Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Having spent time right around the corner from the West Barnstable, Massachusetts cemetery where Percival is buried and also being familiar with the USS Constitution Museum and the ship itself, I wanted to know more. This book's narrative does provide details about Percival's life and the U.S. Navy that he served in, but they seem a bit thin.
It seems that existing documentary evidence of Percival is sparse, or at least this book leads me to believe that. Percival's 1844-1846 circumnavigation of the world in the Constitution gets the longest chapter, and is only 35 pages long. Little context is given to this voyage, surely the most remarkable phase of Percival's career. According to Ellis, Percival commanded five ships (with gun ratings, which Ellis provides only infrequently): Dolphin, 12, Porpoise, 12, Erie?, Cyane, 18, and Constitution, 44.
At times this feels like nothing but the documented facts of Percival's life strung together as a report, with a focus on quelling any "controversy". West Barnstable resident Ellis certainly did a great deal of serious research, but I was hoping for something more than just a book length vindication of the charges of dishonesty David H. Long makes in his Percival biography (the only other full length treatment of the subject).
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