Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy

Batten, John M. (John Mullin), 1837-1916Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0

Word count: 174K words
Chapters: 18

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy by John M. BattenAuthor: Batten, John M. (John Mullin), 1837-1916,Language: English, Class: E456: History: America: Civil War period (1861-1865), Release Date: Jun 12, 2008

Editor's review

Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy is a naval memoir of the American Civil War, in which the author, John M. Batten, records what he saw and experienced during two years of service in the Navy as a first-hand witness. Project Gutenberg classifies it under the history of the American Civil War, indicating that the content has historical value. The strength of the memoir genre lies in its vivid detail: daily life aboard ship, voyages, relations with comrades, and the wartime atmosphere are often more concrete than grand military histories. For readers studying the institutions of the nineteenth-century U.S. Navy, Civil War historical sources, or the memoir as a form, this book can serve as primary material. It should be read as a personal-perspective historical source rather than a complete military history, with attention to the author's standpoint and possible lapses of memory. The English original is freely available and not long, making it suitable for slow reading in sections alongside background materials. Readers seeking only a general history of the war as a whole will not find that function fulfilled here.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers seeking source material on Civil War and naval history
Readers interested in nineteenth-century memoirs and first-hand narrative
Students of history and literature who need primary sources in English
Military enthusiasts who enjoy details of seafaring and life aboard ship

Not a good fit for

Readers hoping for a systematic, complete history of the Civil War
Readers unaccustomed to the loose structure of memoirs and preferring rigorous argument

Reading tips

Look up basic background on the U.S. Navy during the Civil War before starting the text
Mark the timeline and ship names as you read to help trace the experiences
Read alongside general histories to distinguish personal perspective from historical fact
Excerpt and save passages suitable for citation for later verification

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a complete history of the American Civil War?

No. It is the author's memoir of two years of naval service, offering fragments and details from a first-hand perspective; it cannot replace a systematic general history of the Civil War. It is suitable as a supplement to historical sources, not as an introductory overview.

What background knowledge is needed before reading?

It is advisable first to understand the general timeline of the American Civil War, the basic opposition between the Union and the Confederacy, and the naval tactics and ship types of the period. With this background, the details in the memoir will be easier to place and understand.

Is the English original difficult to read?

Nineteenth-century English memoirs tend to have long sentences and vocabulary at some distance from modern English, but the narrative overall is plain. Readers with college-level English can read it slowly chapter by chapter, looking up naval terminology as needed.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Batten, John M. (John Mullin), 1837-1916 Author · British · 1837–1916

John M. Batten (1837–1916), whose full name was John Mullin Batten, was a British author. Public information about his life is limited, and the library currently holds only one of his works, Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy. According to the available records, he served for a long time as a civil official in India and wrote several books on Indian society and history, which suggests that his writing interests combined personal experience with observation of foreign societies. The work held in the library is a first-person memoir recalling his service in the United States Navy, written in a documentary style that emphasizes personal experience. His books on India indicate a concern with colonial society and historical issues. Given the limited sources, a full assessment of his oeuvre and influence must await further research; readers may consider his memoir together with his Indian studies to understand this British author's cross-regional writing.