Journal of Southern History, November 1, 2009

If By Sea: The Forging of the American Navy--From the American Revolution to the War of 1812 is really two books. The first (through page 239) is a well-crafted military history of the American Revolution from Lexington and Concord to Yorktown with special emphasis on the role played by naval forces. The second (the next 235 pages) concerns the political argument between advocates and opponents of a standing peacetime American navy from 1783 through the end of America's second war with Britain in 1815. Author George C. Daughan ties these subjects together by showing how the United States struggled to decide what kind of naval force was appropriate to the new nations's needs: a blue-water navy on the British model or a defensive gunboat navy for harbor defense. His answer, curiously, is that the country made the wrong choices both during the Revolution and in the thirty-plus years afterward.

During the Revolution, Daughan contends, the Americans used the Royal Navy as a model to build a Continental navy that proved worse than useless, not only failing in its mission but also squandering scarce resources. It would have been far better, he argues, if the Revolutionary generation had opted for a swarm of row-gallerys that could have cooperated with General George Washington's army at Boston and New York. "The real problem," Daughan writes, "was not that the patriots could not produce an effective navy, but that they created the wrong kind" (p235). Then they did it again. Confronted with the danger of being drawn into the war in Europe after 1793, the United States relied on a gunboat navy when, Daughan insists, it should have been building blue-water warships.

The book has many strengths. Daughan is entirely successful in providing requisite background and context for events and issues. His history of the Revolutionary War is so thorough that a novice would have no trouble following both the events and the subsequent policy arguments. In addition to providing a vivid narrative of the sea actions, Daughan outlines land comapaigns to show how naval forces might have played a role. Moreover, this context includes insightful assessments of both American and British political and military decision makers.

Another strength is the prose itself, which is lively, even gripping at times. Daughan's thoughful introductions to the major historical characters quickly involve the reader in the narrative. And Daughan does not limit himself to the usual suspects. While he includes a sprightly account of John Paul Jones's 1779 fight with the HMS Serapis in the North Sea, he concludes that "suburb leaders," like Jones and others, "were wasted in largely meaningless, although at times spectacular and heroic, missions" (p.76). The British naval theater commander, Lord Richard Howe, who, according to Daughan, "carried out his orders selectively," plays a larger role in the story than does Jones (p.165).

In the second half of the book Daughan contributes to the ongoing rehabilitation of President John Adams, portraying him as both realistic and courageous (though Daughan has nothing but scorn for Thomas Jefferson, whom he depicts as not only averse to war but so horrified by the prospect as to behave cravenly). If Jefferson survived a French threat to Louisiana and a war with the Barbary powers. Daughan concludes, then it was becouse he was lucky rather than good. Daughan describes Jefferson as "pusillanimous" in his relations with Britian adopting a policy of economic coercion that "invited contempt" (p. 384). These passionate arguments invite a response and will perhaps reinvigorate the debate over Jefferson and early American naval policy.

Craig L Symonds

U.S. Naval Academy