyond Jefferson's concept of a "Gunboat Navy" with the mission of harbor and coastal defence, to a blue water fleet intending to defend national interests world-wide. The United States was under pressure at the time by impressment of crewman by Great Britian and holding of crewman as slaves by certain Islamic states.
Barron's papers are held by the Huntington Library, along with a lot of his generation of naval functionaries.