August 15, 2024 • 66 mins
In 1842, three Navy men plotted to seize control of the USS Somers and turn it into a pirate ship. When the Somers' captain, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, learned of the plot, he had the three men executed. But when the Somers arrived back in America, questions started to emerge. Were the executions justified? Was the mutiny plot even real? These questions would be explored at the commander's 1843 court-martial.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are listening to History on Trial, a production of
iHeart podcasts. Listener Discretion advised the prisoners had to die.
It wasn't an easy conclusion to reach. Seven officers of
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the USS Summers had spent all of November thirtieth, eighteen
forty two locked in the wardroom of the ship, questioning witnesses,
gathering the full story. The next day, December first, they
presented their findings to their captain, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie.
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After as dispassionate and deliberate a consideration of the case
as the exigencies of the time would admit, the officers wrote,
we have come to a cool, decided, and unanimous opinion
that the prisoners have been guilty of a full and
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determined intention to commit a mutiny on board of this
vessel of a most atrocious nature. What was more, the
letter continued, there was no way to keep the prisoners
safely away from the rest of the crew and transport
them back to the United States for court martial. The
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safety of the public property, the lives of ourselves and
of those committed to our charge, the officers concluded, require
that the prisoners should be put to death. Who were
these prisoners? There were three of them. One of them
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was an officer himself, Midshipman Philip Spencer, age eighteen. He
was alleged to be the ringleader of the mutiny plot.
His two accomplices were a mismatched pair, the tallest man
on the ship, Chief Bosun's mate, Samuel Cromwell, and the
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shortest seamen, Elisious Mall. After learning about the mutiny plot,
Commander Mackenzie had arrested the men, Spencer first on November
twenty sixth, and then Cromwell and Small on the twenty seventh.
Even after these arrests, it seemed that the ship was
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not safe. The prisoners were being kept on the quarter deck,
a raised deck behind the main mast, from which they
could see the crew at work, and the crew could
see them. Two Mackenzie and his officers had seen meaningful
looks and maybe even hand gestures exchanged between the prisoners
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and the crew. How many conspirators did the plot have?
At any minute, Mackenzie feared some signal would trigger the
crew to rise up and rebel. That could mean dozens
of deaths. There were one hundred and twenty Navy sailors
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on board the USS Summers, Commander Mackenzie stealed his resolve.
Executing prisoners was a grave matter, and it was technically
outside of his legal rights as a captain, but he
was convinced that it was the only path forward. Mackenzie
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ordered that Spencer, Cromwell and Small be put to death.
He called the crew to the deck. If there were
indeed more conspirators amongst their ranks, Mackenzie wanted them to
see the consequences of crime. The crew of the US
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Summers watched silently as the three prisoners were informed of
their fates, and then hung from the yard arm, slowly
suffocating to death. When the USS Summers arrived back in
New York two weeks later, bringing news of the attempted
mutiny and the subsequent executions, the public was horrified about
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the mutiny, that is, not about the hangings. These were
seen as a difficult but necessary choice made by a
courageous captain in a terrible situation. But as the Navy
probed into the events aboard the USS Summers, troubling questions
began to emerge. Had Mackenzie's actions been justified even worse,
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had this threatened mutiny even been real On December twentieth,
an anonymous letter published in a washing In, DC newspaper
alleged that the inquiry conducted by the officers into the
mutiny had been biased and had denied the prisoner's basic
civil rights. The letter claimed that the three men had
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been hanged on the basis of extremely thin evidence. The
letter was only signed s, but many people knew right
away who had written it. It was Philip Spencer's father,
John Canfield Spencer, and that meant trouble for Commander Mackenzie.
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Because John Spencer was not just any grieving father. He
was the United States Secretary of War, and he was
determined to get justice for his dead son. But could
the Navy administer justice to one of its own. That
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question would be tested at the court martial of Commander
Mackenzie in early eighteen forty three, a trial that sparked
debates over just how far military discipline could go. Welcome
to history on trial, I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This
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week the court martial of Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie. Philip
Spencer had always dreamed of going to sea, but not
with the Navy. No, Philip Spencer wanted to be a pirate.
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Born in eighteen twenty four in Canadagua, New York, Philip
missed the peak of piracy, a period in the seventeen
tens and twenties during which some two thousand pirates roamed
the Atlantic and Caribbean, by a century, but the legend
of pirates lived on long after their numbers were decimated
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by European naval forces. In eighteen thirty seven, when Philip
was thirteen, Charles Elms published The Pirate's Own Book, a
four hundred and thirty two page epic filled with swashbuckling
tales from the High Seas. The book was so popular
that it ran for eight editions. It was one of
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Philip Spencer's favorite books. Philip's pirate fantasies were met with
disapproval by his father, John Canfield Spencer. A brilliant, combative,
ambitious man. John Spencer wanted great things for his children. Philip,
the sixth of John Elizabeth Spencer's seven children, always struggled
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to meet his father's expectations. Philip was undeniably bright. He
had a facility for languages. He quickly picked up Latin
and Greek, and would later become fluent in Spanish, he
could give a speech better than almost any of his
classmates at Geneva College, where he studied in the late
eighteen thirties, and he was brave in an era before anesthesia.
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Classmates remembered with awe how Philip had refused the traditional
restraints during surgery to try to correct his wandering eye,
holding himself still through the agonizing procedure through sheer force
of will. But the discipline he showed in enduring pain
did not translate to other areas of his life. He
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neglected his schoolwork, He snuck off campus and into town.
He drank. In November eighteen forty, when he was sixteen,
the school cited Philip for participating in what they called,
hilariously a cider disturbance. We'd probably call it a door party.
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In the spring of eighteen forty one, hoping that a
change of scenery might do Philip some good, John Spencer
made his son transfer to Union College. Before he left Geneva,
Philip gave the school a copy of the Pirate's own book.
