Charles Lee Lewis – författare

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press''s distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

The second volume of this authoritative biography examines the last ten years of David Glasgow Farragut’s life, focusing on the Civil War. Farragut’s courage was tried as much as the Confederate Navy as by gross inefficiency and waste in the conduct of war, lukewarm support of the Federal government, lack of cooperation between the Army and Navy, and poor morale caused by war weariness and disease. In the face of these challenges Farragut proved to be a resourceful leader and fighter whose loyalty to the Navy and his country proved him worthy of being America’s first admiral.

This biography covers David Glasgow Farragut’s long career in the navy before the Civil War. He was about sixty years old when that war began, and had accordingly lived through that long transitional period from sail to steam. As a lad he had served with Porter in the Essex on her glorious cruise which ended in bloody defeat at Valparaiso; he had repeatedly cruised in the Mediterranean; he hunted pirates in the Caribbean and had almost died of yellow fever; he had become familiar with the coast of Mexico and was present when the French bombarded the Castle of San Juan de Ulloa at Vera Cruz; he had often cruised into Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Rio de Janeiro when revolution and anarchy threatened those cities; he had been on a man-of-war at Charleston when nullification threatened the union; he had participated in the Mexican War; he had established the Mare Island Navy Yard; and he commanded the steam sloop of war Brooklyn. Meanwhile he had slowly risen up the ladder of promotion from midshipman to captain, then the highest rank in the United States Navy.