A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers

by Buckner F. Melton Jr.

Book Overview

Mutiny on the Bounty is one of history's greatest naval stories--yet few know the similar tale from America's own fledgling navy in the dying days of the Age of Sail, a tale of mutiny and death at sea... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743232836
• ISBN13: 9780743232838
• Release Date: April 2003
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

2 for the price of 1

Excellent story! While trying to prevent a mutiny in 1842, Commander Alexander Mackenzie, of the US war ship "Sommers" hung a few of the mutinous sailors. The decision was abnormally intensified and complicated since Commander Mackenzie was a rising star in the officer ranks and one of the sailors hung was Midshipman Philip Spencer, son of the Secretary of War!! Not going to look good on the Commander's resume! Awesome story in itself, to choose what to do and the search for who were the main mutineers. It even gets better! Upon returning to the US, an expected uproar in the national press occurred. A major trial ensued to find if Commander Mackinzie had followed proper procedures and hung the correct sailors. The O.J. trial to the third power! Was it Mackenzie's turn to get the noose, be exonerated, or have his career virtually ended!

Philip Spencer

O here's to Philip Spencer, who when about to die. When crashing down beneath the waves, loud shouted out Chi Psi!

Fascinating chronicle of the early American Navy

"A Hanging Offense" is a brief but powerful account of an early Amercian Naval incident. In order to squelch a possible mutiny aboard a warship in the early 1840s, the ship's commander executed three accused conspirators, including the alleged reingleader, son of the sitting secretary of war. While it's easy to pick apart the commander's decision, it's important to look at the events from his perspective and within the context of the times. Melton provides a balanced chronicle of this event and what possibly motivated the ship's commander to hang three sailors without benefit of a legal court martial. As a result, this book serves as an important lesson in leadership in general, and not just the military arena. It's important to remember that the Somers' commander was a politically-connected rising star who was all too aware of the consequences of hanging a cabinet secretary's son, but nevertheless felt his actions were necessary. The Somers was a small but swift vessel whose loss would be both an embarrassment to the pride of the fledgling US Navy and a danger to other vessels. The Somers was crewed by mostly teenage trainees who, the captain feared, would fall under the influence of the mutineers into killing the ship's officers and becoming pirates. Although this entire premise sounds absurd, the circumstances provide a conundrum that would challenge the best military leaders in the world. Melton presents this entire chapter of Naval history in a clear and lucid manner, without taking sides. If you're interested in books about the character traits of leaders, forget the management books that are out there. Read a history of the extreme example of a no-win situation and ponder what you would do if you were the Somers' captain.

Fascinating Historical True Crime Saga

Buckner F. Melton Jr.'s "A Hanging Offense" is a fascinating work of narrative history that resurrects an important but little-remembered incident from the early days of the U.S. Navy. The U.S.S. Somers, one of the last sailing vessles to be commissioned by the navy, was on a routine training cruise when a near mutiny broke out, resulting in the hanging of three of her crew. The story of the voyage is both hair raising and heartbreaking, particularly considering that two of the three hanged were very young men. The would be mutineers were led by midshipman-in-training Phillip Spencer, the troubled son of a U.S. Cabinet Official who pulled the strings that got his son the post. Spencer almost immediately began conspiring with members of the crew to kill the officers and turn the ship into a pirate vessle. His plan was ultimately thwarted when he was double-crossed by a crewman he took into his confidence. The tragedy caused a sensation back in the U.S., resulting in the well publicized court marshal of Captain Alexander Mackenzie. It also exposed the many flaws endemic to the navy at the time, and ultimately resulted in much needed reforms, most particularly the establishment in 1845 of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. All of this Melton recounts with his highly readable prose. He details the life of Phillip Spencer, who most likely suffered from a personality disorder that caused many of his actions. Melton's accounts of the attempted mutiny itself read like the most suspenseful fiction. The lengthy aftermath describes the legal proceedings that ultimately exonerated Mackenzie, despite the political machinations of Phillip Spencer's father. As a professor of law, Melton also explains the finer legal points of the case in considerable detail. The book is a lively and relatively brief at about 260 pages of narrative.Overall, an excellent work of narrative history that will appeal most strongly to maritime buffs.

A credible account of an incredible event

Could there be a more preposterous, overly melodramatic fictional plot than a scenario where during a peacetime cruise a commanding naval officer deliberately puts to death without trial a junior subordinate officer, a subordinate who just happens to be the son of a member of the President's Cabinet? Yet, of course, that is no fictional plot, but exactly what happened aboard the USS Somers in 1842 when Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie hanged Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, the son of the serving Secretary of War, and two other men for reputedly planning a mutiny to kill the other ship's officers and carry the brig off into a career of piracy. Ever since, questions linger. Was young Spencer's plot merely a bizarre fantasy, or did he really plan to kill his captain and the other senior officers? Was Mackenzie justified in sidestepping normal procedure to hang men without trial, or did he and his fellow officers succumb to panic and execute innocent men? The Somers, of course, was not wholly a typical man-of-war on the voyage in question, and that was perhaps a vital element in the background to the mutiny (or whatever it was) and its aftermath. Except for the handful of officers and a small cadre of experienced seamen, almost the entire crew of the brig was composed of youths fresh off training ships, sent to sea on the Somers to gain practical experience. As such, they were perhaps more vulnerable to the blandishments of an erratic midshipman than seasoned sailors would have been. Yet, it was two of the experienced hands who were hanged along with young Spencer, one protesting his innocence and the other apparently conceding his guilt. A vital element of the circumstances was that the Somers carried no marines, the usual bulwark against a mutinous crew. The tale did not end with Mackenzie's suppression of unrest aboard his ship. His actions would have certainly been questioned in any case, but the fact that Spencer's father was Secretary of War guaranteed that Mackenzie would be charged with illegal, murderous behavior. Inevitably, a court-martial followed. Buckner Melton, Jr., a law professor at the University of North Carolina and author of a book last year about the mysterious machinations of Aaron Burr on the Western frontier in the early Nineteenth Century, has just published "A Hanging Offense: The Strange Affair of the Warship Somers." It's a solid account of the affair written in a lively style aiming to capture the atmosphere - social, political, and physical - surrounding the events. He takes special care to describe the particular world of a naval warship during the Age of Sail and the unique power and responsibilities of a commanding officer, and in general he is successful in this. I must note, however, one small slip that caused me to frown. In describing the Somers, he mentions her armament: 32-pounders, more powerful than any land field artillery and longer ranged too. The brig's 32-pounders, however, were