1842. In a training voyage gone drastically wrong, the USS Somers arrived in Brooklyn Harbor to report an attempted mutiny. Some of the mutineers were being held under guard, but three had been hanged-- one of whose father was the Secretary of War.
Months of accusations and counter-accusations led to a highly public court martial that put the commander of the Somers on trial for his life.
~
Sailing the Graveyard Sea details an interesting chapter in U.S. naval history. Was there really a mutiny aboard the USS Somers, or did Commander Alexander Mackenzie overreact? Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, son of the Secretary of War, was spoiled and self-indulgent and much too in love with a book detailing the history of pirates... but was he really the ringleader of a mutiny? Fortunately, some good did come from this entire mess: the public was so disgusted with Mackenzie's training cruise that the U.S. Naval Academy was founded in Annapolis.
Author Richard Snow's research is exhaustive, and I did learn a great deal; however, his writing style-- cut-and-dried, and stuffed to the gills with dusty facts-- was a chore to read and I often found my attention wandering. All in all, lots of excellent information on this chapter of U.S. naval history, but if you like your historians to craft a book that reads like the best fiction, you'd be better off going elsewhere.
Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy's Only Mutiny, and the Trial that Gripped the Nation
by Richard Snow
eISBN: 9781982185466
Scribner © 2023
eBook, 304 pages
Non-Fiction, Standalone
Rating: C+
Source: Net Galley
