Admiral Franklin Buchanan: Fearless Man of Action
Baltimore, MD: The Norman Remington Company, 1929. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. 285, illus., color frontis, endpaper maps, footnotes, index, title page creased, small tear p. xiii, slight soiling to a few pages, boards scuffed. Charles Lee Lewis, born in 1886, a prominent naval historian and a professor of English and history at the United States Naval Academy, wrote biographies of Matthew Fontaine Maury, Franklin Buchanan and Stephen Decatur. Franklin Buchanan (September 17, 1800 – May 11, 1874) was an officer in the United States Navy who became the only full admiral in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. He also commanded the ironclad CSS Virginia. He joined the U.S. Navy on January 28, 1815 and became a midshipman; he was promoted to lieutenant on January 13, 1825, commander on September 8, 1841 and then captain on September 14, 1855. During the 45 years he served in the U.S. Navy, Buchanan had extensive and worldwide sea duty. He commanded the sloops of war Vincennes and Germantown during the 1840s and the steam frigate Susquehanna in the Perry Expedition to Japan from 1852–1854. In 1845, at the request of the U.S. Secretary of the Navy, he submitted plans to his superiors proposing a naval school which would lead to the creation of the United States Naval Academy that very year; for his efforts, he was appointed the first Superintendent of the Naval School—its first name—where he served in 1845–1847. With the Civil War upon him, he resigned his commission on April 22, 1861, expecting his home State of Maryland to secede. When that didn't happen, he tried to recall his resignation, but U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles said he did not want half-hearted patriots and refused to reinstate him. On September 5, 1861, Franklin Buchanan joined the Confederate Navy and was given a captain's commission. Condition: fair to good.
Keywords: Naval, Maryland
[Book #8596]
Price: $85.00