Best regards, Andrew Stewart
Begin forwarded message: > From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW <[email protected]> > Date: April 22, 2021 at 9:18:56 AM EDT > To: [email protected] > Cc: H-Net Staff <[email protected]> > Subject: H-Net Review [H-War]: Turner on Zarzynski, 'Ghost Fleet Awakened: > Lake George's Sunken Bateaux of 1758' > Reply-To: [email protected] > > Joseph W. Zarzynski. Ghost Fleet Awakened: Lake George's Sunken > Bateaux of 1758. Albany Excelsior Editions, 2019. Illustrations. > 284 pp. $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-4384-7672-8. > > Reviewed by Jobie Turner (Air University) > Published on H-War (April, 2021) > Commissioned by Margaret Sankey > > On July 5, 1758, Major General Abercrombie's army of sixteen thousand > British and colonial soldiers and Native American allies alighted in > nine hundred craft (boats, bateaux, and canoes) at the south end of > Lake George, New York.[1] The vast armada was the largest military > force assembled on the continent by any European power to that date. > Their destination was Fort Carillon, twenty-six miles north and a few > miles over land. Fort Carillon had been held by the French since the > start of the Seven Years' War and had vexed the British for three > years. Most famously, French general Louis-Joseph de Montcalm had > sailed south in 1757 and besieged Fort William Henry. It was on the > ruins of Fort William Henry that the British built their camp to > prepare for their row up Lake George in 1758. > > After one overnight camp, Abercrombie's troops disembarked and began > their movement to Fort Carillon. By July 8, 1755, the British were in > full rout, the French and their native allies killing and wounding > more than 1,500 of the British force. In a chaotic retreat, > Abercrombie ordered the army to destroy supplies, sink boats, and > proceed back to the south end of Lake George as quickly as possible. > The Battle of Carillon was one of Britain's worst defeats in the > eighteenth century. Eventually the British would take the post and > rename it Ticonderoga, the moniker gaining its infamy in the next > war. With the defeat, the British decided to abandon their post on > the south end of Lake George. Rather than leave their boats to the > elements and French raiding, Abercrombie directed his soldiers to > load two hundred craft with rocks and sink the boats in the lake so > they could be brought up the next summer during campaign season. > > In _Ghost Fleet Awakened_, Joseph W. Zarzynski picks up the story two > hundred years later. Over the preceding two centuries, bateaux from > Abercrombie's sinking occasionally washed ashore. Then in the 1960s, > with the advent of recreational scuba gear, civilians began seeing > the bateaux on the bottom of Lake George. In the last half of the > twentieth century more than forty-seven craft were found and the > local Lake George community built scuba tourism and tours of the > boats into the local economy and lore. In addition, formal scientific > studies were carried out with Zarzynski a key member of several of > them, eventually serving as the president of Bateaux Below, a Lake > George association dedicated to preserving and educating the public > on the boats. > > Abercombie's boats are a passion for Zarzynski, and with his vast > experience, the author dives deep into the material, describing the > locations of the boats and the painstaking efforts to locate and > catalogue them. In doing so, he fills a much-needed gap in our > understanding of eighteenth-century freshwater craft in colonial > North America. He meticulously documents the sizes, uses, and various > construction methods of the boats. To the larger history of the area, > this research demonstrates the vibrancy, hard work, and exceptional > integration of local and imported craftsmen to construct so many > well-built vessels. When doing my own research on eighteenth-century > watercraft in the New World just a few years ago, I found that the > scholarship lacked all the details that _Ghost Fleet_ provides. > Zarzynski's primary sources and meticulous detail will allow future > scholars of the period to expand what we know about Abercrombie's > ill-fated armada. Before this work, what little was known about > eighteenth-century sailing on fresh water was confined to niche > civilian sailing advocates and public libraries. Zarzynski deserves a > gold medal in research for pulling all the disparate sources and his > own personal work together. Most of all, this book is a documentation > of all the difficult and painstaking work that went into diving into > the murky and cold water, pinpointing locations, and then > transferring that knowledge into the public sphere--via tours, > museums, and lectures. It is also a work that is destined to have a > far-reaching audience, especially for those who are interested in > underwater archaeology or Lake George in general. > > Zarzynski's strength in detail, research, and experience is a > double-edged sword. He gets every tactical piece right but sometimes > obscures the bigger picture. Two or three pages upfront describing > the historical background of the boats and Abercrombie's mission > would have helped frame the narrative. The attack on Fort Carillon > was not just a minor battle; it was a huge defeat for the largest > army assembled in North America up to that time. In addition to the > boats at the south end of Lake George, as noted by the limited > primary scholarship of 1758, notably the diary of Caleb Rae, the > British scuttled many boats at the lake's north end. Are those boats > also still there, or was the water too shallow to keep them entombed > in the water? And even more pressing, why did the British fail to > pull up forty-seven of the craft? They were expensive, well made, and > hard to reproduce. > > In the same breath, these critiques of _Ghost Fleet Awakened _are > minor and more a case of an academic of the time period wanting more > questions answered than a lack of scholarship. As aforementioned, > Zarzynski's depth of research and description of the physical > characteristics of the boats is a shining addition to the > historiography of the Seven Years' War. Zarzynski achieves what he > sets out to do: to document how these boats still fascinate us more > than 260 years after their sinking. > > Note > > [1]. Abercrombie is spelled Abercromby (a less common variant) in the > book under review. > > Citation: Jobie Turner. Review of Zarzynski, Joseph W., _Ghost Fleet > Awakened: Lake George's Sunken Bateaux of 1758_. H-War, H-Net > Reviews. April, 2021. > URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55121 > > This work is licensed under a Creative Commons > Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States > License. > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#8163): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/8163 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/82286082/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
