Historians have given a great deal of attention to the lives and experiences of Civil War soldiers, but surprisingly little is known about navy sailors who participated in the conflict. Michael J. Bennett remedies the longstanding neglect of Civil War seamen in this comprehensive assessment of the experience of common Union sailors from 1861 to 1865. To resurrect the voices of the "Union Jacks," Bennett combed sailors' diaries, letters, and journals. He finds that the sailors differed from their counterparts in the army in many ways. They tended to be a rougher bunch of men than the regular soldiers, drinking and fighting excessively. Those who were not foreign-born, escaped slaves, or unemployed at the time they enlisted often hailed from the urban working class rather than from rural farms and towns. In addition, most sailors enlisted for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons. Bennett's examination provides a look into the everyday lives of sailors and illuminates where they came from, why they enlisted, and how their origins shaped their service. By showing how these Union sailors lived and fought on the sea, Bennett brings an important new perspective to our understanding of the Civil War.
To trace the course of the Yankee from Gloucester harbor around the world is to re-draft in no small degree a map of strange and remote parts of the globe. Among her ports of call was Floreana in the Galapagos, then the home of the tragic Baroness and her companions. Then 3000 miles of open sea brought the Yankee to tiny Pitcairn, famous from the saga of the Bounty. And in succession Tahiti, Cook Islands, the Fiji and Solomon Islands, the New Hebrides, North Borneo, and the China Sea. Followed the far East, Siam, Singapore, the East Indies and South Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, and finally, after eighteen months across the Atlantic to reach again her home port in Gloucester.On this voyage Captain Johnson and his interesting ship's company made many inland explorations among strange lands and native peoples. New islands were charted and places visited hitherto unknown to white men's experiences. Their discovery of one of the highest waterfalls in the world, which they promptly named "Yankee Falls," is an unusual tale among modern seafaring chronicles. They day by day story of the Yankee's voyage and the uncommon experiences of her people is written in the good deep sea tradition--a simple terse style and great economy of expression. All in all the reader will find here a grand tale of the sea.
Leah travels to Washington D.C. with her father to share the Gospel with soldiers. Jeff briefly joins them and travels north into Union territory to search for his captured father. Later, Leah and her sister Sarah travel south to Richmond, in Confederate territory, to care for their ailing uncle Silas, and Leah has to defend her sister against charges of treason. Yankee Belles in Dixie is the second of a ten book series, that tells the story of two close families find themselves on different sides of the Civil War after the fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861. Thirteen year old Leah becomes a helper in the Union army with her father, who hopes to distribute Bibles to the troops. Fourteen year old Jeff becomes a drummer boy in the Confederate Army and struggles with faith while experiencing personal hardship and tragedy. The series follows Leah, Jeff, family, and friends, as they experience hope and God’s grace through four years of war.
With American independence came the freedom to sail anywhere in the world under a new flag. Drawing on private journals, letters, ships' logs, memoirs, and newspaper accounts, this book traces America's earliest encounters on a global stage through the exhilarating experiences of five Yankee seafarers.
Built around mariners' journals of their pioneering voyages, Yankee India charts the early development of commercial and cultural relations between the United States and India in the Age of Sail. The end of colonial rule in 1783 had given American merchants and ship owners the freedom to trade in Asia. Voyages from ports along the eastern seaboard were the first American links to the distant and exotic culture of India. Mariners' journals and letters speak of encounters with vastly different ways of life that sometimes challenged and sometimes reinforced ideas about decorum, religion, and morality and that influenced attitudes toward imperialism, legitimate rule, and free trade. Material embodiments of India at the time -- prints, paintings, and figurines depicting Indian scenes and people; "hubble-bubbles", "idols", fans and other souvenirs; as well as goods like bandannas, palampores (bed covers), and shawls-augment and illustrate the story. Previously untapped archives and collections of the Peabody Essex Museum, whose founders were captains and supercargoes in the Asia trade, provide the principal resources. These first encounters between the United States and India in the Age of Sail laid the foundation for American views of India and contributed to the development of American and Indian national and cultural sensibilities. Yankee India brings this important but little known episode to a wide range of readers interested in the histories of the United States and India, and in the impacts of intercultural encounters.