The Naval War of 1812

Collector Notes

P. Rice

While Theodore Roosevelt, the future president of the United States, was a student at Harvard College, he began compiling a study of the United States Navy. As a fledgling historian, he was disturbed by the slanted histories which had been written concerning the Navy’s involvement in the war against Great Britain in 1812. He decided to set the record straight, and his scholastic effort became the foundation for The Naval War of 1812, originally published in 1882, just two years after the 23-year-old author’s college graduation.

Although clearly motivated by patriotic concerns, Roosevelt was not interested in perpetrating propaganda for the sake of defending the United States; he wanted to provide legitimate analysis and historical documentation to cast light on perspectives which had been ignored by the academic studies heretofore published on the subject. Military historians, even those who were not British, had difficulty accepting that the great British Navy, a navy that ruled the seas and would continue to dominate oceanic warfare into the twentieth century, could have been outmaneuvered and outfought by the upstart crews of its U.S. counterpart. The generally accepted view was that the British had been defeated by adverse circumstances and plain bad luck. Roosevelt’s investigation prompted him to refute that viewpoint and to boldly proclaim that the courage, fortitude, and discipline of the American sailors and their officers were the primary ingredients in the U.S. Navy’s ultimate triumph.

As he stated in his preface to the original edition, Roosevelt endeavored to supply a history that “can be made just enough to warrant its being received as an authority equally among Americans and Englishmen.” To this end he diligently explored all available resources and documented his efforts extensively. He clearly intended to provide a comprehensive and authoritative study that would pull together the best of the existing academic histories while eliminating as many of the contradictions as he could, and his final product successfully achieved his ambitious goals. The scholastic and literary success of The Naval War of 1812 not only announced the coming of a great American historian and orator, but it also set the standard for future studies on naval strategy and was subsequently required reading at the naval Academy in Annapolis for many years.

The literary style of The Naval War of 1812 remains true to the author’s academic purpose, but Theodore Roosevelt, even as a young man, was a gifted storyteller, and his prose style is fluid and skillfully crafted. He writes with the confidence of an educated and serious historian who is well-versed in the classics of world literature. Much like his slightly-younger contemporary Winston Churchill would demonstrate in his own ambitious histories, Roosevelt’s text displays a keen artistic voice and stands as an example of an influential and important historical document that is an equally important representation of fine literature.

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became the youngest president of the United States when at age 42 he was sworn into office in the wake of President William McKinley’s assassination in 1901. He was elected to a second term, and his time in office was marked by his indefatigable physical energy and remarkable enthusiasm for the natural wonders of the world. Already celebrated for his heroic exploits as a “Rough Rider” during the Spanish American War, Roosevelt had also served as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy prior to his tenure in the White House.

His passion for the U.S. Navy was uniquely honored in 1922 when the Navy League of New York successfully proposed that Navy Day be officially observed on October 27—the same day on which Theodore Roosevelt had been born in 1858. By the time of  his death in 1919, Roosevelt had firmly established himself as one of America’s finest and most popular statesmen. A prolific author, his other publications include The Winning of the West, African Game Trails, America and the World War, and his Autobiography.

Well over a century past its original publication, The Naval War of 1812 remains the authoritative book on the subject. The extraordinary text is complemented by an array of illustrations and statistics, and the documentation is informative and thorough. In anticipation of critical comments regarding certain omissions, the author’s preface includes a synopsis of the land battles of the war, and, because of its magnitude from the American perspective, the final chapter is devoted to the decisive Battle of New Orleans.

This volume truly represents military history and American storytelling at its finest, and this Easton Press edition offers the superlative printing and book binding which such a history deserves.  The genuine leather binding is adorned with gold stamping on the cover and further accented by 22-kt gold stamping on the spine. The silk ribbon marker and gold gilt gracefully add beauty and durability to the elegant design. The specially milled archival-quality paper and other unique features enhance this unparalleled presentation of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Naval War of 1812—an indispensable addition to your Leather-Bound Library of Military History.