The American Revolution-and thus the history of the United States-began
not on land but on the sea. Paul Revere began his famous midnight ride
not by jumping on a horse, but by scrambling into a skiff with two other
brave patriots to cross Boston Harbor to Charlestown. Revere and his
companions rowed with muffled oars to avoid capture by the British
warships closely guarding the harbor. As they paddled silently, Revere's
neighbor was flashing two lanterns from the belfry of Old North Church,
signaling patriots in Charlestown that the redcoats were crossing the
Charles River in longboats. In every major Revolutionary battle
thereafter the sea would play a vital, if historically neglected, role.
When the American colonies took up arms against Great Britain, they were
confronting the greatest sea-power of the age. And it was during the War
of Independence that the American Navy was born. But following the
British naval model proved crushingly expensive, and the Founding
Fathers fought viciously for decades over whether or not the fledgling
republic truly needed a deep-water fleet. The debate ended only when the
Federal Navy proved indispensable during the War of 1812. Drawing on
decades of prodigious research, historian George C. Daughan chronicles
the embattled origins of the U.S. Navy. From the bloody and
gunpowder-drenched battles fought by American sailors on lakes and high
seas to the fierce rhetorical combat waged by the Founders in Congress,
If By Sea charts the course by which the Navy became a vital and
celebrated American institution.
