A Rage for Glory: The Life of Commodore Stephen Decatur, USN, by Jam es
Known as the Red Rive r Campaign, this often-overlooked C ivil Wa r operation had Tertius de Kay (New York: Free Press, som e broad political and stra tegic goals. 2004) 237pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, But as the campaign developed, it became a bold attempt to steal much of the purISBN 0-7432-4245-9, $25 hc) James Terti us de Kay narra tives keep ported 150,000 bales of cotton that lay yo ur attentio n by combining painstaki ng sitting at the docks and pl antation landscholarship with human dram a. H is fi fth ings in the region . The Uni on leadership book, A Rage for Glory, is a biography of justified this larceny under the guise of one of America's earass isting the depressed New Engliest and m ost val iant land cotto n mills, but clearl y o nly naval heroes, Steven sought to enri ch themselves by seizing this "white gold." Decatur. Dead at the age of fo rry-o ne from Recently a co uple of books have THE LI FE of CO MMODORE a senseless duel, D eappeared on this thrust into the ST EPHE N DECAT UR,USN catur purs ued glory interior of Louisiana. Gary Dillard ' and was rewarded Joiner's One Damn Blunder From A~¡ wi th both honor Beginning to End: The Red River ~-. and fame . The auCampaign of 1864 is a focused and th o r vividly reco unts well-documented study. Joiner ;= ~~ Decatu r's relates how the Union di verted Barbary j A:vl ES TE Rll llS Ill 1'.\Y 42,000 troops and 25 gunboats Pirates War exploit and iro nclads from mo re important of boarding and burning the captured American fri gate objectives and began to approach ShrevePhiladelphia at Tripoli, his daring defeat port. Poor leadership, blunders, useless of HMS Macedonian and his adve ntures bloodshed and was ted opportunities o n as captain of the frigates United States and both sides marred the ca mpaign and nearly President. De Kay ch ro nicles his asce n- ended in tragic failure fo r the Union naval dancy fro m a privileged yo uth to the high- fo rces. Both U ni on and Confederate army est ranks in the navy, growing rich fro m co mmanders seemed inept in the field and prize mo ney and speculates that Decatur neither achieved th eir goals. The naval opm ay have run fo r President. M uch of this erations, while no m ore successful , were history is well known, but de Kay adds a at least more interesting. Joiner details the great deal m o re; the political intri gue and Confederates' effo rts to lower the water in jealousies amo ng American naval offi cers the river by damming its tributaries . On of th e ti me, their codes of ethics, etiq uette, the Union side, some particularly creative an d especially the worki ngs of the arcane engineerin g solutio ns made it possible to code d uel lo. Although endnotes referring maneuver the Yankee gunboats through to source m aterials would m ake the book the shallow wate rs of the Red River. Usmo re useful to histo rians, A Rage for Glory ing a series of wing dams, the ships were is a well-written, co ncise m ariti me biogra- able to escape down river as the scheme to phy; a book that the reader is sorry to see snatch th e cotton had imploded. end. Joiner's wo rk is highly recommended as an excellent examination of a C ivil War LOUIS ARTHU R N ORTON W est Simsbury, Connecticut campaign accentuated by mism anagement, personali ry conflicts, and greed. One Damn Blunder from Beginning to The quarrels and recriminations of both End: The Red River Campaign of 1864, Unio n and Con federate leaders las ted for by Gary D illard Joiner (Scholarly Reso urc- yea rs after the campaign ended. The larges, Inc., W ilm ingto n DE, 237pp, illus, est combined operati on east of the Mismaps, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-8420- sissippi concluded as a miserable strategic fai lure fo r the U ni on fo rces and a tactical 2937-0, $ 19.95 pb) In March 1864, a combin ed Unio n defeat for Confederate leadership R OBERT B ROWNING arm y and navy fo rce began a two- pronged Dumfries, Virginia approach o n Shreveport, Lo uisiana.
A RAGE FOR
GLORY I!'"...,,. .
SEA HISTORY 108, AUTUMN 2004
Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938, by R. A. Scotti (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 2003 279pp., illus, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-3 16-739 11 - 1; $24.95 he) This book is a repo rt in great detail of the September 1938 hurricane that devastated New England and Long Island, killing over 500 persons and destroy ing billio ns of dollars of properry. It was one of the most severe weather dam ages ever inflicted o n this country. The first part of the account details the development of the storm beginning off the coast of Africa and its growth and travel towa rd the No rth American continent. The lack of instrumentation, reporting stations, and knowledge in 1938 allowed the center to pursue a dangero us path wi thout adequate warning to the population until the very las t minute. Current knowledge, when applied to the 1938 data, shows what a fierce storm was develo ping. The weather pattern of highs off the east coast provided a funn el to steer the storm north toward Long Island and Rhode Island at ever increasing speeds. W hen th e sto rm reached shore it was traveling at over 60 miles per hour with wind velocities in excess of 150 miles per ho ur. H ad modern technology, i.e. satellites, wea ther planes, and real-time co mmuni cations existed then, the loss of life wo uld probably have been much less, but the pro perry loss would have been just as high. This is ill ustrated by the 1992 hurricane in southern Florida, where the properry damage was as great as the New England storm , but the loss of life was less than one -tenth. The second part of th e sto ry deals with th e experi ences of some of the persons caught in the path of the storm . Some witnessed buildings fl ying away in the wind and fou nd boats and small ships parked in their yards thousands of feet fro m th e original sho re line. Majo r changes in the geography of the shore and the sea bed required the recharting of the coast for several hund red miles. Some of the features of the coast lin e that we use today, such as Shinnecock Inlet, were created in a few minutes by the storm.
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