A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Buckner F. Melton Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2003

"Mutiny on the Bounty" is one of history's greatest naval stories -- yet few know the similar tale from America's own fledgling navy in the dying days of the Age of Sail, a tale of mutiny and death at sea on an American warship.

In 1842, the brig-of-war "Somers" set out on a training cruise for apprentice seamen, commanded by rising star Alexander Mackenzie. "Somers" was crammed with teenagers. Among them was Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, a disturbed youth and a son of the U.S. Secretary of War. Buying other crew members' loyalty with pilfered tobacco and alcohol, Spencer dreamed up a scheme to kill the officers and turn "Somers" into a pirate ship.

In the isolated world of a warship, a single man can threaten the crew's discipline and the captain's authority. But one of Spencer's followers warned Mackenzie, who arrested the midshipman and chained him and other ringleaders to the quarterdeck. Fearing efforts to rescue the prisoners, officers had to stay awake in round-the-clock watches. Steering desperately for land, sleep-deprived and armed to the teeth, battling efforts to liberate Spencer, "Somers's" captain and officers finally faced a fateful choice: somehow keep control of the vessel until reaching port -- still hundreds of miles away -- or hang the midshipman and his two leading henchmen before the boys could take over the ship.

The results shook the nation. A naval investigation of the affair turned into a court-martial and a state trial and led to the founding of the Naval Academy to provide better officers for the still-young republic. Mackenzie's controversial decision may have inspired Herman Melville's great work "Billy Budd." The story of "Somers"raises timeless questions still disturbing in twenty-first-century America: the relationship between civil and military law, the hazy line between peace and war, the battle between individual rights and national security, and the ultimate challenge of command at sea.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This coherent and absorbing study from Melton (The First Impeachment) is the first full-scale study of the "mutiny" aboard the U.S.S. Somers in nearly a generation. The brig Somers was on a training cruise in 1842, with more than 100 apprentice seamen aboard. The son of the secretary of war, 19-year-old Philip Spencer, began talking and writing wildly about leading a mutiny. When the captain, Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, had Spencer and his two confederates, Cromwell and Small, put in irons, several incidents occurred suggesting attempts to rescue the men. After consulting with his officers and petty officers, Mackenzie decided that in view of the "clear and present danger" of a bloody mutiny, he should hang the three suspects, and did. The Navy conducted a formal inquiry into Mackenzie's conduct, then brought him before a court-martial. Melton, professor of law at the University of North Carolina, does his best to render the ensuing legal thickets intelligible to the 21st-century lay reader, without complete success. Better are his accounts of where the Somers affair fits into maritime history and the manner in which the isolation of the sailing ship made the captain's power nearly absolute. His final verdict is similar to that of the 19th-century Navy: Mackenzie exceeded his authority, but not wantonly or frivolously, and Spencer was a clear-cut and dangerous sociopath. Equal traces of eloquence and purple prose in saying so may appeal to post-Patrick O'Brien-era maritime buffs.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In 1842, the U.S. Navy was a relatively small and primitive fighting force, especially compared to the British navy. Most crewmen were very young, poorly educated boys; officers were often poorly trained. Melton, a historian and professor of law at the University of North Carolina, offers a fascinating account of a simple training cruise that went terribly wrong, resulting in mutiny, executions, and a sensational court martial. At the center of this drama were two interesting but flawed men: Phillip Spencer, a 19-year-old midshipman who was bright and charismatic but mentally unstable, and Captain Alexander Mackenzie, a well-bred, vastly experienced seaman with a generally affable nature but a knack for getting into controversial situations. His efforts to cope with the blatant disobedience of Spencer and others who supported him led to tragedy and an eventual reassessment of naval training and shipboard procedures. This is a superbly written story that captures both the routine and the rising tension within the insular society of a warship. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; 1St Edition edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743232836
• ISBN-13: 978-0743232838
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #201,231 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A credible account of an incredible event, March 29, 2003

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers (Hardcover)

