![]() The battle depictions are worthy of Patrick O’Brian (whose fictional hero, Jack Aubrey, he cleverly uses to illustrate a scene in the December 1812 shootout between the American frigate Constitution and the British frigate Java). But the book’s real value, and the pleasures it provides, lies in Toll’s grasp of the human dimension of his subject, often obscured in the dry tomes of naval historians. This first book by Toll, a former financial analyst and political speechwriter, is a fluent, intelligent history of American military policy from the early 1790s, when Congress commissioned six frigates to fight the Barbary pirates, through the War of 1812. “He prayed for war as a farmer would pray for rain and a lawyer would pray for lawsuits.” For a midshipman - a “young gentleman” - denied the chance to test his honor before enemy fire, a colleague’s pistol shot would have to do. Toll writes in “Six Frigates,” his superb history of the founding of America’s Navy. ![]() “The junior naval officer, done up in his high standing collar and gold lace, was as testy and vain as a fighting gamecock,” Ian W. About half those deaths occurred before 1815. ![]() Between 17, when it was finally banned, 36 officers were killed in 82 duels. But in the United States Navy, dueling - with pistols or swords, usually over a trivial insult - was still popular among young officers. By the early 19th century, dueling had been shunned and ridiculed by Enlightenment thinkers as a vestige of feudalism. ![]()
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