Library of naval biography

xvi, 274 p. : 24 cm

This biography traces the life and career of one of the U.S. Navy's first admirals. As flag officer of the Union's western naval forces, Andrew Hull Foote was a key figure in the February 1862 Union victories at Forts Henry and Donelson in Tennessee, which opened the Confederate heartland to the Union. Later he shared in the victory at Island No. 10, an action that gained the Union access to the upper Mississippi River. In this revealing portrait, Spencer Tucker describes Foote as emblematic of a period of great change in the American navy. Although very much an officer schooled in the tradition of the Old Navy, Foote considered himself first and foremost a staunch Christian and an agent of divine will. An ardent social reformer, he crusaded for the abolition of the daily grog ration in the navy, and he became a leading advocate of the government's use of forceful measures to end the slave trade. In the 1850s Foote's career exemplified America's emerging international policy in the Far East. As commander of the sloop Portsmouth on China station in 1856, he led ashore sailors and marines to avenge an insult to the American flag and to capture and reduce the Chinese barrier forts guarding access to Canton. The first study of this fascinating U.S. naval figure to be published in more than one hundred years, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of the period and to the Naval Institute Library of Naval Biography series, edited by James C. Bradford. - Jacket flap.