Based on the author's personal collection of original Civil War documents and letters; this volume provides a unique look at the people throughout Maryland who answered the government's call for volunteer recruits in the summer of 1861.
#1762230 in Books 2003-06Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 .94 x 5.16 x 7.88l; #File Name: 0786711507288 pages
Review
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Good General SurveyBy Rodney MeekThis book; as promised; does indeed deal with a lot of the people that sailed around the globe in voyages historic or otherwise. You know; yorr Magellan and Drake and Cook types. (Although Magellan only halfway counts; because he got himself killed in the Philippines when picking a fight with the locals; so Elcano actually brought the ship back to Spain. Also Cook met a similar fate a coupla centuries later; but only on his third voyage of exploration.)Mostly people died in vast numbers on these expeditions; due to drowning; battles; starvation; mutiny; captivity; or disease. (Especially scurvy; which regularly carried away a heck of a lot of sailors.) But some would survive and come back fabulously wealthy. So you had a lot of English and French and Spanish and Portugese and Dutch crews wandering around the Pacific. And of course; later the Americans joined in.Some of these voyages were for exploration; research; and national prestige. Some were mere piracy. Some were mercantile. A few of the later ones were just for uber-rich folks to go poncing about in luxury in search of an amusing adventure. In more recent times; it has been about Man's Eternal Battle Against Nature And Himself; wherein some driven or eccentric folks undertake these voyages for fame; glory; or to see what they are made of. (These are the people that do the solo journeys to set new speed records and stuff.)As a general survey of oceanic exploration; this is quite good; although it suffers from some idiosyncratic punctuation (to American eyes; anyway--this was written by some UK guy) and also relies too much in the early going with pointless excerpts from the journals of modern-era sailors. So you'll be reading about Magellan stumbling across the empty and uncharted reaches of the Pacific; then suddenly you're treated to the musings of somebody who sailed to Australia in a modern racing yacht in 1975 or something. I found that to be annoying and odd.Other than those quibbles; though; it's a pretty entertaining book and it does mention the U.S. Exploring Expedition (which started off on an ominous note when every single current naval captain of the time declined the command; so that it sailed under the "leadership" of a desk lieutenant who wasted no time in morphing into Captain Queeg); which itself is the subject of another book wtat just came out about a month ago. Cool.5 of 7 people found the following review helpful. history come alive!By Rebecca BrownRebeccasReads recommends this for everyone who loves the telling of history -- of the smell taste of those sea voyages -- of the politics religions of the time; the whys wherefores of those sailors setting sail; what happened to them what they found on the other side of the horizon.Clear up to the great Clipper Ships; the first solo-circumnavigator stories of our modern adventurers; this is a "loverly" read; recreating the stories of those sailors who first kept going until they came home; as well as those who never made it back.