At Union, Philip did not take advantage of his fresh start.
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Instead of focusing on his studies, he devoted himself to
founding a fraternity, the perfect place to host more cider
disturbances and to create secret handshakes and codes and rituals,
the kind of thing that Philip loved. The fraternity Philip
helped found Kai Sai today has chapters at thirty four
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colleges and universities. John Spencer, however, was not impressed by
Philip's activities. During the eighteen thirties, the elder Spencer's political
star had risen. In October eighteen forty one, President John
Tyler chose John Spencer to be his Secretary of War.
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Managing the military might have seemed easy in comparison to
managing Philip Spencer. At his wits end with his son,
Secretary Spencer decided that maybe the Navy could instill some discipline.
In November eighteen forty one, Philip was appointed as a midshipman,
the lowest rank of officer in the United States Navy.
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But even the Navy could not tame Philip's energies. He drank,
fought with senior officers, and, on an official trip to Brazil,
brawled in the streets every time he got in trouble.
Though his father put in a good word with Abel Upscher,
the Secretary of the Navy, and Philip got another chance,
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But by the summer of eighteen forty two, Secretary Upsher's
patients was wearing thin. He told Philip that he would
be watching carefully and gave him one last assignment on
which to prove himself. On August thirteenth, eighteen forty two,
Philip Spencer received orders to report to the USS Summers
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in New York. Upon boarding, he met the man who
would one day order his death, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie.
The Commander was born Alexander Slidell on April sixth, eighteen
o three, to John and Marjorie Slidell. In his thirties,
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he would adopt his mother's maiden name Mackenzie, as a
condition of receiving an inheritance from a maternal uncle. The
Slydells were a wealthy, well connected family. One of Mackenzie's
brothers would become a US Senator and another would become
Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, but it was
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his sister, Jane who would most influence Mackenzie's life. In
eighteen fourteen, Jane married Matthew Perry, a member of a
naval dynasty. Matthew's older brother, Oliver hazard Perry, was an
American hero for his victory at the Battle of Lake
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Erie during the War of eighteen twelve. Matthew Perry too
would become a naval hero, eventually leading the mission that
opened trade with Japan. In the eighteen fifties. The Perry
family encouraged young Mackenzie to join the Navy, and he
became a midshipman at age eleven, sailing around the world
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throughout his teenage years. The Navy was a good fit
for the boy. Unlike Philip Spencer, Mackenzie liked discipline. He
liked rules and laws, making them and following them. In
his early days in the Navy, he saw what happened
when the laws were broken. Assigned to anti pirate duty
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in the West Indies, he witnessed the devastation pirate's pillaging
left in its wake, not nearly so glamorous in real
life as it was in the pirate's own book. In
eighteen twenty four, Mackenzie contracted yellow fever and took a
leave of absence from the Navy to recover. While on leave,
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he traveled to Spain and began to work on a
book about his experiences abroad. He befriended the writer Washington
Irving while in Madrid, and Irving would help Mackenzie publish
his first book, called A Year in Spain. The publication
made Mackenzie a minor celebrity, and he would continue writing
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even after returning from leave, though his later books received
cooler receptions. Journalist and historian Richard Snow argues in his
book Sailing the Graveyard Sea that Mackenzie's writings reveal quote
an opacity about common human feelings. They also depict a
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man full of contradictions, both moralistic and prudish. Mackenzie also
displays a taste for violence. He describes both crimes and
public executions, which, despite professing to dislike, he somehow couldn't
seem to stop attending while abroad in gruesome detail. In
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eighteen thirty six, Mackenzie married Kate Robinson. Soon after, he
adopted Mackenzie as his surname in order to receive the
family bequest. Using this money, he bought a farm in
New York's Hudson River Valley, near his friend Washington Irving.
He also began thinking seriously along with his brother in law,
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Matthew Perry, about how to reform America's navy. The Navy
at this point was struggling to attract, train, and retain
good men. The pay was low, the training programs were haphazard,
and promotions were difficult to obtain. In eighteen thirty seven,
Mackenzie and Perry wrote about the need for naval education
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in the Naval Magazine, calling for the establishment of an
apprenticeship program. Congress agreed with their recommendations and provided funding
to recruit and train boys aged thirteen to eighteen. Congress
also agreed to create a schoolship, a floating naval school
with on the job training for the young apprentices. The
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USS Summers, a beautiful new ship designed in part by
Matthew Perry, was chosen for the job. In eighteen forty one,
Alexander Mackenzie was promoted to the rank of commander. The
next year, he was assigned to the schoolship that he
and Perry had dreamed of. The stakes for this voyage
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were high. If it went well, the Navy might be
willing to produce more schoolships, Congress might agree to fund
more apprentices, and Mackenzie's beloved navy would flourish. To ensure success,
Mackenzie and Perry carefully selected the ship's officers. The first Lieutenant,
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Mackenzie's second in command, was thirty year old Garrett Gansvoort,
a member of a prominent New York family and a
skilled sailor who had risen quickly through the ranks of
the Navy. For the midshipmen, the lowest ranking officers, Perry
and Mackenzie filled the ranks with their relatives and their
friend's sons. Two of Perry's own sons were serving on board.
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Into this tightly knit crowd appeared the disruptive Philip Spencer.
Mackenzie took an immediate dislike to dists Spencer. He had
heard about Spencer's record and wanted him off the ship.
Mackenzie recommended that Spencer ask for a transfer. Spencer did so,
but Matthew Perry refused the request. Philip Spencer needed discipline,
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and Perry may have hoped the strict Mackenzie might be
just the one to provide a firm hand. Little did
anyone know just how firm that hand would be. The
voyage of the USS Summers began smoothly enough, departing New
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York on September thirteenth, eighteen forty two, the ship sailed east.
