Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy

I’ve read Ian W. Toll’s 3-book series on WW2 in the Pacific. They were all very well-written and revealed facts, incidents, events, personalities, etc. that I did not know or misunderstood. Given my admiration of his WW2 in the Pacific books, I purchased “Six Frigates”, but I anticipated that it wouldn’t be as good or as interesting. I was wrong. It was almost better. Ian W. Toll’s books have set a high standard for all history books that I now read.“Six Frigates” is NOT a history book for everyone. It’s mostly about tall sailing ships. I don’t have a naval background so most of the naval, seamanship, sailing, rigging, and tall ship jargon simply flew over-my-head. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading it even though it was a struggle at times. I don’t fault the author since he couldn’t dumb-down the book to my level.My knowledge of US history has a big void between the Revolutionary War through the outbreak of the Civil War. “Six Frigates” helped plug up some of my knowledge gap by covering the final years of President George Washington and the terms of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. (He also covered Theodore Roosevelt who I did not know wrote a history book entitled “The Naval War of 1812” and, as POTUS, ordered the US Navy to sail around the world as The Great White Fleet to demonstrate US sea power.)I thought “Six Frigates” would only cover the building and the deployment of the original six frigates of the US Navy. I was wrong. The book covers much, much more (like dueling).“Six Frigates” covers the bitter political partisan fighting that reminds me of 2022. This surprised me. I thought there would be more harmony and unity given that the US had just won its independence.I found the budgeting and debating on the purpose, the design, and the construction of the six frigates and the establishment of a standing US Navy more controversial than I expected. The start-up cost to construct, equip, maintain, and man US naval vessels was incredibly expensive. i can understand why some politicians would balk at the cost.The reasons for the deployment of the US warships to fight in the Barbary Wars was a revelation to me. I never knew much about that war other than it being in the lyrics of the USMC hymn.The stopping, searching, and impressment of sailors serving on US vessels by the British navy as being one of the catalyst to the War of 1812 is something that I did not know. The fact that the British navy did it with impunity and without regards to citizenship is amazing.I read “Six Frigates” during the first 200 days of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As I read the book, I kept finding similarities between the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the War of 1812. I guess history does repeat itself when it comes to wars.Like Russia and Ukraine, the US and Great Britain were once one nation. They shared a common language and heritage. Russia and Great Britain were considered the dominate military force in those relationships. When the War of 1812 began, Great Britain did not deploy its powerful military forces to overwhelm the US. When the US Navy had early success against the British navy, it generated vile derogatory attacks by the British tabloids, politicians, etc. against the Americans with calls for the British military to be more ruthless. The British recruited and deployed prisoners to serve in its military during the war. There were incidents of rape, murder, torture, looting, razing by British forces against American civilians which reminded me of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.When the War of 1812 ended, Great Britain would no longer be a threat to the US. The US would expand its fleet of warships; and become a dominate regional and world military and economic power. Hopefully, Ukraine will have the same outcome against Russia.

Role’s reputation as the premier writer of The U.S. Navy is fully justified by this history of the creation of the.mightiest sea force in history. If you were graduating from Great Lake's boot camp and had ambition to succeed in the Navy reading this book and his brilliant trilogy of the Pacific campaign would launch your career. I believe that. So I confided to my handsome grand Don to do that poste haste. Here's to all Seaman who uphold the fine traditions Of The United States Navy. Fair winds and following seas me hardies.

It's a great read with a lot of historical significance as to how our great USN was constructed. Our Founding Fathers in a new government had to figure out how to function even though they disagreed

What a history! Now having walked two of these great ships after reading this, I such a better understanding of what it took to build and man these beautiful ships.Well written, covers the history leading up to, during the build, and service lives of the ships. This really put this part of our history together for me.

