{"id":45947,"date":"2023-11-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/11\/30\/how-mutiny-aboard-the-uss-somers-helped-birth-the-us-naval-academy\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:49:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:49:26","slug":"how-mutiny-aboard-the-uss-somers-helped-birth-the-us-naval-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2023\/11\/30\/how-mutiny-aboard-the-uss-somers-helped-birth-the-us-naval-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"How mutiny aboard the USS Somers helped birth the U.S. Naval Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Navy Cmdr. Alexander Slidell Mackenzie and the crew of the brig-of-war Somers pulled into Brooklyn Harbor in December 1842, he arrived with an alarming report: his crew had just barely escaped a mutiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mackenzie reported that he had quashed the mutiny and prevented the slaughter of his crew by hanging the three mutineers: Acting Midshipman Philip Spencer, the alleged ringleader, and his accomplices, Boatswain\u2019s Mate Samuel Cromwell and Seaman Elisha Small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In turn, he received a hero\u2019s welcome, with the New York Herald comparing Mackenzie\u2019s actions to those found in the \u201cearly history of the Roman Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the praise didn\u2019t last, and conflicting accounts of what went down aboard Somers began to emerge, ultimately sparking a chain of events that would lead to one of the biggest and largely untold controversies in the Navy\u2019s history and the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy a few years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story of the Somers\u2019 cruise and the subsequent fallout are detailed in \u201cSailing the Graveyard Sea: The Deathly Voyage of the Somers, the U.S. Navy\u2019s Only Mutiny, and the Trial that Gripped the Nation,\u201d<\/a> which was released Nov. 21.<\/p>\n\n\n