Customer Reviews

Broadsides: The Age of Fighting Sail, 1775-1815

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Those who have liked Patrick O'Brian's great sea adventure novels are sure to welcome this factual narrative of the same period of war on the high seas. Miller not only gives the historical background of naval warfare in the age of sail, he tells how the ships and guns worked, how the sailors lived, how the admirals thought and fought. His subtitle on the age of sail might also have been "the age of Nelson," for he uses the life of the hero of Trafalgar to tie together the widespread action during the years from the American revolution to the War of 1812. One of the book's most memorable scenes is the day when Nelson first went on board a warship at the age of 12. As Miller tells of the rousing battles to follow, they are not just scattered outbursts of action around the world; each takes on strategic meaning in relation to the others. This book is much better written than the typical history. Miller was a World War II sailor and has written a series of other naval histories; he knows both the subject and the lingo. His fluent narrative is founded on solid research. I recommend it as a companion volume to the works of O'Brian and C.S. Forester. It fully deserves five stars.

The book Broadsides is a non-fiction account of the age of the fighting sail. The current interest in that era, in no small part, due to the success of the Patrick O'Brian series of novels and the revied interest in C. S. Forester's Hornblower series. this work reviews the signficant naval events involving the European powers and the USA during 1775-1815. The author chose those dates as they encompass the American Revolution and the Napoleonic Era. To compress this period into a single volume, Miller uses the technique of focusing on the lives of a few significant commanders, especially Horatio Nelson, and senior British Admirals. This method allows him to interweave interesting details of their lives, the naval theories of that time, and indirectly suggest that personal factors had a very strong effect on their professional conduct. He points out that Admiral Howe may not have pressed home his attack on Long Island because of conflicting feelings about the American rebellion. Likewise other British admirals, Rodney, Graves, and Hood, were influenced by their personal concerns of prize money, personal fame and prestige, and political matters. This is the strength of the work and alone deserves three stars. I wish that more could have been explained about the political nature of the British Admiralty and the political alliances of the time as they pertained to naval affairs. He hints at different factions and reports of governments tettering and tottering, but doesn't really explain why. Also the East India Company and West Indies merchants are portrayed as a very powerful group, capable of bringing litigation against an active fleet commander - but little comment is made about how such private business concerns could be powerful enough to openly challenge the British Admiralty. While there are some details about actual ship board life, navigation, and ship handling, it isn't really a book about the technical aspects. For that you'll have to go elsewhere. It can be a little daunting to novice readers, who may have no notion of how fast a sailing vessel could travel under full sail, how difficult it is turn about a ship-of-the-line, and how much logistics and weather affected naval planning. Finally, the maps are sparse being limited to just a few line diagrams, and no battle or manuever charts! In brief, fun fascinating, often gossipy read about the era through the lives of the celebrated commanders (mostly British, especially Nelson, and a few Americans), not a technical work such as Nelson's Navy by Brian Lavery. Only a few sparse maps! No battle diagrams.

