Gilded Age Marines

Review: THE NEPTUNE FACTOR – ALFRED THAYER MAHAN and the Concept of $EA POWER  Nicholas A. Lambert. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2024. Kindle Edition. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Reviewed by John S. Naylor   “In most books, and not just books on naval history, Mahan is presented as a theorist of naval power who preached a crude gospel about the paramount importance of battle, battleships, and battle fleets. Too often his concept of sea power is reduced to, or rather conflated with, his advocacy for securing command of the sea. Parts of his argument are mistaken for the whole, and his ideas are critiqued before they are understood. Confirmation bias and the rush to judge thus have fed each other in a vicious loop.” -         Nicholas Lambert   Mr. Lambert’s thesis is that students of Mahan, and historians, have failed to accurately identify his focus on the destruction of an adversary’s commerce as the key to sea power. In ...

CUTTING OUT ON THE NIAGARA RIVER OCTOBER 1812     The enemy is making every exertion to gain a naval Superiority on both Lakes which if they accomplish I do not see how we can retain the Country.  – Major General Isaac Brock, October 11, 1812 THE NIARARA REGION Ever since Europeans began exploring the interior of the American continent, the straits between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario were a crucial choke point to communications, navigation, and commerce.  The significant interruption to movement posed by the cataracts at Niagara Falls forced establishment of portage points, routes over-land, the creation of boat building yards above the falls [1] , and attendant trading outposts. Alternative routes were few, as roads from the east to west, in either Canada or the U.S., were scarce, largely undeveloped, and vulnerable to the muddy seasons at either end of brutally cold winters. Boat traffic up the St. Lawrence, across Lake Ontario, and on the Niagara, gave th...