Its mission, an easy assignment fitting for a school ship,
was to deliver dispatches from America to another Navy ship,
the Vandalia, which was assisting the British Navy in intercepting
slave ships off the west coast of Africa. Quarters on
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the ship were tight, at one hundred feet long and
twenty feet wide at the thickest point. The Summers was
only meant to carry ninety men, but in an attempt
to squeeze as many apprentices in as possible, the Summers
had a crew of one hundred and twenty for this trip.
Of these one hundred and twenty, only thirty were older
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than nineteen. A third of the crew was between thirteen
and sixteen years old. Life at sea must have been
bewildering for these boys, many of whom had no sailing experience.
Time was measured in watches and bells. Sunday mornings were
spent mustard on deck. The sailors stood on deck while
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their uniforms were inspected. Attendance was taken, and the Articles
of War, a list of prohibited actions and resulting punishments
were read. Aloud. The one form of punishment was flogging,
lashing either with the Cat nine tails, a whip with
nine eighteen inch braided cords, or the Colt, a three
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foot long single strand whip. Both instruments could rip a
sailor's back. Open. Floggings were usually done in front of
the whole crew. Congress would ban flogging in eighteen fifty,
and some captains had already abandoned the practice, believing it
to be too cruel, but not Commander Mackenzie. He had
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a reputation as being quick to order floggings, and the
reputation was well earned. The boys of the Summers soon learned.
The first flogging happened only three days into the voyage,
six lashes each of the Colt for three crewmen accused
of avoiding work on the Summers, Sailors of all ages,
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even those as young as thirteen, were whipped frequently for
offenses as minor as borrowing someone else's shirts, smoking after
ten PM, or being impertinent. One fourteen year old apprentice,
Dennis Manning, received a total of one hundred and one
lashes during the ship's two month journey. Despite the frequent punishments,
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morale aboard the summers was high, at least for the
first few weeks. Part of the crew's good attitude might
have been due to Philip Spencer. Spencer had quickly found
himself the odd man out amongst the other officers, who
had all taken their commander's queue and shunned Spencer. He
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decided to search for friends amongst the crew instead. Spencer
amused the younger boys with a strange talent he had,
rhythmically dislocating his jaw to create eerie music. He won
the older sailors over with small gifts of smuggled brandy
or tobacco for money. Spencer especially concentrated his attention on
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two other misfits, Samuel Cromwell and Elisha Small. Cromwell was
widely disliked, and perhaps for good reason. As the chief
bosun's mate, Cromwell was in charge of administering the floggings.
An enormous man in his thirties, heavily muscled and scarred,
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Cromwell had a fierce temper and a filthy mouth. Crewman
whispered that he had once sailed with slavers or pirates.
Elishah Small, thirty years old, was a good sailor with
a bad drinking problem. He begun the voyage as the Summers' quartermaster,
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responsible for navigation, but had been quickly demoted for drunkenness. Small, Cromwell,
and Spencer soon formed trio. Spencer provided the men with
alcohol and tobacco. In return, Cromwell and Small told Spencer
wild stories from their lives at sea. The other officers
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judged Spencer for his friendship with lowly crewmen and got
annoyed by his laziness and tasteless jokes. Commander Mackenzie's dislike
for Spencer had also increased, but he largely ignored the
eighteen year old. By mid November, the Summers had reached Liberia,
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but they hadn't managed to catch up with the Vandalia,
which always seemed to be one port ahead of them.
Mackenzie decided that it was time to head home. Despite
this incomplete mission, everything was well aboard the Summers until Saturday,
November twenty sixth, that is, shortly after eight am, First
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Lieutenant Ganzifort burst into the Captain's cabin with shocking news
a mutiny was afoot. Kenzie was stunned. Gansafort laid out
the details for him that morning, Purser Stewart James Wales
had approached his superior purser, Horace High School, with a
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troubling story. The night before, Wales said he had been
approached by Philip Spencer. After swearing Wales to secrecy, Spencer
told him that he was planning to seize the ship.
Spencer said he had a number of the crew signed
up for his plan, which involved murdering the ship's officers
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and any uncooperative crewmen, sailing the Summers to the Caribbean,
and turning it into a pirate ship. While Spencer laid
out the details for Wales's Elisha Small approach, Spencer told
Small that he had enlisted Wales, and Small said he
was glad to hear it. When Spencer finished, he asked
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for his thoughts. Whales said he liked the idea, but
inside he was horrified. Wales resolved to report Spencer to
Commander Mackenzie as soon as possible. The next morning, and
able to easily get to Mackenzie, Wales had reported to
high school high school to ganzi Ort, and now ganzi
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Ort was telling Mackenzie. At first, the captain could not
believe it. It seemed to me so monstrous, so improbable, that
I could not forbear treating it with ridicule. Mackenzie later wrote,
I was under the impression that mister Spencer had been
reading some piratical stories and had amused himself with mister Wales.
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But improbable or not, Mackenzie felt he had a duty
to investigate. He told ganzi Ort to watch Spencer closely.
Ganza Ort followed Spencer all day, and what he saw
concerned him. I had observed, Gansibort reported to Mackenzie that
he was exceedingly intimate with the crew. I had noticed
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as individuals passed him by a strange flashing of the eye.
When Spencer had caught Ganzibart watching him, he had looked
at the lieutenant, in Ganshwort's words, with the most infernal
expression I have ever seen upon a human face. Moreover,
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gans of Ort had seen Spencer pouring over a map
of the Caribbean and asking the ship's surgeon, Richard Leacock,
about the Isle of Pine's, a notorious pirates haunt. It
wasn't much to go on, but Ganzibort and Mackenzie were
now convinced that Spencer was up to something. They couldn't
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risk a mutiny. Mackenzie decided that Spencer should be detained.
