Introduction by Frederick C. Leiner. During his distinguished fifty-seven year naval career, Charles Morris was instrumental in bringing the fledgling U.S. Navy through its early trials and in plotting a course to the greatness that would follow. In 1804 he was at Stephen Decatur's side during the fabled burning of the captured Philadelphia in Tripoli Harbor. During the War of 1812, he was second in command to Isaac Hull when Constitution defeated Guerriere. In 1880--eighteen years before the official start of its book-publishing program--the Naval Institute published his autobiography as an issue of Proceedings magazine. Later that year, a Boston publisher brought it out in book form, but this is the first time it has appeared in print since.
With an introduction by an author who specializes in the early American Navy, this new Classics of Naval Literature edition will be welcomed by historians and buffs alike for Morris's eyewitness accounts of the seminal events of his time. Unlike many other writers of the era, he wrote in a style that modern readers will find engaging. Joining the Navy as it reorganized for the Quasi-War with France, Morris fought in its early engagements and later served in many key posts as the Navy traded sails for steam and smooth bore cannon for rifled guns. Echoing the words of naval historian J. R. Soley in the original preface, this book may still offer lessons for the Navy of today.
