Product Description

This work brings together firsthand accounts of officers and seamen who lived and worked at sea during the French Revolutionary War (1793-1802), the Napoleonic War (1803-1815) and the war of 1812 (1812-1815).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #817475 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-31
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 462 pages

Customer Reviews

Authentic Voices from the Age of Fighting Sail.
This splendidly enjoyable anthology - an ideal bedside book - includes some twenty-two first-hand narratives, from British and American sources, of naval life and death in the French Revolutionary War, the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. Though some are extracts from memoirs written many years after the events described, others stem from closer to the action and so have an immediacy and freshness that sweeps away the two intervening centuries so that the reader all but feels the presence of the story-teller. Accounts by officers, some to achieve yet higher rank, such as Cochrane and Porter, alternate with less-polished descriptions from the lower deck, some frank in the extreme, particularly as to scrapes ashore. Of particular interest is Surgeon William Beatty's account of Trafalgar and of the death of Nelson, which is often referred to in other texts but is quoted here in full - even today, it is impossible to read it without emotion. Every aspect of the naval officer's and seaman's life, whether afloat or ashore, is covered here, but a consistent theme throughout is the cheerful courage, camaraderie, humanity and sense of honour in the face of unrelenting hardship and adversity that characterised all levels in the service. Devotees of the naval fiction of Forrester, Kent, Pope and O'Brian may on occasion wonder whether the reality can have been as consistently violent and hazardous as their novels portray but this volume confirms that if they err, it is on the side of moderation. William Henry Dillon's view of the Glorious First of June from the gun-deck of HMS Defence and Samuel Leech's account of the HMS Macedonian vs. USS United States duel are as grim and blood-spattered as anything in such fiction. Cochrane's swashbuckling depredations of enemy shipping in the Mediterranean in HMS Speedy would deemed too unlikely for any novel and George Vernon Jackson's extended escape efforts in Napoleonic France rival those of Colditz detainees in a later conflict by their resourcefulness and persistence. Throughout all these accounts however one is struck by the humanity and decency that characterised relations between enemy forces outside actual combat in the age before militant nationalism added a new bitterness to warfare. William Robinson's account of the aftermath of Trafalgar proves that Nelson's prayer that magnanimity in victory might characterise the Royal Navy struck a chord with officers and men alike, Jackson's account is full of kindnesses received from ordinary French people while "on the run" and Porter's account of the courtesies that preceded and followed the USS Essex's murderous show-down with HMS Phoebe off Valpariso show that honour was not merely a word, but a way of life, to the officers of the time. In summary this anthology is a delight to be savoured over a long period, a well to be dipped into with pleasure for many years to come.

Every man will do his duty
A well researched book with some real eye openers for the history buff. The content is first hand accounts and descriptions written by the men who were there, and as such they make it very real. An engrossing book and worth the money.

brilliant account of history
This book captured me from start to finish. The huge amount of history and knowledge leads to euphoria to the history lover.