When he approached Spencer and asked him about the plan,
Spencer replied that it was just a joke. This joke,
Mackenzie told Spencer, may cost you your life. He ordered
that Spencer be shackled, and, because the Summers had little
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free space below deck, be taken to the quarter deck
and kept under observation. The next day, the investigation into
the mutiny continued. Lieutenant Ganziwort and Midship in Henry Rogers
searched Spencer's belongings. Inside his razor case. They found several
pieces of paper. Two of these were written in Greek letters. Rogers,
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who could read Greek, translated the words. It turned out,
were just English words spelled out with Greek characters. On
one page, a paragraph read those marked X will probably
be induced to join before the project is carried into execution.
The remainder of the doubtful will probably join when the
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thing is done. If not, they must be forced. If
any not marked down wish to join after it is done,
we will pick out the best and dispose of the rest. Below,
a list of names was sorted into three categories, certain, doubtful,
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and to be kept Nolan's Volan's willingly or not. It
was a damning document, to be sure, but also a
confusing one. The list of crew members who were certain
was small and included the name E Andrews, which did
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not match anyone on board. Elisha Small's name was not
on the certain list, but per Wales's story, he was
indeed involved. Despite these discrepancies, Mackenzie was now sure that
Spencer had been plotting a mutiny, and the captain had
concerns about Samuel Cromwell too. Spencer had not mentioned to
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Cromwell to Wales, and Cromwell's name was not anywhere on
Spencer's list, but Cromwell was known to be close to Spencer.
That afternoon, Mackenzie's suspicions seemed to be confirmed. One of
the ship's top masts suddenly collapsed, causing a number of
sails to fall. In the chaos that followed, Mackenzie noticed
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that Cromwell and Small were first on the scene. Had
they caused the mast collapse? He wondered, It was just
the type of distraction that mutineers could use to their advantage.
It was true that no uprising had begun. The masts
and sales were repaired, but Mackenzie believed that the crisis
had only narrowly been averted. He ordered Cromwell and then
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Small arrested and stowed on the quarter deck. Cromwell denied
any involvement in the plot, and Spencer also said that
the man was innocent. Small, on the other hand, said
that he had heard of plans. Mackenzie informed the three
men that they would be kept under lock and key
until the ship arrived back in America, where they would
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be tried for the crimes. Over the next three days,
tensions on the ship reached a fever pitch. Mackenzie ordered
his officers to arm themselves and patrol the ship. He
informed the crew about the mutiny plot and warned them
to abandon any schemes to free the prisoners. He arrested
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three more men believed to be connected with Spencer and
put them on the quarter deck. These further arrests brought
new concerns. The Summers was a small ship, Surely it
could not hold many prisoners, and Mackenzie was convinced that
the existing prisoners were plotting an escape with their uncaptured
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co conspirators. Maybe the leaders of the mutiny needed to
be removed permanently. Mackenzie had always seen his ships as
quote little worlds, self contained environments in which discipline meant harmony.
One bad apple could spoil the whole bunch, But he
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didn't want to make such a serious decision alone. On Wednesday,
November thirtieth, Mackenzie wrote a letter to his officers asking
them to investigate the situation on board and come to
a conclusion about the best path forward. The seven officers
moved swiftly. They took over the wardroom, the officer's mess hall,
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and brought in crew members for questioning. Many of the
crewmen claimed that Spencer had spoken to them about dreaming
of being a pirate and of hoping to have a
ship of his own. They all agreed that Spencer, Small
and Cromwell were the ringleaders. Many of the sailors spoke
especially harshly about Samuel Cromwell. The questioning continued throughout the
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day and into the next morning. The officers reached a decision.
They wrote to Mackenzie and told him that they believed
the prisoners should be executed. Mackenzie wasted no time in
carrying out the sentence. Summoning the crew to the deck,
McKenzie donned his full dress uniform and told his officers
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to arm themselves. Then he told the prisoners their fate.
Elishah Small took the news calmly. Philip Spencer began to weep.
Samuel Cromwell fell to his knees and yelled, God of
the Universe, looked down upon my poor wife. I am innocent.
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Spencer regained his composure and told Mackenzie quote, as these
are the last words I have to say, I trust
they will be believed. Cromwell is innocent. Mackenzie was unsettled.
Seeking reassurance, he questioned his officers if they were certain
of Cromwell's guilt. They said they were, and this was
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enough for the captain. Returning to Spencer, mackenzie began a
strange conversation with the eighteen year old. When Spencer said
that he felt bad for wronging his parents, Mackenzie told
Spencer that his father was part of the reason for
his death sentence. If mackenzie had taken Spencer back to
the United States for court martial, the captain said, John
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Spencer likely would have interfered in the trial for those
who have friends or money in America, Mackenzie said there
was no punishment for the worst of crimes. He spoke
to Spencer for nearly an hour. He asked his steward
to bring paper and ink so that Spencer could write
a letter to his parents. When Spencer said he could
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not write with his hand shackled, Mackenzie wrote for him,
and then finally the terrible moment arrived. The execution itself
was gruesome and painful. The prisoners, faces covered, hands and
feet still shackled, had nooses fastened around their necks. The
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ropes trailing from these nooses hung over the yard arm
of the ship, the large beam running perpendicular to the mainmast.
Groups of men held the other side of the rope.
On a signal the firing of a gun, the men
pulled the ropes, dragging the prisoner's twenty feet in the air,
where they slowly strangled to death, their bodies spinning in
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the wind. Mackenzie, with the bodies still hanging above the deck,
gave his crew a speech about the dangers of disobedience.
The rest of the journey held a tenor of muted fear.
The summers made it back to New York Harbor two
weeks after the executions, and a messenger was quickly dispatched
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to Secretary of the Navy, Able Upsher. Soon news of
the shocking events on board the Summers had spread across
the country. Most people praised Captain Mackenzie. The New York
Tribune wrote, quote, by the prompt and fearless decision of
Captain Mackenzie, one of the most bold and daring conspiracies
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ever formed. Was frustrated and crushed. But six days later,
on December twentieth, John Canfield Spencer published his anonymous rebuttal
of Mackenzie's accounts of the events on board. Spencer questioned
the legality of Mackenzie's impromptue on board court martial and
questioned whether the threat of a mutiny was even real.
