The Lost Fleet: A Yankee Whaler's Struggle Against the Confederate Navy and Arctic Disaster

by Marc Songini

Book Overview

It's the mid-19th century and the American whaling fleet, the wonder and envy of the maritime nations of the world, is struck by one hammer blow after another. Yankee whalers are contending with icebergs, storms, rogue whales, sharks, hostile natives, and disease. Now conditions are getting even worse, and the chances become ever slimmer a whaling master and his crew will return from a voyage safe and profitable. The scarcity of whales, the increasing...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312286481
• ISBN13: 9780312286484
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.6" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent history but painful prose style

Very interesting and well researched history of the rise and fall of the whaling industry in America. But of the several books I've read about whaling (In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.. is a good one) this author had the most odd style of prose. It just did not flow along for me. The sentence structure and odd choices of words made the read a chore at times, but the interesting information and overall story of the time period made it worth the slog. Possibly the author was using this style as an affectation to help immerse the reader in the "feel" of that past.

An Important Lesson

At the dawn of the age of oil, whale blubber illuminated the homes and streets of America and lubricated the early machinery of the industrial revolution. The United States was once the most important whaling nation. By one estimate we accounted for 70% of the world's catch. Now Boston Journalist Marc Songini has written a poignant and thought provoking account of the decline of whaling and the people associated with it. His book, The Lost Fleet, is centered on the fortunes of New Bedford, Massachusetts which was once one the wealthiest cities in 19th century America. The town motto was Lucem Diffundo, "We Light the World". By 1850 of the 700 or so whalers in the American fleet 80% sailed from the port of New Bedford. As Herman Melville himself wrote: The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England. Nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Within a few short years political, economic, and ecology changes had destroyed the fleet and delivered a blow to New Bedford which it has never recovered from. One punch came with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. After two ill advised efforts to block Charleston Harbor using New England stone laden whalers, the fleet became a special political target of the Confederate Navy. New Bedford's fleet was decimated first by the CSS Alabama and later by the CSS Shenandoah. Ecology also played a major role in ending New Bedford's prominence. As the over-hunted whales retreated further and further north to escape the fleet's harpoons, whalers where forced to sail further and further to capture them - in some cases to the waters off Alaska. Two unusually early winters in 1871 and 1876 trapped and wrecked many New Bedford ships in the ice around Point Barrow. Still, the biggest blow to whaling may have been the least dramatic, when in 1859 the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania. This shifted the economics of oil, whittling whaling further and further away from profitability. Yet whaling has cast a very large shadow on the United States in form of the acquisition of Hawaii and Alaska into the Union, one of the greatest American novels Moby Dick, many of its best folk songs, and tattoos. New Bedford was also a hotbed of abolitionism and gave refuge to Frederick Douglass after he escaped from slavery. With entertaining turns of phrases and memorable characters, Songini captures not only the facts but the sense of the era. Whaling was a hard, cruel business for men and especially for whales. Today the United States has no whaling industry and it is the national champion of the effort to save them. As we approach the end of the oil age there are many parallels that are worth appreciating and The Lost Fleet is a great book to start considering them.

An enthralling, captivating history of the U.S. whaling fleet

Today, whaling is illegal, but back in the 1800s it was a way of life for many people in New England, and especially in New Bedford, MA, which basically served as the headquarters for the U.S. whaling fleet. That's the setting for The Lost Fleet, a new novel by author Marc Songini. The Lost Fleet chronicles the demise of the U.S. whaling fleet, with the Civil War and the harsh Arctic weather of 1871 serving as the two major culprits. In the book, Songini makes a perfect choice for the story's hero in Captain Thomas William Williams. Captain Williams had a brilliant career until the waning months of the Civil War. That's when, like many others in the US whaling fleet, his ship met its end at the hand of the Shenandoah, a Confederate naval ship whose sole purpose was to disrupt the fleet, and, in turn, negatively impact the Union economy. Having survived his run in with the Shenandoah, Williams captained another ship - one that froze in during the late Arctic summer of 1871. Songini does a tremendous job bringing his characters to life, and gets the reader to genuinely care about the fate of Williams and his crew as he captures the dangers of their job. In the book, you see beyond the brutality of whaling to recognize the honor and determination in the men who put their lives on the line to trap these leviathans. Williams' life is brought to the forefront, as his relationship with wife Eliza is examined thoroughly. Eliza serves as the metaphorical lighthouse in Williams' life throughout the book. For the most part, she stays at home tending to the children as she waits for Williams' return, but she also travels with Williams on a few of his voyages, serving as mother hen to her husband and his crew. Songini's Northeast upbringing comes through in the writing, and you see the admiration that he has for the hard life those in the whaling industry endured to put food on the table for their families; in doing so, he makes the book that more interesting for the reader. As important, Songini stays away from using terminology that only nautical experts would understand (and even care about) - writing in laymen's terms, so that landlubbers like me can thoroughly enjoy the book. Whether you are a fan of sea tales, a Civil War buff, or enjoy non-fiction and/or U.S. history, you will be enthralled by this book from the moment you open it until you read the poignant final pages of the story. And, then, you are left eagerly awaiting for Songini to write his next novel.

A Little Known History Of Whalers Brought To Life

This is a book about the whaling industry, its sea captains, their families, the financial backers, the whales themselves and the eventual demise of this once important industry. There are three main sections in this book. The first treats the whaling industry, its history, and the life of one whaling family in particular then delves into the involvement of whalers in the War Between The States as they embark upon a mission to help reduce the sea power of the South. The second section takes us world-wide on the high seas and is a great adventure story as the Confederate Navy dispatches vessels to hunt and destroy Yankee whaling vessels. Finally, we are led into a struggle of the whalers to find their prey when the population of whales has been seriously reduced by over-hunting. The whalers take their fleet into the Arctic and encounter travails that are legendary though little known today. This is one exciting book. I will value what I learned from this book when I go back to New england and visit the whaling museums and the last old, sail rigged whaling vessel still floating (at dockside). The book is also educational and a nice addition to the know-how that can benefit a trip to Alaska.

What a world!

Songini's new book shows a gritty world almost unimaginable by today's standards. A sea captain persuades his wife to join him in the pursuit of the world's largest animals, which are hunted and rendered before her eyes, ears and nose. She is pregnant, gives birth at sea and recuperates with her new son on an island under the care of a Christian missionary who entertains her with stories about the native cannibals. And this is only the first chapter. You might think it is fiction, but there is a bibliography. Still, the book doesn't seem to be too sensational, nor too academic. I'm liking the balance between the two extremes.