The six frigates of Toll's title were the Constitution Congress, Constellation, and United States, all broken up in the 1840s and 50s and Chesapeake and President, both lost in stunning defeats by the British - the Chesapeake in a single ship duel under the eyes of eager spectators from the headlands of Cape Ann and Cape Cod. "Nothing chases, nothing intercepts, nothing engages them, but to yield them triumph," lamented the London Pilot. When two more British frigates were lost to the Americans within the next four months - Java to the Constitution in October, and Macedonian to the United States in December - and some 500 merchantmen taken by year's end, the British reaction was shock and dismay.
Toll recounts the event in "Six Frigates," the boat men hailed other boats "and the victory passed along till it reached the shore, and then spread like wildfire." And as the ship entered the harbor, "the roar of artillery mingled with the sound of church bells swinging in their belfries, as the news passed from mouth to mouth." The War of 1812 helped to define America's sense of itself, and that would not have happened without the construction of Six Frigates.As the frigate Constitution approached Boston Light in August 1812, crewmen standing at its rails hailed a small boat sailing nearby, shouting the news that it had defeated the British frigate Guerrière.Īs Ian W. It is also worth noting, as Toll does, that “it was only after the War of 1812 that Americans began speaking of the United States in the singular rather than the plural”. After 1815, the United States moved themselves out of the status of 'bloody colonials' and were recognized as a power to be reckoned with. The United States, by it's naval victories and dogged insistence that it would not give in to being pushed around by anyone, won the respect if not the admiration of the powers of Europe. Toll's narrative covers the political, economic, social and technical challenges that faced shipbuilders, sailors, captains and congressmen that managed the development and operation of the fleet.įrom the last chapter: “What was remembered and cherished about 1812, above all, was the fact that America's tiny fleet had shocked and humbled the mightiest navy the world had every known.” This was the most significant outcome of the War of 1812, which is often overlooked by Americans and British alike.
The navy grew as the country grew, by fits and starts, by rising to challenges (The Barbary pirates, Britain and France) and learning from mistakes.
Begun in the shadow of the British Royal Navy that was thought to be unbeatable, the American Navy faced challenges of every kind. Starting in the Adams administration and continuing through to the end of the War of 1812, Six Frigates is a well researched and very readable history of the Navy of the United States.
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