Broadsides is perfect for history buffs and for fans of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels, which are set in the same period. This is popular history in the Barbara Tuchman (Guns of August) manner: thoroughly researched by an expert who also has a fine sense of narrative drama (even the occasional footnotes are enjoyable): It's fun to read. It's <thrilling> to read. The Age of Fighting Sail is conventionally put at about 160 years; author Miller has confined himself to the last quarter or so, and with good reason. The shorter time span narrows his focus and lets him richly detail on a period that needs detailed coverage. After all, at this time Britain was frequently in conflict with the US, then Bonaparte, then all of the countries that deserted the British cause to join Boney--or later deserted Boney to join Britain. Only details can reduce the confusion. Here's an example of the value of detail: Most Americans learn in basic history class that Washington and Cornwallis somehow found themselves at Yorktown together, where Cornwallis just threw in the towel and--bang!--just like that the American Revolution ended. Miller shows that Cornwallis, hunting for glory, exhausted him army in a series of useless victories, fought too far inland for the Royal Navy to support or supply him, and then had to run to Yorktown in hope of being evacuated by the British fleet. But the French fleet got there first (by pure luck) and the Royal Navy's failure to trounce it was a perfect example of hidebound, backward tactics that took no risks but gained no glory. The over-cautious British admiral had protected his career and reputation but, as another historian put it, "He had merely lost Amnerica." As the American Revolution ends and the French begins, Miller shows British seapower on the cusp of change, at last moving away from risk-averse tactics under the urging of a generation of more daring commanders: Pellew, Howe, Collingwood, Jervis and the immortal, incomparable Nelson. Many of their battles were as exciting in fact as they are in the movies. There's excellent material on the faltering beginnings of the American navy too, which (for example) Thomas Jefferson was mightily in favor of until, as president, he decided he didn't want to pay for it. The cast of characters is superb: the British fighters mentioned above and scheming Boney, of course, but also the usual crew of addlepates and blockheads in the Admiralty; Captain Bligh (not the sadist he's been painted as); hilariously inept French and Spanish admirals; even worse British generals (except for the miraculous Arthur Wellesley--later the Duke of Wellington); and the odd, cross-grained collection of self-interested citizen-patriots of the American Revolution. Nathan is especially good at distinguishing between naval combat and seapower; with brisk, incisive strokes he shows how all those blockades and sinking ships affected alliances and strategy. O'Brian fans will especially appreciate this because it will enable them to re-read the entire Aubrey/Maturin series with greater grasp of the period and the issues.--Bill Marsano

Nathan Miller is one of those authors who is immediately believable as an historian due to the detail and care with which he writes his books. At the same time, his books are emminently readable because he cuts through to the heart of the matter and has a concise, exciting style. This book is a nice addition to my naval library, and I anticipate referring to it often.

The writing style is definitely the highlight of the book, although there are other items to recommend it. First is the inclusion of a number of lesser-known naval battles that are often omitted. Everyone does Trafalgar and the Nile, but few general histories include the U.S.'s war with Tripoli or pre-Nelsonian battles in the Napoleonic Wars (because most were inconclusive). Because of the short time frame of the book - a mere 40 years - these lesser-known actions are covered. At the same time, this book does not read as a catalogue of battles, but a smooth narrative in which these battles naturally occur. Additionally, there is enough detail about the background story (land battles, politics, etc.) that each battle is firmly placed in context. Finally, the personalities of the men (and even some women) that did the fighting comes through, not just the admirals but occasionally the ordinary crewmembers as well.

Unfortunately, there are some problems with the book, starting with the time frame. The first few chapters, detailing the Continental Navy and the American Revolution, are not good. They seem tacked on (possibly to sell more books in the U.S.?), and do not have the same flow as subsequent chapters. It should have started later (perhaps the French revolution?), or a lot earlier (although then it would be a different book). Secondly, Miller has a grating habit of rooting for one side - either the U.S. or Britain, as the case may be. Since history is written by the victor, there is a natural pro-British bias in the details of Napoleonic naval battles, for example, but Miller's style gives the appearance that he's rooting for the British at the same time. An example: "The British and French ships had the same number of cannon, but fortunately the British had better training." This is only "fortunate" if you were on the British ship! This kind of insidious cheerleading is especially bad at the beginning of the book, in the aforementioned "tacked-on" chapters, where the pro-U.S. bias is very irritating.

Therefore, I recommend this book as a detailed and very readable account of the Napoleonic (and conincident) Wars, as long as you can get through the less well-written early chapters.

This is a great book! Instead of another recital of major battles, indistinguishable from one another, Nathan Miller has carefully selected a handful of examples to illustrate chosen themes in each chapter. Thus you learn a great deal about the lives of the men on board, of the officers who commanded them, and the admirals who ran the fleets, all set against a thoughtful background. The technological and social changes over this period are discussed intelligently, and will influence even the most knowledgeable reader. The book is a pleasure to read and highly informative.