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The Navy promised a full investigation, but would an investigation
be enough for John Spencer? Pending an investigation into the mutiny,
no one was allowed to leave the USS Summers once
it docked in New York. No one except Mackenzie, that was,
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who went to visit his brother in law, Matthew Perry Commodore.
Perry was now the commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Before leaving the Summers, Mackenzie ordered the arrest of eight
more men who he believed to be involved in the mutiny.
Criticism of Mackenzie was growing louder, both within and outside
of the Navy. Captain Francis Gregory, commander of the USS
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North Carolina, visited the Summers after it docked. He was
horrified by conditions on board. I have never known the
crew of an American man of war so dirty and
dejected in their personal appearance as hers were at the
time of her arrival here, he wrote a colleague. Gregory
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was also shocked by the number of floggings Mackenzie had ordered,
a number Gregory said that was quote beyond all precedent
within my knowledge. News of Gregory's discoveries quickly became public.
On December twenty eighth, the Navy convened a Court of Inquiry.
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This court could only investigate, it could not punish, and
unlike in a traditional trial, the person being investigated did
not need to appear in person. Mackenzie could instead submit
his statement in writing. In writing his narrative of events,
Mackenzie brought his authorial experience to bear to ill effect
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the document was bloated full of tangents and philosophical musings.
Mackenzie's own legal counselor despaired of the narrative, calling it
quote a diabolical document. People wondered if, given the document's
excessive length, the captain was protesting a little too hard,
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but the testimony of Mackenzie's officers supported their captain. Their
stories were consistent with Mackenzie's narrati of On January twenty eighth,
the day that would have been Philip Spencer's nineteenth birthday,
the Court of Inquiry announced their findings. They concluded that
quote the immediate execution of the prisoners was demanded by
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duty and justified by necessity. It was a victory for McKenzie,
but this was just the first battle. John Spencer, along
with Samuel Cromwell's widow Margaret, were pushing to have Mackenzie
tried for murder in a civilian court, but a judge
ruled that a civilian court did not have jurisdiction over
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the case. Only a military court did. That meant a
court martial. Mackenzie himself had requested a court martial, believing
that it would clear his name and believing that a
civilian jury might not understand what he called his quote
conscientious performance of my duty. Secretary Upsher agreed, and on
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February second, eighteen forty three, Commander Mackenzie's court marcial began.
It took place at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, first Aboardisteship,
and then when the audience grew too large, in the chapel.
The Navy charged Mackenzie with five crimes murder for the
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killing of Philip Spencer, oppression for the killing of Samuel
Cromwell without sufficient cause, illegal punishment for the killing of
Elishah Small, conduct unbecoming an officer for his treatment of
Philip Spencer before his execution, and cruelty, and oppression for
his excessive punishment of his entire crew throughout the voyage.
(38:44):
Eleven high ranking naval officers served as jurors on the case,
serving in the prosecutor's role called in this context. The
judge advocate was William M. Norris, a lawyer from Baltimore.
Little is known about Dorris or how he was chosen
for this role. It was a difficult job. Norris had
(39:06):
to go into the trial completely unprepared because none of
the Summers's officers would speak to him before the trial,
but Norris was tireless and determined. Over the next five weeks,
he relentlessly questioned the witnesses. The testimony could be repetitive
and tedious. Norris did not know who had valuable information
(39:29):
until he managed to uncover it. But uncover it he did, slowly, steadily,
Norris began to poke holes in the rock solid story
of impending mutiny. One of Norris's main themes was how
little evidence the captain and officers actually had. During his
(39:49):
examination of First Lieutenant Gansuwort, Norris asked if ganzi Ort,
in all the hours he spent guarding Spencer on deck,
had ever tried to question Spencer about the plan. If
you made no inquiries of Spencer, Norris asked, what did
you do in pursuance of the Commander's instructions to find
(40:10):
out from mister Spencer what you could as to the mutiny?
Ganzi Ort could only answer, I inquired among the crew.
Ganzi Ort had, also, on Mackenzie's orders, followed Philip Spencer
around on November twenty sixth. His observations, he testified, had
convinced him that Philip Spencer was up to no good.
(40:33):
But Norris revealed how flimsy these observations really were. He
asked gans of Ort, quote, was mister Spencer till the
time of his arrest engaged in the usual duties of
an officer of his station? Ganzi Ort admitted that Spencer
had been, with the exception of getting a tattoo from
a crew member. Sailor getting a tattoo was hardly unusual.
(40:58):
Ganza Ort also claim that Spencer had given him quote
a menacing look and displayed, quote, the most infernal expression
I have ever beheld on a human face. Was this
the kind of evidence that justified executing a man? And
what about proof of Cromwell's involvement? Norris got Ganziwort to
(41:21):
admit that Cromwell's name never appeared on Spencer's alleged list
of conspirators. Not only had the investigation been shoddy, Norris implied,
but it had also trampled on the prisoner's civil rights.
From the time of Spencer's arrest to the time of
his execution, did any officer explain to mister Spencer his
(41:43):
situation and what was contemplated in respect to him? Norris
asked ganz of Ort. Ganza Ort said no, neither had
Cromwell nor Small been warned that they were on trial
for their lives until the sentence had already been passed.