America has had a navy since the American Revolution. General Washington's Continental Army prevailed in that conflict. Ian W. Toll writes that in contrast, "The Continental Navy, with few exceptions, was a wasteful and humiliating fiasco." Only a few decades later, however, by the War of 1812, the United States Navy was a formidable and respected force. Toll has masterfully presented the history of those decades in _Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy_ (Norton). This is Toll's first book; he is a former financial analyst and political speechwriter, but it is big, authoritative, and often exciting. It nicely ties the inchoate navy to the political philosophy of the new nation, and to the world events which compelled America, often reluctantly, to take to the seas in warships. Despite its size, annotations, and enormous bibliography, because of its concentration on personalities and action, Toll's book is less the dry history of the naval theorist than it is the thrilling nautical tales from Patrick O'Brian. (In fact, in compliment to that accomplished storyteller, Toll has incorporated a page of the Jack Aubrey novel _The Fortune of War_ into his account of the 1812 battle between the frigates _Constitution_ and _Java_.)The colonists had always been enthusiastic about making their fortunes from the sea or commerce upon it, but after the Revolution, they had almost nothing that could be called a navy. They also did not have the Royal Navy to protect their merchantmen. So when American merchant vessels come into the Mediterranean, they were at risk from the pirates of the Barbary states, but when the nation started seriously considering a navy, there was no naval tradition to go by and there were no easy or predictable answers; many argued against having a navy altogether. The continuing capture of vessels by the pirates, however, caused President Washington in 1794 to sign into law the purchase of six innovative warships. Jefferson was the first to deploy the navy into war, against the pirates. The expedition was the first of many victories for the _Constitution_ and the beginning of the reasons that the world needed to take notice of the new nation as a naval and international power. The second great conflict covered here is the War of 1812, fought against the huge and powerful British Navy over its confiscation of American merchant shipping, and its impressment of American sailors into British service. The commanders of the U.S. vessels were too brash to accept the aura of invincibility that the Royal Navy had as its due, and in three single ship duels, the sort of thing at which the British were champions, the Americans got clear victories. The war changed the way the world thought about the United States and how it thought about itself. Churchill wrote that there remained anti-American sentiment in England for several years, "... but the United States was never again refused proper treatment as an independent power." It was only after the war of 1812, Toll reminds us, that Americans started speaking of the United States in the singular rather than in the plural.Toll is exceptional at showing how human personalities and foibles made a difference in peculiar ways. The first British ambassador to the United States reported in 1803 with disgust that he, while wearing full diplomatic regalia, was received by President Jefferson "standing in slippers down at the heels ... in a state of negligence actually studied." The diplomatic acrimony over this and other slights only ended when war wiped them out. Toll asks, "Could a pair of slippers come between nations?" There are many pages devoted to superstitions. Whatever comfort against fate the superstitions might have given sailors, plenty were positively unhealthy, like the belief that bathing was dangerous because it might wash away your good luck, or that tattoos were protection against venereal disease. Even more surprising are the sections on dueling, which remained popular among hotheaded young American officers long after it was abandoned in other quarters. "The junior naval officer, done up in his high standing collar and gold lace, was as testy and vain as a fighting gamecock," Toll writes, and if a war was not handy, he was eager to show his honor in front of the pistol of a fellow officer. "Not surprisingly, the frequency of dueling appears to have been inversely related to the frequency of naval combat." Any excuse might do; one midshipman took offense when another entered the wardroom with his hat on, and challenged him. Toll even pays a historian's compliment to Teddy Roosevelt, who wrote _The Naval War of 1812_ during his off hours from college and law school; the work on the book gave Roosevelt lessons used "... in the course of his remarkable career as an American statesman and a devoted imperialist." One page after another in this fine history yields curious facts, thrilling scenes of battle, and grim depictions of battle's toll.

Fantastically researched and writte. Important to me for the info on the 'Constellation', on which my gr gr gr grandfather served in the late 1700s and early1800.

bought as a gift

Review of Ian Toll-‘Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy’A masterful piece in the vein of McGrath’s ‘John Barry’ (2010) and ‘Give Me a Fast Ship’ (2014) provides a sweeping scope of war at sea in the era of sail. The book is well documented, fully researched and grounded in the economic and diplomatic history of the early decades of the new republic and its quarrels with France and England. From the end of the American Revolution through the Tripolitan War against the Barbary pirates, the Quasi War and events leading up to the War of 1812, the fledgling US Navy went through a tumultuous period, one of political and diplomatic tugs of war that saw the navy dismantled (1785) mainly because of costs. With American shipping preyed upon by the Algerian states, President Washington persuaded congress to authorize the building of a navy, originally 4 frigates of 44-guns and two of 28-guns. The Naval Act of 1794 saw the birth of the U.S. Navy and the final realization that 44-gun frigates posed tactical advantages over lesser armed British brigs/frigates of 28-guns and more heavily armed British battleships with 74-guns. Thus, this led to the building of a new class of warship which gave the new navy an unforeseen edge that had been missed by Britain and France. Hence, following the signing of a treaty with the Barbary States, the navy was mothballed until the Quasi War with France reenergized the refitting of ships to harry French shipping, and ultimately the construction of six frigates: President, Congress, United States, Constitution, Constellation and Chesapeake. Of all the early 19th century frigates built only the Constitution is a commissioned vessel of the US navy still afloat in Boston Harbor. As with Alfred Mahan’s ‘The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783,’ Ian Toll’s ‘Six Frigates’, the 2008 winner of the Samuel Eliot Morrison Award for Naval Literature, is an important addition to naval history and a book well worth reading.W.C. Mahaney, author of ‘The Warmaker’ (2008), ‘The Golden Till’ (2010) and ‘Operation Black Eagle’ (2012).

Toll provides a readable history of the first days of the US Navy and, indeed, the first days of a new nation. The personalities and policies are finely drawn and the naval engagements vividly described. It leaves the reader wanting to know about that period, always a sign of good writing.

Toll brings hisory to life.