A Press of Canvas, A Fine Tops’l Breeze, The Evening Gun
William H. White has spent a lifetime nurturing a love for the sea and for the intrepid sailors who faced the challenges of serving in the age of sail. This love affair with the era of “wooden ships and iron men” lays behind his series of novels in his War of 1812 Trilogy. The War of 1812 is one of those conflicts that escape the attention of most readers and many historians. Fought between the young United States and a Britain that was preoccupied with the struggle against Napoleon I, the conflict represented the last chapter in the wars between Americans and Britons. One of the principal causes of the war was the impressment of American sailors by British men-of-war.
White begins his three-volume account with the pressing of Isaac Biggs for service on HMS Orpheus. Biggs serves his time with the Royal Navy but eventually escapes and joins the American forces as the war begins. The novels follow Biggs and his compatriots through service on US Navy warships, American privateers, and gunboats charged with preventing British attacks on American land targets. White obviously intends to cover the war in as complete a manner as possible by taking the reader on his tour through the varied types of engagements. His knowledge of sailing ships and nautical life is impressive and speaks well of his research methods. His characters at times appear wooden and seem to be more stock characters fully developed people. This is definitely not Horatio Hornblower. That said, the novels are far from being a waste of the reader’s time. Wooden characters or not, the drama of life and struggle on board the wooden ships is still worth the effort.
