Description

The greatest controversy in the history of the US Navy of the early American Republic was the revelation that the son of the Secretary of War had seemingly plotted a bloody mutiny that would have turned the US brig Somers into a pirate ship The plot discovered he and his coconspirators were hastily condemned and hanged at sea

The repercussions of those acts brought headlines scandal a fistfight at a cabinet meeting a court martial ruined lives lost reputations and tales of a haunted ship bound for the devil and lost tragically at sea with many of its crew The Somers affair led to the founding of the US Naval Academy and it remains the Navys only acknowledged mutiny in its history The story also inspired Herman Melvilles WhiteJacket and Billy Budd Others connected to the Somers included Commodore Perry a relation and defender of the Somerss captain Mackenzie James Fenimore Cooper whose feud with the captain dating back to the War of 1812 resurfaced in his reportage of the affair and Raphael Semmes the Somerss last captain who later served in the Confederate Navy

The Curse of the Somers is a thorough recreation of this classic tale told with the help of recently uncovered evidence