Commanding Petty Despots: The American Navy in the New Republic by Thomas Sheppard (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2022, 240pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, isbn 9781682477557; $44.95hc) The theme of Commanding Petty Despots: The American Navy in the New Republic is the tension between US naval officers’ deep-rooted sense of honor and craving for fame, and the institutional need for professionalism and civilian supremacy, a tension that Thomas Sheppard sees as a hallmark of the navy in the early Republic. Over time, and not without exceptions, professionalism and civilian control won out over personal honor and glory. In this slender, deftly written volume, Sheppard, a professor at the Marine Corps University Command and Staff College, has contributed to our understanding of the dynamic of civilian control over the Navy. Commanding Petty Despots covers the half-century from the American Revolution to 1824, when Commodore David Porter resigned from the Navy after a court-martial suspended him from the service for
landing an assault force at Fajardo, Puerto Rico (a Spanish colony)—not the last gasp of officers acting for what they deemed the honor of the Navy, but a fitting coda to the book. Commanding Petty Despots takes its name from a comment by the very same Porter, who compared the power of a captain aboard ship to the absolute control the sultan of the Ottoman Empire exercised over his subjects. Sheppard’s chapters are brief sorties into naval administration in each decade from the 1770s to the 1820s. During the Revolution, naval affairs were chaotic, officers acted as they wished, and they showed outright contempt for their civilian leaders. Sheppard portrays a muddled chain of command, the ranking of captains based on geography, not ability, and problems with discipline and a lack of direction. After peace in 1783, there was no American navy for a decade. With the ratification of the Constitution, civilian control over the armed services was ensured, and only the federal government could provide and maintain a navy. President
This triple-expansion epic is set in 1913 Shanghai, where four cultures are about to collide: China, Korea, Japan, and the US. The point of collision is three tons of Japanese gold ingots meant to undermine an already collapsing China. “The Abalone Ukulele is a masterclass in historical fiction. With painstaking research and a gift for story spinning, Crossland brings to brilliant life a sprawling epic of greed, gold, and redemption.” —Joseph A. Williams, author of Seventeen Fathoms Deep and The Sunken Gold INDIVIDUAL ORDERS: www.dreadnaughts-bluejackets.com FOR BULK ORDERS: orders@newacademiapublishing.com
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Washington appointed the first naval officers based on merit and their “reputation [from] the last war.” Recognizing that the Navy was small and unproven and forced to delegate authority because contingencies were many and communications were slow, the first secretary of the navy, Benjamin Stoddert, sought energetic and zealous officers. Weeding out cautious and “indifferent” characters, he got the firebrands he wanted. The US Navy won victories in the Quasi War and the Tripolitan War with these men in command, but their touchy personal honor (a subject that has garnered much attention, starting with the 1969 book The Commodores by Leonard Guttridge and Jay D. Smith) created internecine battles about relative rank, with Thomas Truxtun, Richard Dale, and Silas Talbot all resigning their commissions over perceived slights. Among junior officers, there was squabbling over promotions and duels, which killed off promising men. But the ethos of officers’ subordination to civilian authority was strengthened when Navy Secretary Robert Smith accepted the captains’ resignations, although it is simply not true, as Sheppard states, that “every remaining captain was perfectly competent to command a squadron.” Sheppard takes a refreshingly revisionist view of the Naval Peace Establishment Act of 1801, which reduced the US Navy to nine captains and 36 lieutenants and is often seen as the bane of the Navy’s existence. For Sheppard, it promoted professionalism by culling insubordinate and alcoholic officers. The War of 1812 tested that professionalism. The disastrous loss in single-ship combat of the frigate Chesapeake on 1 June 1813 due to Captain James Lawrence’s craving for distinction led the Navy to campaign against “excessive ardour” in its captains. Tellingly, Sheppard compares the earlier injunction from Navy Secretary Paul Hamilton, that his officers “vindicate the injured honor” of the Navy “at every hazard,” to Secretary William Jones’s later admonition to them to avoid “feats of chivalry.” Perhaps more than anyone else, Jones changed the Navy’s culture, de-emphasizing prize-taking (which incentivized officers individually, through financial rewards) for national objectives, assigning officers based on the country’s interest and not their SEA HISTORY 180, AUTUMN 2022