Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy | 
| Author: Ian W. Toll
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 6702
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 592
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 039333032X
Dewey Decimal Number: 359.0097309033
EAN: 9780393330328
ASIN: 039333032X
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
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Product Description
"A fluent, intelligent history...give[s] the reader a feel for the human quirks and harsh demands of life at sea."—New York Times Book Review
Before the ink was dry on the U.S. Constitution, the establishment of a permanent military became the most divisive issue facing the new government. The founders—particularly Jefferson, Madison, and Adams—debated fiercely. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect from pirates or drain the treasury and provoke hostility? Britain alone had hundreds of powerful warships.
From the decision to build six heavy frigates, through the cliff-hanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of Founding Brothers and the narrative flair of Patrick O'Brian. 16 pages of illustrations.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 66 more reviews...
 Six Frigates...an outstanding presentation of the political, economic, and military forces behind the founding of the US Navy July 24, 2008
Ian Toll crafted a masterpiece of historical writing in this book. At least I liked it!!! It sometimes reads like fiction, but consistently bears the weight of historical fact. "Six Frigates" presents an intruiging picture of the interplay between the economic, political, and military considerations that led to a critical decision-point during the vulnerable fledgling years of the USA between the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
During the first part of the book we join the Founding Fathers as they engage in hot debates over whether to invest limited federal funds in an extrememly expensive ship-building program. Why build ships? And why only six? What good could six ships do? At the time the US merchant fleet, one of the largest in the world, was experiencing harassment and losses to pirates based along the north coast of Africa in the Mediterranean Sea...the Barbary pirates.
And so a decision was made to build 3 heavy frigates and 3 lighter frigates. Toll provides detail about the planning and building of the ships. The materials used and the manner of construction combined to make these six frigates some of the strongest ships afloat, and helps the reader to understand how the USS Constitution eventually earned the knickname "Old Ironsides."
Once the ships were built some of them were dispached to the Mediterranean Sea to project US military power during a little known period of US History...the Tripolitan War with the Barbary Coast pirates. These engagements provided the military action made famous in the US Marine Corps song with the refrain, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." (Just in case you were wondering.)
Not many years later another war loomed with England, the country with the mightiest and most efficient navy in the world...they had 300 ships of war, and the USA had only six dedicated warships. Yikes!
Nevertheless, war broke out and the frigates went to war to protect the merchant fleet from English warships and to protect American sailors from being forcibly pressed into British naval service. Toll provides excellent insights and paints vivid pictures of war during the age of sail. I knew life was rough aboard those ships, but until I read this book I had never developed a clear mental image of the combination of courage, terror, and extreme damage that resulted from naval engagements.
The British navy took great pride in being the ruler of the seas, and they had a long and glorious history of overpowering their adversaries with the combined skill of sailing prowess, gunnery efficiency and accuracy, and bold courage. Toll provides excellent narrative of single ship to single ship engagements between British and American vessels. Imagine the shock and awe that ensued when an American frigate bested and captured a British frigate! Both ships were a shambles, but the British ship was brought into port and the American captain and crew were natioal heroes...there were give parades, balls, feasts, and so on.
Another aspect of life under sail that I never before understood was the beating these ships took, not only during battle but also from the elements. I was amazed as Toll described the type and frequency of refitting that sailing warships needed. Read for yourself and find out for yourselves.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys military history or even sea tales like those told in the Horatio Hornblower saga or in books by Patrick O'Brien.
This is clearly a 5 star product. No question about it.
Excellent and rewarding July 7, 2008
Well written and entertaining book. As an avid sailor I particularly enjoyed reading this book. Beautiful sentences. Rich and full of history. Well researched. The type of book that I was sorry when I had finished it as I yearned for more. Highest recommendation.
Outstanding June 19, 2008
I had absolutely no idea that the US Navy had such a rough and uncertain start. Nor did I realize the scale of our efforts against the Barbary pirates of North Africa.
Just read it.