This book provides a well-paced and comprehensive survey of the years when ships of the line were the most potent and deadly force in the world. For those who read the Hornblower novels and wanted to learn more about the era in which Horatio lived, this is an excellent choice. Miller focuses on the careers of the major captains in the Age of Fighting Sail. Major appearances are made by such luminaries as Nelson, Pellew, Cochrane, and St. Vincent - not to mention John Paul Jones and Stephen Decatur.

In many cases, the actual historical exploits involving these and other captains are more exciting than fiction.

Miller takes the time to recount the political and diplomatic events behind the major naval engagements of the wars between England, France, and the United States. In addition, he touches upon the inner workings of the Admiralty, the Ministry of Marine, and the Navy Department. One also gets the perspective of the common sailor in this book.

`Broadsides' would make a fine textbook for a college-level course on naval history or the Napoleonic Era. The writing is solid, if not as imaginative as Keegan's `The Price of Admiralty,' and not laden with burdensome facts and figures. His descriptions of battles proceed clearly and tautly.

The reader will marvel at the discipline of the Royal Navy, shake his head at France's many lost opportunities, and feel proud of the exploits of the infant U.S. Navy. One is sure to have a better understanding of the time when the only steel on board a man-of-war was the determination of its captain.

I'll say from the outset that this is a perfectly reasonable survey of a forty-year period of the fighting exploits of the British and American Navies, and as such I'd recommend it as decent armchair reading. However, I knock a couple of stars off in my rating for what, in my view, is a fatal flaw for a book that focusses dually on ship and fleet actions and the strategic contexts of naval combat: there are utterly no diagrams of ship or fleet manuevers, and the few maps at the end are so utterly general and on such a large scale, and without pinpointing the location of a single action, as to make them useless.

There's a certain conceit here by author Miller, who has previously written decent naval histories focussing primarily on the US Navy. He starts out in 1775, so as to capture the battles of the nascent American Navy during the revolution and the instrumental Battle of Chesapeake Bay, which enabled the victory at Yorktown which in turn sealed US independence. But that of course ignores the significant naval actions between the French and British in the Seven Years War and the various continental and colonial conflicts leading up to it. The battles of the US Navy in the Pseudo-War with the French from 1798-1800, with the Barbary states in the 1800s, and with Britain in the War of 1812 take up a half dozen rather short chapters. The bulk of the rest of the book, from the framing prologue up through Trafalgar, is more of a history of the British Navy through the filter of the life of Admiral Horatio Nelson than a true survey of the 'age of fighting sail.' I got the feeling after a while that what Miller really wanted to do was write a biography of Nelson, but couldn't sell the idea, so had to expand it out to cover enough American material to make it more appealing to his usual audience.

To be a true survey, the "starting point" should have gone back to at least the Anglo-Dutch naval wars of the 17th century, or to be an honest assessment of the Napoleonic wars, the American Revolution ought to have been skipped and a little more attention paid to the use of naval support after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. As it is, Nelson checks in on page 1, checks out on page 300, and the next ten years of warfare are covered in 58 pages. The point of view is squarely in the Anglo and American camps: while some perspectives from the French side and to a much lesser extent that of one of the Dutch fleets are given, that's about it as far as examining the naval actions. This has all the bias of the usual admiring-the-winners history; we expect a little more at this point given the events are 200 years in the past and more scholarship and reflection might've been drawn together in a modern survey.

This is not a scholarly book, in that it has no detailed footnotes and secondary surverys far outnumber the primary sources. But it's not intended to be one, I don't think, and as a popular survey it's better-researched and put together than most similar volumes. As history, while I quibbled with the choice of details here and there (such as glossing over John Paul Jones' time serving on a slaver), it's decent and not uncritical of the men and governments of the age. Some attention is paid to the mechanics of navies and warfare, without distracting from moving from battle to battle. Miller does quite a good job of spending just enough time explaining the overall political and military context of the major fleet actions and individual ship battles.

