The Curse of the Somers: The Secret History behind the U.S. Navy's Most Infamous Mutiny

by James P. Delgado Narrated by J. Rodney Turner

Overview

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship. The plot discovered, he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea.



The repercussions of those acts brought headlines, scandal, a fistfight at a cabinet meeting, a court martial, ruined lives, lost reputations, and tales of a haunted ship "bound for the devil" and lost tragically at sea with many of its crew. The "Somers affair" led to the founding of the US Naval Academy and it remains the Navy's only acknowledged mutiny in its history. The story also inspired Herman Melville's White-Jacket and Billy Budd. Others connected to the Somers included Commodore Perry, a relation and defender of the Somers's captain Mackenzie; James Fenimore Cooper, whose feud with the captain, dating back to the War of 1812, resurfaced in his reportage of the affair; and Raphael Semmes, the Somers's last captain, who later served in the Confederate Navy.



The Curse of the Somers is a thorough recreation of this classic tale, told with the help of recently uncovered evidence.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"James Delgado, a well-published maritime historian and archaeologist, has given the infamous 'Somers Affair' a 21st century twist with a fascinating view of sailors' daily life in the pre-civil war sailing navy. This is a diverting and essential book covering a rare mutiny and its punishment in the ante-bellum U.S. Navy." — William S. Dudley, author of Inside the US Navy of 1812-1815

"Was young Philip Spencer actually plotting a mutiny, or was he simply an over-imaginative teenager? Was Alexander Slidell Mackenzie a responsible skipper protecting his ship, or was he over his head in command and guilty of a paranoid overreaction? In this reconstruction of the so-called Somers mutiny, James P. Delgado offers a vivid and gripping account of the personalities and circumstances that culminated in one of the most controversial episodes of American naval history." — Craig L. Symonds, author of Nimitz at War

"Delgado leads readers into that vortex of nineteenth-century recrimination that continues to this day. He has skillfully put the facts on the table in The Curse of the Somers." — John E. Grady, Fairfax, Virginia, The Northern Mariner

Product Details

BN ID:	2940174936539
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/01/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	1,123,971

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