(42:04):
Norris pushed the officers as to why they had not
sought a solution other than execution. Had the officers ever
considered just trying to reach a port they were in
the West Indies when they first learned of the mutiny
nearby islands abounded. Norris asked Acting Master Matthew Perry, the
(42:25):
twenty one year old son of Commodore Perry, why they
had not tried to take the ship into harbor and
get help in suppressing the alleged mutiny. Was discussed as
to whether she could be taken into Saint Thomas. Matthew
replied Saint Thomas at this time was a Danish colony,
but the officers did not want to go to Saint
(42:45):
Thomas for help or any other foreign island, because, Matthew
explained quote, it would be a disgrace to the United States,
the Navy, and particularly to the officers if an American
man of war could not protect herself. A few men's
lives were a small price to pay to save face.
(43:07):
It seemed many in the public believed that fear had
been a motivator in the officer's decision, fear for their
lives and for the lives of the crew, But Norris
pointed out that some of their behavior before the execution
did not hint a true fear. All the officers cited
the incident of the collapsing mast as proof that danger
(43:29):
was imminent. Norris asked Matthew Perry about the event. Matthew
had been below deck when he heard the ruckus above
and ran up to see what the matter was, but
he didn't arm himself before running up, and Norris reminded
Matthew for his testimony at the Court of Inquiry. After
seeing the situation, Matthew quote went below because he found
(43:53):
nothing to do if he really thought mutiny was imminent,
Norris asked Matthew Perry, would it not have been your
duty to remain on deck. There were also troubling inconsistencies
in the officer's stories. While investigating the case, Norris had
learned that before the execution, Mackenzie had transcribed a letter
(44:15):
from Spencer to his family, but in his narrative, Mackenzie
claimed that this had never happened, that Spencer had declined
to write a letter, and the Spencer family had never
received a letter. Initially, the officers had backed up their
captain's claims, but Norris, armed with his discoveries, pushed the
(44:38):
officers for the truth. Oliver Perry, the seventeen year old
commander's clerk and another son of Matthew Perry, initially testified
that he had not seen any writing, but under pressure
he admitted that he actually had. In the face of
Oliver's testimony, Mackenzie now admitted that he had helped Spencer
(45:00):
write a letter. Two more men, Edbert Thompson and Daniel McKinley,
confirmed that they had seen the pair writing something. Where
was this letter? The letter would appear under strange circumstances
Almost a week later, on March fourteenth, Mackenzie said he
was too ill to come to court and the court
(45:23):
martial was adjourned. This continued for three days. The court
would assemble only to receive a note excusing Mackenzie from appearing.
These notes were all signed by the Summers surgeon, Richard
Lee Cock. Eventually, on March seventeenth, Mackenzie showed up, bringing
with him a document that he claimed was the one
(45:45):
he had written with Spencer on the day of the execution.
This document is baffling, to say the least. It reads
like a stream of consciousness of the hours leading up
to the execution. Occasionally the narrator seems to be Philip Spencer,
but Mackenzie's voice dominates. The writing is nearly illegible, many
(46:08):
sentences are fragmented, and there is no reference to Spencer's family.
Was this really the letter that Philip Spencer had dictated
in his final hour? William Norris did not think so.
He thought that Mackenzie, caught in a lie, had called
in sick and used the time to write a letter.
(46:30):
If Mackenzie was lying about this, Norris wondered what else
was he lying about, but time to find out was limited.
The patience of the court, after nearly two months of
repetitive testimony, was running out. On March twenty first, Norris
told the court that he was resting his case. The
(46:52):
next day, Mackenzie's lawyer, George Griffin, presented the case for
the defense. He would not be calling more witnesses, viewing
the evidence, and arguing his client's position. Griffin was a
skilled lawyer and a passionate speaker. He spoke for an
hour and a half, enthralling his audience, taking them on
(47:13):
to the Summers. In those trying days before the execution,
a nation's honor was at stake. Griffin told the court,
a vessel which had been consecrated as a defender of
her country's glory and one of the protectors of the
great commonwealth of civilized man, was about to be torn
(47:33):
from her sphere and let loose a lawless wanderer upon
the deep, carrying along in her devious course like a
comet loosened from its orbit, devastation and terror and death.
In the face of such a grave threat, what could
(47:53):
Mackenzie do but take immediate action? Griffin asked the court
not to punish Mackenzie, but to commend him. Mackenzie, in
Griffin's words, had quenched the flame of mutiny. He had
saved not only the Summers but all future navy's ships
(48:16):
from quote the demoralizing, destructive principle of insubordination. It was
a powerful emotional message, especially to the career navymen who
sat in judgment of Mackenzie. Over the next five days,
all of the testimony was read aloud again. Then, on
(48:37):
March twenty seventh, William Norris presented his summation. Norris said
Mackenzie was not a defender of American values, he was
a destroyer of them. Though the military code was different
from the civil law, Norris acknowledged naval men are still
quote shielded by guaranteed privileges. The law tells of a
(49:01):
legally constituted court of the right of challenging the judges,
of examination and confrontment of witnesses. Whether or not Philip
Spencer had really planned a mutiny, and Norris did not
believe he had. Spencer was still due these sacred rights.
Public ships are creatures of the law, Norris concluded, and
(49:24):
meant to sustain it and not to overstretch it. The
Navy's officers are sworn to sustain the constitution, but Mackenzie
had not upheld the law. Norris argued he had put
himself above it. The panel of Navy officers deliberated for
five days and then delivered their verdict on April first.
(49:47):
They had made the same finding for each one of
the five charges Mackenzie faced on the charges of murder,
illegal punishment, oppression, conduct, unbecoming an officer, and cruelty. Commander
Alexander Slidell McKenzie was found not guilty. The verdict had
(50:10):
not been unanimous. General court martials did not and still
do not, require unanimity for a guilty verdict, only a
two thirds majority. The panel of jurors concluded that Norris
had not addressed the fourth and fifth charges, those of
unbecoming conduct and cruelty for the general treatment of the crew.
