Ordered to join the Pacific Squadron in 1854, the sloop of war Decatur
sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, through the Strait of Magellan to
Valparaiso, Honolulu, and Puget Sound, then on to San Francisco, Panama,
Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, while serving in the Pacific until 1859, the
eve of the Civil War. Historian Lorraine McConaghy presents the ship,
its officers, and its crew in a vigorous, keenly rendered case study
that illuminates the forces shaping America's antebellum navy and
foreign policy in the Pacific, from Vancouver Island to Tierra del
Fuego.
One of only five ships in the squadron, the Decatur participated in
numerous imperial adventures in the Far West, enforcing treaties,
fighting Indians, suppressing vigilantes, and protecting commerce. With
its graceful lines and towering white canvas sails, the ship patrolled
the sandy border between ocean and land.
Warship under Sail focuses on four episodes in the Decatur's Pacific
Squadron mission: the harrowing journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean through the Strait of Magellan; a Seattle war story that contested
American treaties and settlements; participation with other squadron
ships on a U.S. State Department mission to Nicaragua; and more than a
year spent anchored off Panama as a hospital ship. In a period of five
years, more than 300 men lived aboard ship, leaving a rich record of
logbooks, medical and punishment records, correspondence, personal
journals, and drawings. Lorraine McConaghy has mined these records to
offer a compelling social history of a warship under sail. Her research
adds immeasurably to our understanding of the lives of ordinary men at
sea and American expansionism in the antebellum Pacific West.