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James M. Volo

Autor(a) de The Antebellum Period (American Popular Culture Through History)

13 Works 85 Membros 1 Review

About the Author

James M. Volo is a teacher, lecturer, and historian. He has served as a consultant for documentary television and movie projects dealing with American history from colonial times to World War II. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of more than a dozen historical reference works, including mostrar mais Greenwood's Daily Life in Civil War America, Daily Life on the Old Colonial Frontier, and Daily Life during the American Revolution. His recent Praeger publication, Blue Water Patriots: The American Revolution Afloat, is highly recommended as a source for the study of early U.S. naval history. mostrar menos

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Blue Water Patriots: The American Revolution Afloat de James M. Volo
Not half bad. I’ve reviewed a couple of previous books about naval actions in the American Revolutionary War (George Washington’s Secret Navy; Benedict Arnold’s Navy); Blue Water Patriots ties these together with other actions to give a pretty decent overview. Most American histories concentrate on the land actions in North American, with perhaps a cursory reference to John Paul Jones; I consider myself slightly more well-read than average but still had no idea that there was so much action on the high seas involving the other belligerents. I suppose part of the problem is there’s no catchy name for the international dimensions – “naval conflict between the Seven Years War and the Napoleonic Wars” doesn’t stick with you. However, in the course of the conflict France, Spain and the Netherlands all declared war on England, and there were large naval battles in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Indian Ocean. On two separate occasions, combined Franco-Spanish and Franco-Spanish-Dutch fleets were able to control the English Channel (although unable to do much with that temporary control).


I suppose devouring Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey tended to make me think the Royal Navy was always the sine qua non of professionalism, but the fact is that the revolutionary Americans were very lucky to catch the Royal Navy at a time when it was unusually poorly managed and administered and the French navy at a time when it was unusually competent and well-officered. English grand strategy was deficient – to the extent that it existed at all – and never really came up with a way to use the Royal Navy efficiently against the Americans. Although individual ports were temporarily closed by cruisers off-shore or by occupation, there was never an organized blockade and the Americans were always able to obtain supplies from Europe and European colonies in the West Indies. The Royal Navy had allowed its inventory of small warships suitable for convoy escort to run down, American privateers ran amok, and maritime insurance rates went through the roof (Lloyds of London listed over 2000 merchant ships captured by privateers or Continental navy vessels and successfully sent into port under prize crews during the war). Even the usually luckless Spanish got into the act when Admiral Don Luis de Cordoba captured 55 of 63 ships from an English convoy bound for the West Indies.


Cooperation between the Royal Army and Royal Navy was poor to nonexistent, the obvious example being the abandonment of Cornwallis at Yorktown; another case that I hadn’t really appreciated was the Royal Army’s transport demands. For the invasion of Philadelphia, rather than making a 90 mile overland march through New Jersey the Royal Army in New York board 260 transports, waited two weeks while supplies were loaded, was at sea for 42 days and 800 sea miles, then landed 70 miles from Philadelphia. (The inefficiency of this arrangement has always been overshadowed by the fact that the campaign was successful).


Blue Water Patriots is not without flaws. Author James Volo alternates chronological chapters with chapter descriptions of equipment, fleet organization, basic maneuver, and so forth; it doesn’t work that well. He may be confused on some technological matters; Volo claims Massachusetts blast furnaces used charcoal rather than coal to avoid long distance coal transport. Ordinary (non-anthracite) coal can’t be used in a blast furnace; although coke had been used to make iron since 1708, the process remained a secret of the Darby family for years and I’m not sure it was known in America. Similarly Volo believes the Americans used iron cannon rather than bronze or brass because Americans didn’t know how to cast bronze correctly; I rather suspect it was because while there was plenty of iron ore in America (prior to the Iron Act, the Colonies were the world’s third largest iron exporter) extensive copper and tin deposits weren’t known at the time of the Revolution. Finally, I’m a map fan; although this book has some in the endpapers they include the worst maps I’ve ever seen in a history. Volo uses some contemporary maps of Boston and Chesapeake Bay and a 19th century map of the battles around New York; these are so reduced in size they’re unreadable. The remaining maps are credited to the author; he apparently copied some line-drawing maps, enlarged them to show the area he wanted, and then added captions. Unfortunately, the enlarged lines are so wide they look like they were drawn with a paintbrush, especially unfortunate when Volo is trying to show the many harbors in New England.


Some interesting references, well end-noted, and includes appendices with every Royal Navy ship on the North American station during the war. Get your own maps, though.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
setnahkt | Dec 5, 2017 |
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Estatísticas

Obras
13
Membros
85
Popularidade
#214,931
Avaliação
½ 4.3
Resenhas
1
ISBNs
25

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