Could there be a more preposterous, overly melodramatic fictional plot than a scenario where during a peacetime cruise a commanding naval officer deliberately puts to death without trial a junior subordinate officer, a subordinate who just happens to be the son of a member of the President's Cabinet? Yet, of course, that is no fictional plot, but exactly what happened aboard the USS Somers in 1842 when Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie hanged Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, the son of the serving Secretary of War, and two other men for reputedly planning a mutiny to kill the other ship's officers and carry the brig off into a career of piracy. Ever since, questions linger. Was young Spencer's plot merely a bizarre fantasy, or did he really plan to kill his captain and the other senior officers? Was Mackenzie justified in sidestepping normal procedure to hang men without trial, or did he and his fellow officers succumb to panic and execute innocent men? The Somers, of course, was not wholly a typical man-of-war on the voyage in question, and that was perhaps a vital element in the background to the mutiny (or whatever it was) and its aftermath. Except for the handful of officers and a small cadre of experienced seamen, almost the entire crew of the brig was composed of youths fresh off training ships, sent to sea on the Somers to gain practical experience. As such, they were perhaps more vulnerable to the blandishments of an erratic midshipman than seasoned sailors would have been. Yet, it was two of the experienced hands who were hanged along with young Spencer, one protesting his innocence and the other apparently conceding his guilt. A vital element of the circumstances was that the Somers carried no marines, the usual bulwark against a mutinous crew. The tale did not end with Mackenzie's suppression of unrest aboard his ship. His actions would have certainly been questioned in any case, but the fact that Spencer's father was Secretary of War guaranteed that Mackenzie would be charged with illegal, murderous behavior. Inevitably, a court-martial followed.

Buckner Melton, Jr., a law professor at the University of North Carolina and author of a book last year about the mysterious machinations of Aaron Burr on the Western frontier in the early Nineteenth Century, has just published "A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers." It's a solid account of the affair written in a lively style aiming to capture the atmosphere - social, political, and physical - surrounding the events. He takes special care to describe the particular world of a naval warship during the Age of Sail and the unique power and responsibilities of a commanding officer, and in general he is successful in this. I must note, however, one small slip that caused me to frown. In describing the Somers, he mentions her armament: 32-pounders, more powerful than any land field artillery and longer ranged too. The brig's 32-pounders, however, were carronades whose short barrels also made them short ranged, despite their ability to inflict severe damage at close quarters. A 32-pound carronade was credited with a range of 1087 yards at a 5 degree elevation. The standard US Army 1841 6-pounder smoothbore field artillery piece had a range of 1500 yards at that same 5 degrees elevation. Leaving that largely irrelevant detail aside, Melton's account gives a satisfactory picture of this world-in-miniature that was so violently disrupted by these controversial events. He is quite evidently sympathetic to Commander Mackenzie's plight, and I believe he is right in finding insights into young Spencer's behavior by looking at much-publicized school violence incidents in recent years. From Columbine to the Somers may not be an overly long step.

In short, I find Melton's portrayal of the events and personalities to be persuasive. As he himself acknowledges in an epilogue, there can be no final answers to the questions raised, but I believe that Melton has come about as close as we can ever expect.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating Historical True Crime Saga, May 13, 2003

By 

Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers (Hardcover)

Buckner F. Melton Jr.'s "A Hanging Offense" is a fascinating work of narrative history that resurrects an important but little-remembered incident from the early days of the U.S. Navy. The U.S.S. Somers, one of the last sailing vessles to be commissioned by the navy, was on a routine training cruise when a near mutiny broke out, resulting in the hanging of three of her crew. The story of the voyage is both hair raising and heartbreaking, particularly considering that two of the three hanged were very young men.

The would be mutineers were led by midshipman-in-training Phillip Spencer, the troubled son of a U.S. Cabinet Official who pulled the strings that got his son the post. Spencer almost immediately began conspiring with members of the crew to kill the officers and turn the ship into a pirate vessle. His plan was ultimately thwarted when he was double-crossed by a crewman he took into his confidence. The tragedy caused a sensation back in the U.S., resulting in the well publicized court marshal of Captain Alexander Mackenzie. It also exposed the many flaws endemic to the navy at the time, and ultimately resulted in much needed reforms, most particularly the establishment in 1845 of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

All of this Melton recounts with his highly readable prose. He details the life of Phillip Spencer, who most likely suffered from a personality disorder that caused many of his actions. Melton's accounts of the attempted mutiny itself read like the most suspenseful fiction. The lengthy aftermath describes the legal proceedings that ultimately exonerated Mackenzie, despite the political machinations of Phillip Spencer's father. As a professor of law, Melton also explains the finer legal points of the case in considerable detail. The book is a lively and relatively brief at about 260 pages of narrative.

Overall, an excellent work of narrative history that will appeal most strongly to maritime buffs.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very strange affair...., November 30, 2003

By 

lordhoot "lordhoot" (Anchorage, Alaska USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers (Hardcover)

I found this book to be highly informative and interesting reading material. Obviously, there seem to be several different accounts of this incident but I found Buckner Melton's version to be pretty close to the mark. Other reviews before me have written much about it but I would add little bit of review, the book could have used some illustrations, of the ship, the primary players of this incident and maybe even a blue print of the Somers. Considering level of teen violence today, Melton's accessment sound pretty reasonable to me.