One of the great events in American, and indeed world, maritime history oc- curred in the summer of 1819, when the American steamship Savannah, com- manded by Captain Moses Rogers, be- came the first steam-powered vessel to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Its pioneer voyage from Savannah, Georgia, to Liverpool, England, in May and June 1819 is sometimes mentioned as an epochmaking event that marked the coming age of the steamship

Hattendorf, John B.

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U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons

Naval War College ReviewVolume 65Number 1 Winter Article 162012Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and theSteamship Savannah Break the BarrierJohn B. HattendorfFollow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-reviewThis Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contactrepository.inquiries@usnwc.edu.Recommended CitationHattendorf, John B. (2012) "Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah Break the Barrier," Naval War CollegeReview: Vol. 65 : No. 1 , Article 16.Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss1/16B O O K R E V I E W S 1 7 3while they attempted to reach the U.S.beachhead with powerful surface forcesapproaching through the San Bernardinoand Surigao Straits. The majority ofpower would be contained in AdmiralTakeo Kurita’s Central Force, whichwould force the San Bernardino Straitand approach the U.S. transports fromthe east. Two smaller but still poten-tially deadly forces, commanded by Ad-mirals Shoji Nishimura and KiyohideShima, would attempt the SurigaoStrait and attack the Americans fromthe south. Kurita’s force came closer tovictory, but, due in part to a gallant de-fense by inferior U.S. forces, and withthe counsel of his own forces, Kuritaturned back on the doorstep of success.In contrast, Nishimura never had achance. Admiral Jesse B. Oldendorfturned the Surigao Strait into a killingsack. As Nishimura drove deeper intothe strait, his forces were treated towave after wave of attacks that ended ina crescendo of firepower, as Oldendorf’smain battle line put an end to the Japa-nese southern attack.Rather than write only about the bigpicture, Tully puts Surigao Strait undera microscope. Drawing extensivelyfrom little (or never) -accessed Japaneserecords, he painstakingly pulls togetherhis account of the battle. Each Japaneseship is discussed in detail, each com-manding officer is subjected to scrutiny,and communications are reviewed. Theresult is impressive: what emerges is aconvincing and incredibly detailed ac-count of this segment of the battle.In re-creating the battle, Tully takes onseveral “mysteries” that have enduredsince 1944. The first is the fate of theJapanese battleship Fuso. It is knownthat the ship was destroyed, but the ex-act circumstances of its sinking havebeen a matter of conjecture. The nextmystery is the sinking of the Japanesedestroyer Michishiro. In this instancethere is uncertainty regarding the claimthat USS Hutchins (DD 476) sank it. Fi-nally, Tully seeks to discover the exactmanner in which the Japanese destroyerYamashiro was sunk. By Tully’s ownadmission, these issues are military mi-nutiae, but they are important to him.He obviously wants to know where U.S.torpedoes struck the doomed Yamashiroand what happened to Fuso.Tully’s writing style, for the most part,is pleasant, analytical, and temperate,although from time to time the neutraltone of the distant observer shifts to amore impassioned vernacular, particu-larly when Tully is arguing a position ordescribing some especially dramaticmoment. However, the result is notproblematic. It is Tully’s personal pas-sion for the subject that elevates thisbook above many naval histories, alongwith his eagerness to present the Japa-nese point of view. This is a perspectivethat with few exceptions is lacking inWestern accounts.RICHARD NORTONNaval War CollegeBusch, John Laurence. Steam Coffin: Captain Mo-ses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah Break theBarrier. New Canaan, Conn.: Hodos Historia,2010. 