Sailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy's Only Mutiny, and the Trial That Gripped the Nation

A "compelling" (The Wall Street Journal) account of the only mutiny in the history of the United States Navy--a little-known but once notorious event that cost three young men their lives--part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and as propulsive and dramatic as the bestselling novels of Patrick O'Brian. On December 16, 1842, the US brig-of-war Somers dropped anchor in the New York Harbor at the end of a voyage intended to teach a group of adolescents the rudiments of naval life. But this routine exercise ended in catastrophe. Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie came ashore claiming he had prevented a mutiny that would have left him and his officers dead. Some of the thwarted mutineers were being held under guard, but three had already been hanged at sea: Boatswain's Mate Samuel Cromwell, Seaman Elisha Small, and Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, whose father was the secretary of war, John Spencer. Eighteen-year-old Philip Spencer, according to his commander, had been the ringlead