The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence

by Alfred Thayer Mahan

Overview

Discover the depth and extent of the American Revolution's influence on the rest of the world with this essential work by a noted naval historian. Alfred Thayer Mahan discusses all of the conflict's major sea battles, including those between England and France, America's new ally after the colonial troops' 1777 victory at Saratoga. Readers will come to appreciate the extent to which the American Revolution was part of a world conflict and will learn lesser-known details of naval activity in the West Indies and elsewhere. Richly enhanced by contemporary illustrations and relevant maps, this is an essential work for any student or armchair historian with an interest in naval history and the American Revolution.
Author Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was an American naval officer and historian who studied and wrote extensively about the importance of sea power and its crucial impact on world history. His detailed accounts of the role that battles for control of the sea played in various wars were closely studied in his own time and long after by naval strategists all over the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486842103
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	07/15/2020
Series:	Dover Military History, Weapons, Armor
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	336,647
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914) was an American naval officer and historian who studied and wrote extensively about the importance of sea power and its crucial impact on world history. A proponent of the concept that a powerful navy was crucial in the age of international tension in which he lived, Mahan's detailed accounts of the role that battles for control of the sea played in various wars were closely studied in his own time and long after by naval strategists all over the world in the late 19th and 20th centuries. His other Dover books are the widely praised text The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1763 and Mahan on Naval Warfare.

Read an Excerpt

The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence INTRODUCTION THE TENDENCY OF WARS TO SPREAD MACAULAY, in a striking passage of his Essay on Frederick the Great, wrote, "The evils produced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of Prussia was unknown. In order that he might rob a neighbour whom he had promised to defend, black men fought on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North America." Wars, like conflagrations, tend to spread; more than ever perhaps in these days of close international entanglements and rapid communications. Hence the anxiety aroused and the care exercised by the governments of Europe, the most closely associated and the most sensitive on the earth, to forestall the kindling of even the slightest flame in regions where all alike are interested, though with diverse objects; regions such as the Balkan group of States in their exasperating relations with the Turkish empire, under which the Balkan peoples see constantly the bitter oppression of men of their own blood and religious faith by the tyranny of a government which can neither assimilate nor protect. The condition of Turkish European provinces is a perpetual lesson to those disposed to ignore or to depreciate the immense difficulties of administering politically, under one government, peoples traditionally and racially distinct, yet living side by side; not that the situation is much better anywhere in the Turkish empire. This still survives, though in an advanced state of decay, simply because other States are not prepared to encounter the risks of a disturbance which might end in a general bonfire, extending its ravages todistricts very far remote from the scene of the original trouble. Since these words...

Table of Contents

Slightly abbreviated Table of Contents:
Preface
List of Illustrations
List of Maps
List of Battle-Plans
Introduction
I. The Naval Campaign on Lake Champlain 1775-1776.
II. Naval Action at Boston, Charleston, New York, and Narragansett Bay
III.  The Decisive Period of the War. Surrender of Burgoyne and Capture of Philadelphia by Howe.  
IV. War Begins Between France and Great Britain.
V. The Naval War in Europe.  The Battle of Ushant, 1778
VI. Operations in the West Indies, 1778-1779.  The British Invasions of Georgia and South Carolina.
VII.  The Naval War in European Waters, 1778-1779.
VIII. Rodney and De Guichen's Naval Campaign in the West Indies.
IX. Naval Campaign in the West Indies in 1781.
X.  Naval Operations Preceding and Determining the Fall of Yorktown. Cornwallis Surrenders, 1781.
XI. Naval Events of 1781 in Europe.
XII. The Final Naval Campaign in the West Indies
XIII. Howe Again Goes Afloat. The Final Relief of Gibraltar, 1782.
XIV. The Naval Operations in the East Indies, 1778-1783.