Nevertheless, the focus on Nelson serves to make it somewhat less interesting than, say, Lambert's "War at Sea in the Age of Sail" (which, I hasten to add, is a slimmer volume but which is amply illustrated with diagrams and maps.) I didn't find Miller's prose particularly gripping, but neither was it distracting. Because he feels it necessary to cover the most exciting bits of history from the era, the chapters don't really flow from one the next, but have the feel of isolated episodes occasionally wrapped up by the "strategy" chapters. For instance, the career of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, the swashbuckling model for Jack Aubrey and Horatio Hornblower by varying degrees, is inserted between chapters on the "big picture" battles; it could've appeared at random nearly anywhere in the book and read just the same. It's as if Miller was at the point in writing this out that he said, "well, Nelson's dead now, now I'll go to the next most compelling figure of the age." In fact, I'd go so far as to say that aside from where Nelson appears, the rest of the book reads more like a series of magazine articles than a cohesive book. Not that there's anything wrong with that if that's what you're looking for.

So in the end I enjoyed reading it simply because it was zippy and got from swash to buckle quickly with a detour to the situation room to explain it all from time to time, but I can't say as I feel likely to bother to re-read it in future years. So take this for what it's worth: a mildly warm recommendation for some armchair reading, but one which will probably leave the enthusiast for naval history in the age of fighting sail wanting more details in other volumes.

That said: I just can't get over the lack of diagrams and real maps in this book. What on earth were the editors and author thinking?!?

This book of four hundred pages by Nathan Miller is a great and riveting account of the age of 'Fighting Sail'. The book covers the period from 1775 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Having read a number of books on Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith and Lord Cochrane I found this book a treat. It covered this great period of sail with a majestic overview, covering all the famous actions and commanders. Many of the stories I had heard before but the author's style of writing made it all seem new to me. I still found many things that I had never heard before and the book was full of fascinating stories.

The narrative was easy to read and just flowed along with accounts from the participants adding flavour to the story. Accounts such as the story about one French officer having himself placed in a tub of bran to slow the bleeding from his legs that had been blown away so he could continue to command. And another about how the water frothed from the feeding frenzy of the sharks after dead seamen had been dumped overboard during an engagement are just awesome when you sit back and think about the those images.

The story was fast paced and the author provided a number of drawings of some of the classic engagements and commanders. I would have liked to see some maps outlining positions taken by the ships before and during the battles but that is only a small complaint. If you are looking for a good and easy to read single volume account of this period I could not recommend a better book.

If you enjoyed this book I would also recommend Tom Pocock's 'A Thirst for Glory' which covers the life of Sir Sidney Smith and Donald Thomas's 'Cochrane: Britannia's Sea Wolf' which is a brilliant story of one of greatest Frigate commanders during the age of fighting sail.

Not only do you get a sense of the true danger of a naval engagement but also the almost casual attitude of the officers and sailors to the absolute risk to life and limb. Including the political perspective helps place the various actions in time, place and importance. I can think of few things more terrifying than being a gunner on a ship of the line pounding away at an enemy, hull to hull, ignoring the risk while concentrating on firing your gun as fast as possible.

and if I was born in 1759, would I have joined the Royal Navy? Probably, yes. I loved the book. Nathan Miller's excellent research is inspiring. He covers the period from
the American Revolution to the War of 1812 in a fast, concise, manner. I learned things about John Paul Jones that weren't mentioned in JOHN PAUL JONES, FIGHTING
SAILOR. Any Hornblower and Aubrey-Maturin fans here?
Thomas Lord Cochrane was the inspiration for both Hornblower and Jack Aubrey. Sir Edward Pellew, a captain in the Royal Navy during the Wars of the French Revolution, and the Napoleonic Wars, is mentioned in the Hornblower
books. It mentions the Barbary Pirates too and the George
Washington Incident.