The Mammoth Book of Life Before the Mast: Sailors' Eyewitness Stories from the Age of Fighting Ships

by Lewis, Jon E.

• ISBN13: 9780786708116
• ISBN10: 0786708115
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-12-18
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

The stirring firsthand accounts of the real-life naval adventures behind the popular historical sagas of Patrick O'Brian and C. F. Forester. The twenty true-life adventures in this exhilarating volume capture the glory and the gore of the great age of naval warfare. They epitomize that era from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century -- the age of the French Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812 -- when combat at sea was won not by the impersonal power of technology but by sheer human wit, courage, and endurance. Culled from the memoirs, diaries, and letters of celebrated officers as well as common sailors, the collection not only includes exciting accounts of such decisive naval engagements as Admiral Horatio Nelson's on the Battle of the Nile in 1798 or Midshipman Roberts' on the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 but also offers revealing glimpses into the hardships suffered daily aboard a man-of-war: the scurvy, whippings, storms, piracy, press gangs, drudgery, boredom, and cannibalism. Here, too, are the salt spray and grapeshot and bravery, the strategic errors and the thrill of victory. While in fiction many books strive to chronicle or re-create the colorful and heroic Age of Sail, for heart-rending immediacy and poignant truth no words can match those of the English, French, and American men who were there and whose tales make history live on every page of this anthology.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
The Glorious First of June, 1794	1	(5)
William Parker
The Pimp, the Smugglers and the Mutineers: The Extraordinary Voyages of the Gorgon and the Hind, 1794-7	6	(40)
James Gardner
The Nile Campaign, 1798	46	(36)
Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson
``So Mad a Scheme'': The Suffering of a Deserter Turned Cannibal, 1799	82	(7)
John Brown
The Cruise of the Speedy, 1800-1	89	(39)
Thomas Cochrane
The Perilous Adventures and Vicissitudes of a Midshipman, 1801-4	128	(32)
George Vernon Jackson
``Till We Are Crowned with Victory'': The Battle of Copenhagen, 1801	160	(5)
Thomas Graves
Trafalgar: The Midshipman's View, 1805	165	(5)
R.F. Roberts
Trafalgar: The View from the Lower-Deck, 1805	170	(2)
Sam
The Death of Nelson, 1805	172	(22)
William Beatty
The Mutiny on the Constitution, 1805-6	194	(13)
James R. Durand
The Prize, 1807-8	207	(30)
William Dillon
The Fortune of War, 1808	237	(6)
William Dawson
Aix Roads, 1808-9	243	(31)
William Richardson
Tempest, 1810	274	(25)
Robert Eastwick
A Pressed Man, 1811	299	(19)
Robert Hay
The Defeat of HMS Guerriere, 1812	318	(4)
Isaac Hull
Frigate Engagement: HMS Macedonian v. USS United States, 1812	322	(27)
Samuel Leech
The War of the Lakes, 1812-13	349	(46)
Ned Myers
Privateering, 1812-13	395	(21)
George Little
A Frigate in the South Pacific, 1812-14	416	(18)
David Porter
The Escape of the Hornet, 1815	434	(7)
Captain Biddle
Sources	441	(2)
Acknowledgements	443	(1)
Bibliography	444	(2)
Appendix I: Life and Death in the Royal Navy, 1794-1805	446	(3)
Appendix II: `This naval life'	449	(11)
Appendix III: Tables of battlefleet tonnages and strength, 1790-1815	460	(13)
Appendix IV: Naval strategy and tactics at the time of Trafalgar	473	(21)
Appendix V: Operating Procedures, USS Constellation, 27 June 1798	494