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Authors: James P. Delgado
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sea.
When
Somers
reached New York on December 14, news of the “mutiny” spread quickly. At first, the press acclaimed Mackenzie’s actions. The
New York Herald
of December 18 enthused: “We can hardly find language to express our admiration of the conduct of Commander Mackenzie.” But questions soon arose over the hasty nature of the executions, as well as their necessity. And then there was the matter ofjust who Philip Spencer was. The nineteen-year-old midshipman was the son of Secretary of War John Canfield Spencer. A difficult boy, Philip’s short but notorious naval career had been punctuated by drunken behavior and brawls.
Somers
, ironically, had been his last chance. Mackenzie and his officers had not been overjoyed, to put it mildly, by his arrival. Nonetheless, Spencer remained despite their protests and sailed with
Somers
on a voyage that took him to eternity.
Mackenzie’s actions aroused outrage among his detractors and concern from his friends when, in response to questions as to why he could not have kept the prisoners in irons until
Somers
reached port in the Virgin Islands just four days later, he explained that the quick executions at sea had been necessary because Spencer, as the son of a prominent man, probably would have escaped justice ashore. A damning letter in the
Washington Madisonian
of December 20, probably penned by Spencer’s angry and anguished father, whipped up sentiment for the dead midshipman, summing up his transgression as “the mere romance of a heedless boy, amusing himself, it is true, in a dangerous manner, but still devoid of such murderous designs as are imputed.” The actions of Mackenzie, on the other hand, were characterized as “the result of unmanly fear, or of a despotic temper, and wholly unnecessary at the time”
Debate over the “mutiny” and Mackenzie’s actions raged in the press, on the streets and throughout the nation. Anxious to clear his name, he asked for and received a court of inquiry. The month-long hearing absolved him of wrongdoing, but not sufficiently to satisfy him, his defenders, his detractors or the Secretary of the Navy, who immediately agreed to Mackenzie’s request for a full court-martial. The court-martial, on charges of murder, illegal punishment, conduct unbecoming an officer, and general cruelty and oppression, lasted two months. Some influential citizens rallied to Mackenzie’s support, while others, notably the famous author James Fenimore Cooper, railed against him as a tyrant and murderer. The court-martial finally acquitted Mackenzie of all charges, but not unanimously. At the heart of his own near-hanging was the fact that he did not have the legal authority to execute his menat sea; they had been denied the very court-martial that now protected the captain from a similar fate.
Alexander Slidell Mackenzie’s career was, however, effectively over. He retained his rank but not his ship, nor was he given any other command save a brief one years later.
One significant result was the decision to abolish training ships. Instead, in 1845, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft authorized the creation of a school ashore, now the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Maryland. And a literary reference to the affair appeared in a book written by Herman Melville, cousin of Guert Gansevoort,
Somers’s
first officer. Melville mentioned the “mutiny” in
White Jacket
in 1850: “Three men, in a time of peace, were then hung at the yard-arm, merely because, in the Captain’s judgment, it became necessary to hang them. To this day the question of their complete guilt is socially discussed.”
But the most famous use of the
Somers’s
story by Melville came in his last tale found in his desk after his death and not published until 1924 as
Billy Budd:
O, ’tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.
Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On that dark December afternoon in 1842,
When
Somers
reached New York on December 14, news of the “mutiny” spread quickly. At first, the press acclaimed Mackenzie’s actions. The
New York Herald
of December 18 enthused: “We can hardly find language to express our admiration of the conduct of Commander Mackenzie.” But questions soon arose over the hasty nature of the executions, as well as their necessity. And then there was the matter ofjust who Philip Spencer was. The nineteen-year-old midshipman was the son of Secretary of War John Canfield Spencer. A difficult boy, Philip’s short but notorious naval career had been punctuated by drunken behavior and brawls.
Somers
, ironically, had been his last chance. Mackenzie and his officers had not been overjoyed, to put it mildly, by his arrival. Nonetheless, Spencer remained despite their protests and sailed with
Somers
on a voyage that took him to eternity.
Mackenzie’s actions aroused outrage among his detractors and concern from his friends when, in response to questions as to why he could not have kept the prisoners in irons until
Somers
reached port in the Virgin Islands just four days later, he explained that the quick executions at sea had been necessary because Spencer, as the son of a prominent man, probably would have escaped justice ashore. A damning letter in the
Washington Madisonian
of December 20, probably penned by Spencer’s angry and anguished father, whipped up sentiment for the dead midshipman, summing up his transgression as “the mere romance of a heedless boy, amusing himself, it is true, in a dangerous manner, but still devoid of such murderous designs as are imputed.” The actions of Mackenzie, on the other hand, were characterized as “the result of unmanly fear, or of a despotic temper, and wholly unnecessary at the time”
Debate over the “mutiny” and Mackenzie’s actions raged in the press, on the streets and throughout the nation. Anxious to clear his name, he asked for and received a court of inquiry. The month-long hearing absolved him of wrongdoing, but not sufficiently to satisfy him, his defenders, his detractors or the Secretary of the Navy, who immediately agreed to Mackenzie’s request for a full court-martial. The court-martial, on charges of murder, illegal punishment, conduct unbecoming an officer, and general cruelty and oppression, lasted two months. Some influential citizens rallied to Mackenzie’s support, while others, notably the famous author James Fenimore Cooper, railed against him as a tyrant and murderer. The court-martial finally acquitted Mackenzie of all charges, but not unanimously. At the heart of his own near-hanging was the fact that he did not have the legal authority to execute his menat sea; they had been denied the very court-martial that now protected the captain from a similar fate.
Alexander Slidell Mackenzie’s career was, however, effectively over. He retained his rank but not his ship, nor was he given any other command save a brief one years later.
One significant result was the decision to abolish training ships. Instead, in 1845, Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft authorized the creation of a school ashore, now the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, Maryland. And a literary reference to the affair appeared in a book written by Herman Melville, cousin of Guert Gansevoort,
Somers’s
first officer. Melville mentioned the “mutiny” in
White Jacket
in 1850: “Three men, in a time of peace, were then hung at the yard-arm, merely because, in the Captain’s judgment, it became necessary to hang them. To this day the question of their complete guilt is socially discussed.”
But the most famous use of the
Somers’s
story by Melville came in his last tale found in his desk after his death and not published until 1924 as
Billy Budd:
O, ’tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.
Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too
Early in the morning, aloft from alow.
On that dark December afternoon in 1842,
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