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LIFE IN A MAN-OF-WAR; Or, Scenes in “Old Ironsides” During Her Cruise in the Pacific, By a Foretop Man. With an Editor’s Preface by Elliot Snow, Rear Admiral, (C. C.) U.S.N. (Ret.) Limited edition of 750 copies. Illustrated, 288 pp., Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. $10.
Reviewed by Captain G. J. Rowcliff, U. S. Navy
Rear Admiral Elliot Snow, (C.C.) U. S. Navy, Ret., has acted as editor in reproducing verbatim this book which was originally published anonymously in 1841. This same sort of thing was done by Garrity in the reproduction of that pleasant, but anonymous, book entitled My Unknown Chum—Ague- cheek; and both of these books are alike in that they present a series of pictures of itinerancy. It may be that the author of Life in a Man-Of-War was inspired by Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast which was published in 1840, during the time the cruise was going on of which the “Foretop man” writes. He spreads before us the sailor’s life in the man-of-war in those days in much the same detail that life in a sailing ship was described by Dana. Perhaps the author intended this to be a companion volume.
Life in a Man-of-War presents in its chapters pictures of daily life aboard the Constitution on a cruise which started from Norfolk, Virginia, April 10, 1839, continued to the Pacific, and after a trip of 45,000 miles, returned to Hampton Roads, Virginia, October 31, 1841. The book has no great literary merit. There are faults in composition and the style is sometimes redundant
and often stilted, with what the rhetoricians call “fine writing.” There is included a considerable amount of bad poetry which seems to have been in the nature of a habit during the period covered, especially on board men-of-war.
Nevertheless, those who go to sea will enjoy reading this book, perhaps one picture at a time, forgetting its literary faults in receiving the impressions of the faithful pictures which the author gives us of incidents in the man-of-warsman’s life of those days, with its simple pleasures, comparative hardships, and inevitable vices. We come face to face with customs of which we have seen the result but for which we never appreciated the reason. We find too that many things of today have their prototypes of yesterday.
Early in the book we learn that the Navy Yard work on the Constitution was poor, and as a consequence, the ship’s company had to do again much of the work about her rigging. There are three pages of poetry about the troubles of a discontented marine. As early as page 26 we learn that soup can be made very palatable by the addition of whiskey; in fact, that the virtue of the recipe is in direct proportion to the amount of whiskey available, the particular occasion being the purchase of large turtles in the Caymans from which soup was made with the assistance of spirits donated by the generous captain to help the occasion.
On page 31, we recognize a friend of today in the result of economy, our sailor friend stating his opinion of those who are “penny wise and pound foolish.” The subject of prohibition comes in for considerable discussion, as does also poor pay.
Each sub-chapter commences with its quoted couplet and presents a specific topic. Thus we run the gamut of sailor days, covering the following interesting circumstances and events: up anchor, underway, making sail, man overboard, reefing topsails, manning yards, infantry drill on board, a ship’s funeral, the liberty party, ship’s literature, an auction, amateur theatricals, the ship’s literati, the ship’s politicians, the barber shop gossip, pets, whaling, smuggling liquor, flogging with the cat, grog, etc.
The salty reader will be sure that the reprinting of this curious product of one of the Constitution’s men was well worth the doing.
Editor's Note: The following additional comment on the book discussed above has been received from Rear Admiral E. H. C. Leutze, U. S. Navy (Retired), a member of the class of 1867, U.S.N.
A splendid description of life on board of a Man-of-War in the old days.
Many old memories are revived by reading it, for some of the scenes described were still in vogue in my earlier days when one still made all long, and often short voyages, under sail, though the vessels had steam power.
Notably were the lee gangway gatherings as described in Bill Garnet’s yarn. There were games, singing and such music as there were instruments for, and spinning yarns.
The pictures opposite pages 40 and 48 have no connection with the text of the book but I suppose were introduced to illustrate similar gatherings on board the Constitution.
I have however, always understood that the picture opposite 48 was taken in Annapolis on board the old Wyoming when attached to the Naval Academy and the men shown in the picture were chosen from the old shell-backs stationed at the Academy to impress the midshipmen. These men were all veterans of the Civil War. The decks on which these men are sitting and their general surroundings do not look like those of a vessel in commission.
NAVIGATOR—THE STORY OF NATHANIEL BOWDITCH OF SALEM.
By Alfred Stanford. Published by William
Morrow & Company, New York. Price $2.50.
The name of Nathaniel Bowditch is so well known to those of us who follow the sea that it needs no introduction. Indeed, it is so familiar that his book is more commonly referred to by us as just “Bowditch” rather than by its true title, The American Practical Navigator.
To write an interesting life of a great mathematician is a difficult task at best! The author, however, has achieved remarkable success in a book which is more a historical novel than a biography. Against a vivid background of old Salem, the characters are so well drawn as to live and breathe again in the atmosphere of old sailing ship days and East India cargoes.
The life of Nathaniel Bowditch is traced from his birth to the achievement of the “fixed idea” of his career—to discover and publish a simple means of navigation that would speed up the voyages to the East and lead to the building of bigger and better ships for this trade.
The era of the famous old clipper ships is shown as following close upon the heels of Bowditch’s successful mastery of the art of navigation, and this success is dramatically portrayed in the last chapter. Here the Putnam, a ship given over to the command of Bowditch for an experimental voyage, enters port after a record breaking run from Java.
Bowditch appears in Salem one stormy winter’s night long before his ship is expected to return. It was inconceivable to anyone that a captain could have brought his ship into port through the blinding snow of the bitter gale that raged.
The presence of Bowditch in Salem on such a night was taken to be a certain indication that the Putnam had been lost in the gale and that her captain owed his existence purely to a fortunate rescue. Nothing but the presence of his ship safely moored to the wharf could convince Salem that excellent astronomical sights, taken before the storm shut in, had enabled Bowditch to accomplish what no other sea captain of his time would have dared attempt.
The Navigator is well done. The characters and scenes of old Salem are portrayed with a vividness that should create in the reader’s mind a lasting impression of Bowditch and the interesting age in which he lived.
A.S.W.