Eagle of the Sea: The Story of Old Ironsides
About this ebook
Constitution is most noted for her actions during the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships: H.M.S. Guerriere, Java, Pictou, Cyane, and Levant. The battle with Guerriere earned her the nickname “Old Ironsides” and public adoration that has repeatedly saved her from scrapping. She continued to serve as flagship in the Mediterranean and African squadrons, and she circled the world in the 1840s. During the American Civil War, she served as a training ship for the United States Naval Academy. She carried American artwork and industrial displays to the Paris Exposition of 1878.
“The author, an authority on the history of the Constitution (better known as Old Ironsides), has unearthed a good deal of documentary source material relating to her story, and has used some of this material in this, his first book for boys and girls. The story is told through the experiences of a boy who helped build her in the Boston shipyards, and later sailed on her as a recruit of the new U.S. Navy, first to prove her might against the Barbary pirates, later against the British in the War of 1812. The bloody pirate battles, the rush of wind in the sails, the loud report of heavy shells, all are there to please any boy or girl who revels in stories of the days of sailing ships and battles. The historical and biographical background of this make it good supplementary reading, of particular use in school libraries.”—Kirkus Review
Richly illustrated throughout by Gordon Grant.
About the author
BRUCE GRANT (1894-1977) was an American newspaperman and author of more than 50 novels, informative volumes and historical books. A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, Grant worked as a city editor of The Chicago Times and a forerunner of the Chicago Sun‐Times, before travelling to London in 1942 to direct the paper’s coverage of World War II. He also worked as a reporter and feature writer for The Daily News in New York, The New York Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Louisville Courier‐Journal and several other now-defunct newspapers. Grant’s books, many of them written for children, included Isaac Hull, Captain of Old Ironsides (1947), How to Make Cowboy Horse Gear (1953) Six Gun: A Story of the Texas Rangers (1955) and American Indians Yesterday and Today (1958). He died in Winnetka, near Chicago, Illinois, on April 8, 1977, aged 83. GORDON GRANT (1875-1962) was a noted American artist, well-known for his maritime watercolors and his work with the American Boy Scouts. A native of San Francisco, California, his best known work was his watercolor of the U.S.S. Constitution. He also produced war time posters during World War I, magazine covers for periodicals such as Saturday Evening Post, illustrations for the monthly Boy Scouts of America magazine Boys’ Life, and books such as Penrod by Booth Tarkington (1914). He was the cover designer for the first edition of the Boy Scout Handbook in 1911. Grant was illustrator for The Scarlet Plague by Jack London (1915), Eternal Sea: An Anthology of Sea Poetry edited by William Martin Williamson (1946), The Story of American Sailing Ships by Charles S. Strong (1957), and many other works. He was a member of the Association of American Artists. Gordon Grant died in 1962.
