2/4: Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy's Only Mutiny, and the Trial That Gripped the Nation by Richard Snow (Author)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 1 March 2024
⏱️ 5 minutes
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Summary
2/4: Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy's Only Mutiny, and the Trial That Gripped the Nation by Richard Snow (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Graveyard-Sea-Deathly-Gripped/dp/1982185449
On December 16, 1842, the US brig-of-war Somers dropped anchor in the New York Harbor at the end of a voyage intended to teach a group of adolescents the rudiments of naval life. But this routine exercise ended in catastrophe. Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie came ashore claiming he had prevented a mutiny that would have left him and his officers dead. Some of the thwarted mutineers were being held under guard, but three had already been hanged at sea: Boatswain’s Mate Samuel Cromwell, Seaman Elisha Small, and Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, whose father was the secretary of war, John Spencer.
1841 The Niger Expedition
Transcript
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| 0:28.0 | odds of 4 to 1 and 3 selections tease and see supply. I'm John Bachelor with Richard Snow. |
| 0:38.4 | His new book is sailing the graveyard sea. |
| 0:40.8 | Highly recommended, especially for the Navy. The deathly voyage of the |
| 0:46.0 | summers and the US Navy's only mutiny and the trial that gripped the nation. |
| 0:52.0 | We're on board summers. |
| 0:54.0 | It's September setting sail from New York Harbor. |
| 0:58.0 | It's built in Brooklyn, so this is its home port. |
| 1:00.0 | And it's to go to the Madeira on to the African coast turn around and come back |
| 1:06.0 | via St. Thomas and come back sometime at the end of the year. It's a beautiful ship. Everybody admires it. It's very fast. |
| 1:15.0 | Richard observes that it's probably the fastest thing on the ocean the U.S. Navy has. |
| 1:20.0 | And it's over rigged, which means you have to be careful when you rig it. |
| 1:27.2 | It'll go, it'll try to go faster than, that and faster and faster and that can lead to the sales tumbling down upon the deck. |
| 1:36.0 | It's overgunned. |
| 1:38.0 | It's got 10 32 pounders on board, but it's little flush deck, I think that's what they call it, Richard. |
| 1:46.4 | So there's no, there's no, there's no quarter deck, there's no raised part of the ship where the officers live and there's |
| 1:55.3 | only one marine on board and as you said it's a hundred feet long and about 25 |
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