Publishers Weekly
09/04/2023
Historian Snow (Disney’s Land) examines in this gripping narrative the mystery surrounding the 1842 execution of three sailors aboard the training vessel USS Somers. One of the ship’s young recruits was midshipman Phillip Spencer, a teenager who was “insolent, sullen, scornful of hierarchy.” (He was also the son of the secretary of war, John Canfield Spencer.) While on a voyage across the Atlantic, the ship’s “self-righteous” captain, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, was informed that Spencer was sharing with his fellow recruits fantasies of seizing the Somers and turning it into a pirate ship; Mackenzie acted immediately, harshly, and, many claimed in the aftermath, illegally, by assembling a court-martial. According to Snow, it was due to intimidation by the captain and his first officer that the jury reached a guilty verdict. On Dec. 1, 1842, when the ship was only 13 days from home port, Spencer and two supposed coconspirators were hanged. The events on the Somers became headline news, and speculation abounded: Had there really been a mutiny afoot, or had the captain committed murder? As a result of pressure from Spencer’s powerful father, Mackenzie was tried by a Naval court, but he was acquitted. Snow delves into the investigation and courtroom drama, drawing on court transcripts to vividly recreate scenes on board the Somers. Readers will be intrigued. (Nov.)
From the Publisher
"[Snow] deftly recounts that mortal episode, which helped to set the Navy on a modern course. . . . [he] offers a compelling psychological portrait of the antagonists . . . Drawing on contemporary accounts, Mr. Snow vividly evokes the myriad trials faced by the so-called saplings.” —Wall Street Journal
“Gripping . . . Snow delves into the investigation and courtroom drama, drawing on court transcripts to vividly recreate scenes on board the Somers. Readers will be intrigued.” —Publishers Weekly
“A page-turning history of an infamous mutiny . . . consistently compelling. . . . Much of the book’s appeal derives from Snow’s tart commentary . . . readers of this iteration will find it an absorbing one. A hell of a yarn.” —Kirkus Reviews
"Richard Snow has brought forth the literary equivalent of a perfect storm in which nineteenth-century adventure, true crime, and high drama on the high seas all come together in the hands of a master storyteller operating at the height of his considerable powers. Sailing the Graveyard Sea braids the poetic force of Herman Melville with the narrative flair of Patrick O’Brian to create a dark, tightly strung, and deeply unsettling chapter in the saga of the United States Navy. A masterpiece of maritime history lifted straight from the gun decks of an American brig-of-war in the great age of sail."—Kevin Fedarko, author of The Emerald Mile
"As engrossing as Nathaniel Philbrick’s In the Heart of the Sea. In Richard Snow’s masterful hands, the collision between a brash, young, wannabe pirate and his rash, too-proud, unyielding commanding officer is a sea story for the ages. What happened on Somers during a routine U.S. Navy voyage in 1842 is as shocking and unsettling today as it was in its day." —James Sullivan, author of Unsinkable: Five Men and the Indomitable Run of the USS Plunkett
“First Snow’s watershed New York Times book review revived Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels for a new generation; now he delivers a masterful account of one of the most intriguing episodes of U.S. Naval history. The moral questions raised by the Somers mutiny echo through the ages—but never so profoundly, or with such intensity, as in Sailing the Graveyard Sea.” —Dean King, nationally bestselling author of Skeletons on the Zahara and A Sea of Words
NOVEMBER 2023 - AudioFile
Listeners can explore the only mutiny ever to take place aboard a U.S. Navy ship that occurred in 1842. Three crew members were hanged aboard the training vessel, and the captain faced a court-martial when the brig returned to port. The mutiny and the subsequent trial are recounted in this work. Jacques Roy's narration carries the audiobook along with an even tone. He adds no false drama. However, the author regularly quotes at length from contemporary newspaper reports and court records. The embellished language of the nineteenth century makes for occasionally tedious listening. But those who tolerate it are in for an enthralling sea tale. The incident led to the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy. R.C.G. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-08-25
A page-turning history of an infamous mutiny.
On Dec. 14, 1842, the U.S.S. Somers sailed into New York Harbor minus three of her crew, hanged for attempted mutiny. The ringleader was the son of the secretary of war. Drawing on copious contemporary sources, Snow, author of Disney’s Land and I Invented the Modern Age, quickly sets the scene before diving into his characters. The man behind the mutiny plot was Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, a pirate-obsessed, 18-year-old ne’er-do-well whose distinguished father gave up on educating him after a failed college career and consigned him to a naval career. “Surely,” writes Snow, “the confinement of shipboard life would offer [Spencer] little chance to run off into a career of depravity.” In fact, it took him less than a year to be disciplined off two ships before boarding the Somers for one last chance. The ship’s commander, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, was a harsh disciplinarian with an “enthusiasm for the lash” whose writing displayed “a relish for violence that approache[d] the prurient.” The shipboard drama drew national media attention once the Somers returned to port, as did the ensuing legal proceedings: first an inquiry, then a court-martial. Snow pieces together the events from trial transcripts (including the highly irregular kangaroo court that led to the hangings), contemporary accounts, and retrospective recollections. The result is consistently compelling, despite the author’s reliance on sources replete with what he characterizes as “nineteenth-century treacle.” Much of the book’s appeal derives from Snow’s tart commentary on those sources: “It is hard,” he writes, “to find a glint of humor anywhere….Of the lighthearted touch he had little; of self-deprecation, none, ever.” The result of the court-martial was acquittal, but the affair became “a forbidden topic in naval circles,” resurfacing periodically for re-examination; readers of this iteration will find it an absorbing one.
A hell of a yarn.
