Warship under Sail

The USS Decatur in the Pacific West

Lorraine McConaghy

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• Published: October 2009
• Subject Listing: Maritime History, Northwest History
• Bibliographic information: 344 pp., 53 illus., 5 maps, notes, bibliog., index, 8.5 x 10 in.
• Published with: Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest
• Series: Emil and Kathleen Sick Lecture-Book Series in Western History and Biography
• Contents

Ordered to join the Pacific Squadron in 1854, the sloop of war Decatur sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, through the Strait of Magellan to Valparaiso, Honolulu, and Puget Sound, then on to San Francisco, Panama, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, while serving in the Pacific until 1859, the eve of the Civil War. Historian Lorraine McConaghy presents the ship, its officers, and its crew in a vigorous, keenly rendered case study that illuminates the forces shaping America's antebellum navy and foreign policy in the Pacific, from Vancouver Island to Tierra del Fuego.

One of only five ships in the squadron, the Decatur participated in numerous imperial adventures in the Far West, enforcing treaties, fighting Indians, suppressing vigilantes, and protecting commerce. With its graceful lines and towering white canvas sails, the ship patrolled the sandy border between ocean and land.

Warship under Sail focuses on four episodes in the Decatur's Pacific Squadron mission: the harrowing journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean through the Strait of Magellan; a Seattle war story that contested American treaties and settlements; participation with other squadron ships on a U.S. State Department mission to Nicaragua; and more than a year spent anchored off Panama as a hospital ship. In a period of five years, more than 300 men lived aboard ship, leaving a rich record of logbooks, medical and punishment records, correspondence, personal journals, and drawings. Lorraine McConaghy has mined these records to offer a compelling social history of a warship under sail. Her research adds immeasurably to our understanding of the lives of ordinary men at sea and American expansionism in the antebellum Pacific West.

Lorraine McConaghy is the historian at the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle.

"The world that Dr. McConaghy has captured, both aboard the Decatur and in the ports it visited, will be unfamiliar to almost everyone who reads this book; indeed, that strangeness or lost-ness is one of her major points. The maps and historic images help to make that world more concrete." - Coll Thrush, author of Native Seattle: Histories from the Crossing-Over Place

"The story the author tells is fresh and original and relates to a number of significant subjects, including the history of the Old Navy, the Pacific Northwest, antebellum national politics, the Manifest Destiny movement, and the lore of the sea." - James Valle, Delaware State University

"In Warship under Sail, McConaghy has found a lens through which to examine anew the founding of Seattle. The vessel participated in the iconic 'Battle of Seattle,' that day-long skirmish during January 1856 between 'Natives' and 'non-Natives' that looms so large in historical accounts of the city." - John M. Findlay, University of Washington

Preface
Introduction
1. Young America on the Pacific: "The Sailor of Manifest Destiny Views"
2. The Decatur in the Old Navy: "To Command Our Own Seas and Coasts"
3. Boston: Getting Under Way
4. Episode 1. Through the Strait of Magellan: "Off to Californio!"
5. Episode 2. Seattle: "Down Came the Indians, Like so Many Demons"
6. San Francisco: "This Reckless Life"
7. Episode 3. Nicaragua: "Seeing the Elephant"
8. Episode 4. Panama: "All the Subtle Demonisms of Life and Thought"
9. The Civil War and Beyond
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index