(50:31):
On the charge of illegal punishment for the hanging of
Elishah Small, the jurors unanimously acquitted mackenzie. On the charge
of murder for the hanging of Philip Spencer. The jurors
split nine to three in favor of acquittal. On the
charge of oppression for the hanging of Samuel Cromwell, the
jury voted eight to four to acquit. The military also
(50:54):
decided to release the remaining sailors whom mackenzie had ordered arrested.
On March twenty nine, ninth, President John Tyler's cabinet met
to discuss the verdict. The other members encouraged John Spencer
to recuse himself from the meeting. He did not. Secretary
of the Navy Abel Upsher recommended that he and Tyler
(51:14):
publicly declare that the verdict was an honorable acquittal. Upsher's
support from Mackenzie apparently led to a full blown physical
fight between himself and John Spencer, which the President had
to break up. President Tyler himself was not happy about
the verdict. He had read the court martial transcript and
believed that Mackenzie ought to have been found guilty, but
(51:37):
his hands were tied under the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy.
Mackenzie could not be retried for a crime he had
been acquitted of, and Tyler did believe that the court
proceedings had been fair. Nonetheless, the President made his true
feelings clear. As long as my power should last, he said,
(51:58):
Mackenzie should never be a trusted with another command. He
publicly approved the verdict, but refused to call it an
honorable acquittal. Despite the President's criticisms, many people supported Mackenzie.
A public fund was taken up to cover his legal fees.
The famous poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of poems such
(52:20):
as Paul Revere's Ride, was just one of Mackenzie's prominent fans. Longfellow,
who knew Mackenzie through Washington. Irving wrote to Mackenzie after
the court martial, saying, quote, the voice of all upright men,
the common consent of all the good is with you. Mackenzie,
(52:41):
delighted and apparently remorseless, replied with the suggestion that Longfellow
write an epic poem about the USS Summers. But Mackenzie's
reputation was permanently painted by the Events on the Summers.
This was in part thanks to another famous literary figure,
one who made his disgust with the acquittal public in
(53:03):
impressive form. James Fenimore Cooper, best known today as the
author of the Last of the Mohicans, had pre existing
beef with Mackenzie. The two had disagreed over Cooper's writings
about the Battle of Lake Erie. Cooper had served in
the Navy himself and felt uniquely qualified to judge Mackenzie's actions,
(53:26):
believing that his insights might be helpful to others. Cooper
published two extensive dissections of the events on the Summers
and the proceedings of the court martial. In the dramatically
titled The Crews of the Summers Illustrative of the Despotism
of the Quarterdeck and of the unmanly conduct of Commander Mackenzie.
(53:47):
Cooper methodically exposed the absurdity of the mutiny claims. The
truth is, Cooper wrote, the story is an exaggeration. For
all the testimony gathered by the officers from the crew,
Cooper noted quote, not an individual gives any fact to
corroborate his suspicions. He criticized the investigation, noting that it
(54:09):
was on shaky grounds from the very beginning. Why had
Commander Mackenzie so readily accepted the words of the purser's steward,
James Wales? Besides a personal dislike of Philip Spencer? What
made his character so inherently less trustworthy than Wales's? Yes,
Spencer had a record, but so it emerged, did Wales.
(54:34):
The summer before the Summers's first official mission, Mackenzie had
taken the ship for a practice run to Puerto Rico.
While there, James Wales had gotten mixed up in some
sort of trouble, serious enough that Mackenzie acknowledged it in
his narrative of events. Why was Wales's word taken as
gospel while Cromwell, Small and Spencer were disbelieved? Cooper after
(55:00):
walking through each piece of supposed evidence, from the flimsy
importance of infernal expressions to the likely innocent explanation for
the mast's collapse, dove into the captain's psychological motivations. Many
people had attributed Mackenzie's harsh decision to fear, but we
(55:20):
should remember, Cooper wrote that peril is the very thing
a sailor expects to meet, wishes to meet. Indeed, wherever
he goes, he expects to face danger that requires more
than a landsman's nerve to meet. Despite the ship's isolation
and the tense circumstances, Cooper believed that a true naval
(55:43):
officer should be better equipped to deal with such events
than anyone else. Cooper also discussed a troubling point that
had emerged during the court martial. Horace High School, the
purser had been in charge of transcribing the officer's interviews
with crewmen during his testimony. High School acknowledged that some
(56:04):
of the transcripts had been edited after the interviews concluded.
This loose manner of taking down such important testimony, Cooper wrote,
is not only illustrative of the want of a decent
regard for the rights of the accused and for public opinion,
but very justly lays the published account of it open
(56:25):
to grave suspicions. These suspicions would later be confirmed. A crewman,
George Washington Warner, told his nephew, the journalist Frederick F.
Van der Water, that the officers had fabricated part of
his testimony. Warner, who had been flogged by Cromwell, had
(56:46):
told the officers that he would hang Cromwell if he could.
When the officers asked why, Warner said he'd just disliked
the man. But this answer didn't satisfy the officers. They
pushed Warren to say he believed Cromwell was guilty of mutiny.
