Claude Berube

A biography of Captain Charles Stewart, USN. Born in 1778, Captain Stewart died in 1869 – and was on active duty until 1860, as Commander of the Philadelphia Navy Yard.


A Call to the Sea is very detailed, and has the problem that any military biography has – most soldiers and sailors lives are long periods of excruciating boredom interspersed with brief moments of terror. Thus we learn about Stewart’s childhood, military service, living arrangements and domestic difficulties. Authors Claude Berube and John Rodgaard have the problem that the apex of Stewart’s life came relatively early on, in 1815, when as Captain of the U.S.S. Constitution he took on two Royal Navy warships, the H.M.S. Cyane and H.M.S. Levant, and took both of them. Ironically, the authors don’t do a very good job with this battle; for one thing they consistently confuse ship’s gun rating with the actual number of guns the ship was carrying. Thus Cyane is called a “34-gun light frigate” when in fact she was a sixth-rate rated at 22 guns, and Levant is even more strangely called a “21-gun ship” and a “corvette” when she was rated as a 20-gun sixth-rate (AFAIK the Royal Navy did not use the term “corvette” to describe ships at this period; it was strictly a French term). Perhaps the authors were straining to make the Constitution’s victory seem even more impressive. What’s more, the highlight of the three-ship battle – when Stewart had Constitution deliberately taken aback and sailed backwards around Cyane’s stern to rake her – is barely mentioned and without note of how difficult this maneuver was. The authors do provide a little detail I’ve never heard mentioned elsewhere; earlier in this cruise the Constitution took the British merchant ship Susan; her South American cargo included two jaguars, which Stewart had penned in one of the Constitution’s boats. Unfortunately both cats were killed by Cyane’s first broadside.


Stewart married Delia Tudor, a wealthy Boston debutante, in 1813. She proved much more difficult to maneuver than Constitution. Several of Stewart friends commented that the pair were very ill-suited; Stewart was the epitome of a no-nonsense naval officer while Delia seems to have been a 19th-century Paris Hilton. Somehow Delia managed to spend way more money than her family or her husband could provide; this was possibly why Stewart took her along when he commanded the U.S.S. Franklin on a “show the flag” mission to the Pacific Coast of revolutionary South America from 1821 to 1824 – to keep her out of trouble at home. It didn’t work; Delia managed to spend just as much money in South America. Even worse, she smuggled an escaping Royalist officer on board. Apparently other ship’s officers so enamored or intimidated by Mrs. Stewart that they neglected to report this to the Commodore Stewart. When Stewart was questioned by a Revolutionary official, he denied that he had given sanctuary to any escaping Royalists when in fact one was hiding out below decks. Stewart had the active sense of honor common at this time; when he found out he had lied – albeit inadvertently – he struck the lieutenant that reported the news and ceased speaking to Mrs. Stewart – not only for the rest of the cruise, but ever. It didn’t help that when Sewart returned to the States, he was court-martialed over the affair and Delia refused to turn up to speak for his defense (he was acquitted anyway). (The authors don’t speculate if Mrs. Stewart had a deeper interest in the officer, known only as “Madrid” but rumored to be high-ranking, than just helping him escape. When he latter snuck off the ship he was wearing some of Commodore Stewart’s spare clothes).


Needless to say, Stewart’s refusal to speak to his wife put just a little strain on their marriage, but given the rather slow pace of legal proceedings at the time they didn’t divorce until 1828. Stewart did not remarry, but did take up with a local lady and apparently had several poorly-documented illegitimate children. After battles with the Royal Navy and his wife, the rest of Stewart’s career was prosaic; he held a series of “desk jobs” and finally retired just after the outbreak of the Civil War.


In the “who knew” department, I was intrigued to discover that Stewart and Delia’s daughter, Delia Stewart, married John Parnell of Ireland, and their son was the famous Irish patriot Charles Stewart Parnell; thus the Stewart family vexed Great Britain on land and sea.


Worth reading for the history, if rather pedestrian as a biography. As the coverage of naval actions is a little sparse, I would definitely not use this as an only source for the War of 1812 battles.… (altro)

A brilliant but undisciplined and now ex- SWO (Surface Warfare Officer)is pressed back into service by an ex-lover now-ambassador who needs to solve piracy in the Gulf of Aden to help her career. He does, as we all expect.

It's more fun than I make it sound. Although it's a pretty formulaic member of the political-thriller genre, the author provides convincing shipboard narrative (though he's no Joe Conrad) and enough twist to the characters to keep them semi-original. When another Connor Stark novel comes out, I'll read it.… (altro)

Captain Charles Stewart was an early US naval leader, and a star of the War of 1812. While this book is a biography of his life, it’s very heavy in Naval and Maritime history. The book is written for someone who has prior knowledge of some naval history with working knowledge of tall ships. For me, I really am not familiar with the parts of ships and certain incidents casually mentioned but not explained in this book. So having to look everything up took away from the actual enjoyment of reading this book so I gave it a low score. However, this book would be very interesting to someone who already has a base knowledge of maritime history.… (altro)