Life Before the Mast: An Anthology of Eye-Witness Accounts from the Age of Fighting Sail

Life Before the Mast presents twenty-two eyewitness accounts of the battles, the hardships, and the excitement of naval service during the French Revolutionary War (1793-1802), the French Revolutionary War (1803-1815), and the War of 1812 – an age when combat at sea was won by skill, endurance, and sheer courage, and when Britain’s command of the sea was thought by many to be unshakable. Here is the reality behind the popular novels of sea fiction, gathered from memoirs, diaries, and personal letters. Exhilarating accounts of decisive naval actions, gunpowder and smoke, piracy and shipwrecks, are complemented by revealing glimpses of daily life aboard a man o’war, with its weevils and whippings, storms an salt pork. Fascinating and humorous, often poignant, this book relates the realities of naval warfare through the words of those who put their lives on the line – the officers and men of the English, French, and American navies.