A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship SomersSimon and Schuster, 1 Νοε 2007 - 320 σελίδες Mutiny on the Bounty is one of history's greatest naval stories—yet few know the similar tale from America's own fledgling navy in the dying days of the Age of Sail, a tale of mutiny and death at sea on an American warship. In 1842, the brig-of-war Somers set out on a training cruise for apprentice seamen, commanded by rising star Alexander Mackenzie. Somers was crammed with teenagers. Among them was Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, a disturbed youth and a son of the U.S. Secretary of War. Buying other crew members' loyalty with pilfered tobacco and alcohol, Spencer dreamed up a scheme to kill the officers and turn Somers into a pirate ship. In the isolated world of a warship, a single man can threaten the crew's discipline and the captain's authority. But one of Spencer's followers warned Mackenzie, who arrested the midshipman and chained him and other ringleaders to the quarterdeck. Fearing efforts to rescue the prisoners, officers had to stay awake in round-the-clock watches. Steering desperately for land, sleep-deprived and armed to the teeth, battling efforts to liberate Spencer, Somers's captain and officers finally faced a fateful choice: somehow keep control of the vessel until reaching port—still hundreds of miles away—or hang the midshipman and his two leading henchmen before the boys could take over the ship. The results shook the nation. A naval investigation of the affair turned into a court-martial and a state trial and led to the founding of the Naval Academy to provide better officers for the still-young republic. Mackenzie's controversial decision may have inspired Herman Melville's great work Billy Budd. The story of Somers raises timeless questions still disturbing in twenty-first-century America: the relationship between civil and military law, the hazy line between peace and war, the battle between individual rights and national security, and the ultimate challenge of command at sea. |
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Σελίδα 6
... sailors experience , so that when the time came for them to expand their horizons and set out into the open ocean and out of the sight of land , Egypt was up to the chal- lenge . It had learned the ways of both oar and sail , the two ...
... sailors experience , so that when the time came for them to expand their horizons and set out into the open ocean and out of the sight of land , Egypt was up to the chal- lenge . It had learned the ways of both oar and sail , the two ...
Σελίδα 13
... sailors who knew and practiced the old ways . The changes came fast when compared to the centuries of slow technological evolution that had been the usual way of the ship , but they still weren't instant . For now - for 1842 at least ...
... sailors who knew and practiced the old ways . The changes came fast when compared to the centuries of slow technological evolution that had been the usual way of the ship , but they still weren't instant . For now - for 1842 at least ...
Σελίδα 16
... sailors , the ships might as well lie alongside the wharves and rot . And well - trained sailors were rare in the mid - 1800s , and they seemed to be getting still rarer . One of the first to notice the problem , or at least one of the ...
... sailors , the ships might as well lie alongside the wharves and rot . And well - trained sailors were rare in the mid - 1800s , and they seemed to be getting still rarer . One of the first to notice the problem , or at least one of the ...
Σελίδα 17
... sailors , a supply that it just didn't have . Not long after the end of his tour , while he was serving at Brooklyn Navy Yard , he decided to try to do something about this dangerous shortage . He himself had once felt the pull of the ...
... sailors , a supply that it just didn't have . Not long after the end of his tour , while he was serving at Brooklyn Navy Yard , he decided to try to do something about this dangerous shortage . He himself had once felt the pull of the ...
Σελίδα 19
... sailors would end ; the boys , now grown sailors , would supply " all our petty officers of every description , " and they would " make the navy what it ought to be , in every thing - American . ' With that last nationalistic flourish ...
... sailors would end ; the boys , now grown sailors , would supply " all our petty officers of every description , " and they would " make the navy what it ought to be , in every thing - American . ' With that last nationalistic flourish ...
Άλλες εκδόσεις - Προβολή όλων
A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers Buckner Melton Περιορισμένη προεπισκόπηση - 2007 |
A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers Buckner F. Melton Προβολή αποσπασμάτων - 2003 |
A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers Buckner F. Melton Προβολή αποσπασμάτων - 2003 |
Συχνά εμφανιζόμενοι όροι και φράσεις
aboard Somers acting midshipman Alexander Slidell Alexander Slidell Mackenzie American Annapolis answer apprentices asked began berth deck bo'sun's mate boys brig called Commander Mackenzie Commodore Court Martial Court of Inquiry court-martial Craney crew Cromwell and Small cruise danger Duer Elisha Small fo'c'sle Gansevoort Garty gave guns hanging happened heard Heiskill Herman Melville Hoffman Ibid James Fenimore Cooper John Canfield Spencer judge advocate knew lawyer least lieutenant Macken Mackenzie's maritime McKinley Melville midshipman mutiny Naval Institute Press Navy Yard nearly never Neville night Norris officers orders Perry Philip Hone Philip Spencer pirate prisoners quarterdeck question rigging Rogers sail sailors Samuel Cromwell seamen seemed sevoort ship ship's Somers's spar deck Spencer and Cromwell Spencer's arrest story talking tell things told took topgallant mast United States Navy Upshur vessel Wales wanted wardroom warship watch Wilson wind witnesses York young
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