726pp. $35One of the great events in American,and indeed world, maritime history oc-curred in the summer of 1819, when theAmerican steamship Savannah, com-manded by Captain Moses Rogers, be-came the first steam-powered vessel tocross the Atlantic Ocean. Its pioneerNWC_2012WinterReview_Vego-End.ps\\data1\john.lanzieri.ctr$\msdata\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Winter2012Review\NWC_2012WinterReview.vpFriday, December 02, 2011 11:08:04 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen1Hattendorf: Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah BrePublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2012voyage from Savannah, Georgia, to Liv-erpool, England, in May and June 1819is sometimes mentioned as an epoch-making event that marked the comingage of the steamship. While the shipwas remembered 140 years later, whenin 1959 its name was given to the firstAmerican nuclear-powered merchantvessel, the context and the details of thepioneer voyage were overlooked. The1819 voyage was quickly dismissed as acommercial failure in which steampower was used for only a fraction ofthe time; the ship itself was forgotten asa short-lived phenomenon after itsshipwreck on Long Island in 1821.Certainly, Savannah was far ahead of itstime, as it would take another twentyyears for steamships to begin regulartransatlantic passages and thirty yearsbefore there was another Americansteamship to carry the flag across theAtlantic. Despite all the innovation thatthe 1819 voyage of Savannah repre-sents, however, there is remarkablylittle historical investigation of it.Savannah’s captain, Moses Rogers, hasbeen almost completely overlooked asan innovator. Up until the appearanceof this fine work, Frank O. Braynard’s1963 study S.S. Savannah the ElegantSteam Ship was the only major work onthe subject.For the Connecticut-based independenthistorian John Laurence Busch, the taleof Captain Rogers and his steamshipSavannah is clearly a passionate labor oflove. With exemplary research, Buschfollowed an archival trail that led totwenty-two historical manuscript de-positories in the United States, rangingfrom Portland, Maine, to Savannah,and which included ten massive recordgroups in the National Archives.Moreover, following the wake of theship, Busch’s research carried him toarchives in Denmark, Russia, Sweden,and the United Kingdom. Equally im-pressive is his productive research innearly 150 contemporary newspapersthat matches his archival range and ex-tends beyond to India, Ireland, andNorway. All of this, Busch has mar-shaled into a beautifully written and en-gaging narrative that places his solidlybased factual details within a broadcontext. It is a complex story, but onethat is clearly presented.The book opens with an evocative de-scription of Moses Rogers’s involve-ment in the introduction of the firststeam passenger service betweenCharleston, South Carolina, and Savan-nah, Georgia. The author then tracesback to the early rise of steam propul-sion in the United States and MosesRogers’s story from his birth in NewLondon, Connecticut, through his ca-reer as a pioneer steamboat captain onthe Hudson River, then as steamshipdesigner and founder of the SavannahSteamship Company. In detailing Sa-vannah’s pioneer transatlantic voyage,Busch effectively covers the entire rangeof issues from finances to the many dif-ferent characters in the ship’s company.Not stopping there, he explores thepublic reception and professional inter-est in the ship’s further onward pas-sages to Denmark, Sweden, and Russia,including its return home across the At-lantic. In conclusion, Busch reflects thatwhile the achievements of Rogers andSavannah have sometimes been lost tocollective memory, they broke apsychological barrier that had hinderedsuch technological innovation up tothat point.1 7 4 N A V A L W A R C O L L E G E R E V I E WNWC_2012WinterReview_Vego-End.ps\\data1\john.lanzieri.ctr$\msdata\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Winter2012Review\NWC_2012WinterReview.vpFriday, December 02, 2011 11:08:04 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen2Naval War College Review, Vol. 65 [2012], No. 1, Art. 16https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss1/16Produced by a heretofore-unknownpublisher, Steam Coffin is enhanced bymore than a dozen well-drawn maps, aswell as more than forty illustrations.Seventy-one pages of endnotes docu-ment Busch’s prodigious research, butthey are not easy to use, as they arelinked to the text by quoted phrasesrather than numbered positions. Never-theless, John Laurence Busch has madea major contribution to American mar-itime history with this fine book.JOHN B. HATTENDORFNaval War CollegeB O O K R E V I E W S 1 7 5NWC_2012WinterReview_Vego-End.ps\\data1\john.lanzieri.ctr$\msdata\Desktop\NavalWarCollege\NWC_Winter2012Review\NWC_2012WinterReview.vpFriday, December 02, 2011 11:08:04 AMColor profile: DisabledComposite  Default screen3Hattendorf: Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah BrePublished by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2012

Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah Break the Barrier

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Steam Coffin: Captain Moses Rogers and the Steamship Savannah Break the Barrier

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