Accurate, Historical, and Mesmorizing June 14, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book not only discusses the founding of the United States Navy, but it also briefly touches on the political climate of the times, covering both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 (the Second War of Independence). If you are a history buff, you would be hard pressed to find a book more insightful, more educational, and more complete. While this book is more of a historical analysis of the 6 original frigates that formed the early American Navy, it is written in a style this is far from dry. In the back of the book, is a breakdown of historical dates of significance, and I found myself wondering how I got through such a thick book so quickly!
History, with Lots of Seafaring Excitement June 5, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
America has had a navy since the American Revolution. General Washington's Continental Army prevailed in that conflict. Ian W. Toll writes that in contrast, "The Continental Navy, with few exceptions, was a wasteful and humiliating fiasco." Only a few decades later, however, by the War of 1812, the United States Navy was a formidable and respected force. Toll has masterfully presented the history of those decades in _Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy_ (Norton). This is Toll's first book; he is a former financial analyst and political speechwriter, but it is big, authoritative, and often exciting. It nicely ties the inchoate navy to the political philosophy of the new nation, and to the world events which compelled America, often reluctantly, to take to the seas in warships. Despite its size, annotations, and enormous bibliography, because of its concentration on personalities and action, Toll's book is less the dry history of the naval theorist than it is the thrilling nautical tales from Patrick O'Brian. (In fact, in compliment to that accomplished storyteller, Toll has incorporated a page of the Jack Aubrey novel _The Fortune of War_ into his account of the 1812 battle between the frigates _Constitution_ and _Java_.)
The colonists had always been enthusiastic about making their fortunes from the sea or commerce upon it, but after the Revolution, they had almost nothing that could be called a navy. They also did not have the Royal Navy to protect their merchantmen. So when American merchant vessels come into the Mediterranean, they were at risk from the pirates of the Barbary states, but when the nation started seriously considering a navy, there was no naval tradition to go by and there were no easy or predictable answers; many argued against having a navy altogether. The continuing capture of vessels by the pirates, however, caused President Washington in 1794 to sign into law the purchase of six innovative warships. Jefferson was the first to deploy the navy into war, against the pirates. The expedition was the first of many victories for the _Constitution_ and the beginning of the reasons that the world needed to take notice of the new nation as a naval and international power. The second great conflict covered here is the War of 1812, fought against the huge and powerful British Navy over its confiscation of American merchant shipping, and its impressment of American sailors into British service. The commanders of the U.S. vessels were too brash to accept the aura of invincibility that the Royal Navy had as its due, and in three single ship duels, the sort of thing at which the British were champions, the Americans got clear victories. The war changed the way the world thought about the United States and how it thought about itself. Churchill wrote that there remained anti-American sentiment in England for several years, "... but the United States was never again refused proper treatment as an independent power." It was only after the war of 1812, Toll reminds us, that Americans started speaking of the United States in the singular rather than in the plural.
Toll is exceptional at showing how human personalities and foibles made a difference in peculiar ways. The first British ambassador to the United States reported in 1803 with disgust that he, while wearing full diplomatic regalia, was received by President Jefferson "standing in slippers down at the heels ... in a state of negligence actually studied." The diplomatic acrimony over this and other slights only ended when war wiped them out. Toll asks, "Could a pair of slippers come between nations?" There are many pages devoted to superstitions. Whatever comfort against fate the superstitions might have given sailors, plenty were positively unhealthy, like the belief that bathing was dangerous because it might wash away your good luck, or that tattoos were protection against venereal disease. Even more surprising are the sections on dueling, which remained popular among hotheaded young American officers long after it was abandoned in other quarters. "The junior naval officer, done up in his high standing collar and gold lace, was as testy and vain as a fighting gamecock," Toll writes, and if a war was not handy, he was eager to show his honor in front of the pistol of a fellow officer. "Not surprisingly, the frequency of dueling appears to have been inversely related to the frequency of naval combat." Any excuse might do; one midshipman took offense when another entered the wardroom with his hat on, and challenged him. Toll even pays a historian's compliment to Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote _The Naval War of 1812_ during his off hours from college and law school; the work on the book gave Roosevelt lessons used "... in the course of his remarkable career as an American statesman and a devoted imperialist." One page after another in this fine history yields curious facts, thrilling scenes of battle, and grim depictions of battle's toll.
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