as "how a ship should be managed." His naval career began in 1797, just in time to participate in the Quasi War with France. With thirteen years in the merchant marine (he became a ship's commander at the age of nineteen) on his resume, his entry into the navy did not follow the usual path of midshipman to officer. H e received his first commission as lieutenant and was immediately assigned as second lieutenant in USS Constellation under Captain Thomas Truxtun. This experience helped shape his atmude and career fo r the entire time of his service and formed Rodgers into an even more vigorous disciplinarian than he already was. H e routinely "shut himself up from all around him" and stood "alone, without rh e friendship or sympathy of one on board." This attitude prevailed throughout Rodgers's career, all the way to President of the Board of Navy Commissioners, from which assignment he ultimately retired in 1837. He died the following year of a protracted case of cholera, which he had contracted some six years before in Washington D C. Mr. Schroeder's effort details Rodgers's early life, both as a ch ild growing up in H avre D e Grace and as a sailor in merchant ships; his extensive N avy career was highlighted by his orchestration of the defense of Baltimore in 181 4 and what might be considered the lowlight of his tenure, the "Little Belt" affair in 1811 . His passion fo r the Navy was eclipsed only by his love for
M inerva, his wife and the mother of h is eigh r children, and the reader can sense Rodgers's frustration at needing to be at home with his fam ily, while being pulled seaward by his beloved N avy. Schroeder has done a fine and credible job with this biography, a welcome addition to any bookshelf. It is well annotated, offers a very thoro ugh bibl iography and fine illustrations, making the volume a pleasure to read. WILLIAM
HITE
Rumson, New Jersey
Through water, Ice & Fire: Schooner Nancy of the war of 1812 by Barry Gough (Dundurn Group, Toron to, O N, 2006, 2 13pp, illus, maps, notes, biblio, ISBN 1-55002-569-4; $24.99pb) The Great Lakes arena in the War of 18 12 centered on fewer than a dozen fo rts, hacked out of wilderness, sustained by just a few sacks of grain, powder, and shot supplied by small schooners and a handful of canoes and bateaux. If not on the scale of Trafalgar, the naval engagements in the Great Lakes were still just as fi ercely fought. The topsail schooner Nancy exemplifies this history. She was laid down in 1789, cedar on white oak, 80 fr. LOA, 22-fr. beam, shoal draft, but with a 350ton capacity. She sported a figurehead of a lady wearing a graceful hat topped with a feather. H er cargo of furs, sugar and flour, meal and meat were defended by two
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small brass deck guns. When war arrivedl on the lakes, she was further armed to defe nd Canada from western Lake Erie to H uron's Fort Michilimackinac, that "Gibraltar of the N orth." From 1812 to 1814, she sailed stormy waters, met ice, and suffered enemy fire, only to be blown up by her own captain to escape capture in the No ttawasaga River, off the Georgian Bay. Historians too often lose the war to a sea of statistical fact, embargoes and cargoes, grand strategy and treaty. Not so here. As both mariner and scholar with years of sailing the Great Lakes, Professor G ough skillfully takes the Nancy, her captain and crew, and loads the story with what could be called the "Plimsoll" or human factor. Gough's Nancy fo llows in the wake of his Fighting Sail on Lake Huron and Georgian Bay: The W'tzr of 1812 and its Aftermath (2002), and if anything, is an even better book, focusing on one small ship in a sea of grander military and diplomatic strategies. To the half dozen other works on the Nancy and to Mahan's classic Sea Power in its Relations to the W'tzr of 1812, 2 vols. (1905) Go ugh adds new information found in manuscripts in the Arch ives of Ontario, the National Archives in England, the U S National Archives, and such printed sources as the war log of the Nancy. Provocative books prompt questions. So some fine evening over a pint at the Arichor Inn on M anitoulin Island, this reviewer must ask Prof. Go ugh about the printing of the illustrations (often fuzzy, gray-toned with glare, m aking some maps nearly illegible). The draft of the Nancy? The range of her ordinance? Anchors and their sizes? Beating into a gale under full sail? Navigation? Go ugh rightly resists writing historical fiction here, but perhaps the Nancy's log could shed some light on these questions. Nevertheless, this is a thoroughly ballas ted book, well-fo und by both author and reader. Were it not fo r a couple of schooners like the Nancy and those canoes and bateaux, the naval war in the upper Great Lakes might well have gone differently. From the deck of a small cargo schooner, Gough draws a refreshingly Canadian line of position on the War of 1812. ] AMES SEAY D EAN
M adison, W isconsin 50
SEA HISTORY 11 8, SPRING 2007