When he would not, they dismissed him. When Warner next
(57:07):
saw his testimony, someone had put in their own answer,
attributing it to him. Now. When asked why he believed
Cromwell should be hanged, the paper showed Warner saying, quote,
because I believe him guilty. This example is a neat
illustration of the whole story of the USS Summers. From
(57:32):
the beginning, Commander Mackenzie had believed Philip Spencer guilty, guilty
of what exactly he did not know, but when he
was given an opportunity to rid himself of a troublesome,
disliked officer, Mackenzie did not hesitate. This isn't to discount
the very real fear the officers of the Summers may
(57:53):
have felt at the idea of a mutiny, but Cooper's
point that naval men ought to be more for danger
than other men is a revealing one. Both he and
William Norris pointed out that the heightened powers of a
military commander should not give him greater leeway to act. Instead,
(58:14):
it should subject him to stricter scrutiny. In other words,
with great power comes great responsibility. This is particularly true
when those under your command are mainly children. The two
experienced officers aboard, Commander Mackenzie and First Lieutenant ganzi Ort,
(58:34):
should have remembered that their accused criminal was a fanciful teenager,
and they should not have asked the officers, many of
whom were teenagers themselves, to pass a death sentence. For
Ganziwort's part, he seemed haunted by the whole ordeal. He
would later be disciplined for drinking on the job and
(58:57):
during the Civil War for running a sloop he could
demanded a ground. He never held command again and died
in eighteen sixty eight. Ganzafort was not the only officer
to apparently struggle with what happened on the Summers. On
March thirty first, eighteen forty three, shortly before the verdict
(59:19):
in the court martial was announced, Richard Leacock, the twenty
eight year old ships surgeon who had both recommended the
executions and written Mackenzie's sick notes during the court martial,
killed himself aboard the Summers. Mackenzie, on the other hand,
never stopped defending himself. True to President Tyler's word, Mackenzie
(59:44):
did not command another ship during that president's tenure. He
spent this time at home working on his books. Then,
during the Mexican War, he was given command of a
steam freighter. This command seems to have passed without incident.
On September thirteenth, eighteen forty eight, Alexander Mackenzie died suddenly
(01:00:07):
at home of a heart attack, aged forty five. Three
years earlier, in eighteen forty five, the Navy had finally
established a permanent, comprehensive officer training school. This school now
the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, traces its
(01:00:27):
history in part to the Summers. Per the Academy's website
quote the incident cast doubt over the wisdom of sending
midshipmen directly aboard ship to learn. By doing so, mackenzie
had seen his hopes for an educated officer class realized.
But in a strange way, McKenzie had actually come closer
(01:00:49):
to achieving Philip Spencer's dreams than his own. McKenzie had
never become a truly famous author, nor risen to the
highest ranks of the Navy, but he had, by taking
the law into his own hands, become a pirate of sorts.
(01:01:09):
Justice there was none of on board the Summers, James
Fenimore Cooper wrote, A pirate's deck would have exhibited more mercy.
That's the story of the court martial of Commander Alexander
Slidel mackenzie. Stay with me after the break to learn
(01:01:30):
about how this case touched the life of yet another
famous author. Lieutenant Gerrett gans of Ort was part of
a prominent Dutch American family from New York. His grandfather,
Peter Gansavort, had served as a general in the Continental
Army during the Revolutionary War. Peter Gansibort had six children.
(01:01:53):
One of them, a son named Leonard, was Gerret Gansifort's father.
Another of Peter's children was a daughter, Maria. Maria married
a man named Allan. The couple would have eight children
of their own. The third was a boy who would
become perhaps the most well known chronicler of the nautical world,
(01:02:16):
Herman Melville. Melville, who was only seven years younger than
his cousin Garrett, was intimately familiar with the USS Summers.
He referenced the case in multiple works. The most direct
connection is in his posthumously published novella Billy Budd, which
tells the story of a British sailor who accidentally kills
(01:02:38):
a sadistic officer who has wrongfully accused Bud of plotting
a mutiny. Bud, in turn, is himself executed. The men
who hanged Bud, Melville writes, were brought to something more
or less akin to that harassed frame of mind, which
in the year eighteen forty two actuated the command of
(01:03:00):
the US brig of War Summers to resolve upon the
execution at sea of three men, Which resolution was carried out,
though in a time of peace and within not many
days sale of Home. Dryly, Melville says that the story
is quote cited without comment, though his sarcasm makes his
(01:03:22):
real feelings clear. Over the years, many have chosen to
comment more explicitly on the Summer's case. Some have supported
Mackenzie's choices, others have denounced them, But the story has
lingered on finding echoes in cases where questions of safety
are held up against the preservation of rights. Philip Spencer,
(01:03:46):
Samuel Cromwell, and Elijah Small may have been silenced by
a lack of due process, but their lives echo, As
James Fenimore Cooper so powerfully put it, though the prince
of perpetrator has safely passed the ordeal of a courtmercial,
the blood of the slain cries from out the deep,
(01:04:09):
and sooner or later will be heard, no matter what
attempts may be made to stifle it. Thank you for
listening to History on Trial. My main sources for this
episode were Richard Snow's book Sailing the Graveyard Seed, The
Deathly Voyage of the Summers, The US Navy's Only Mutiny
(01:04:30):
and the Trial that Gripped the Nation, and James Fenimore
Cooper's The Crews of the summers illustrative of the despotism
of the Quarterdeck and of the unmanly conduct of Commander Mackenzie.
For a full bibliography, as well as a transcript of
this episode with Citatis, please visit our website History on
Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and
(01:04:55):
hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and
executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward.
Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast
dot com and follow us on Instagram at History on
(01:05:17):
Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial. Find
more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You are listening to History on Trial, a production of
iHeart podcasts. Listener Discretion advised the prisoners had to die.
It wasn't an easy conclusion to reach. Seven officers of
(00:21):
the USS Summers had spent all of November thirtieth, eighteen
forty two locked in the wardroom of the ship, questioning witnesses,
gathering the full story. The next day, December first, they
presented their findings to their captain, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie.
(00:46):
After as dispassionate and deliberate a consideration of the case
as the exigencies of the time would admit, the officers wrote,
we have come to a cool, decided, and unanimous opinion
that the prisoners have been guilty of a full and
(01:08):
determined intention to commit a mutiny on board of this
vessel of a most atrocious nature. What was more, the
letter continued, there was no way to keep the prisoners
safely away from the rest of the crew and transport
them back to the United States for court martial. The
(01:30):
safety of the public property, the lives of ourselves and
of those committed to our charge, the officers concluded, require
that the prisoners should be put to death. Who were
these prisoners? There were three of them. One of them
(01:52):
was an officer himself, Midshipman Philip Spencer, age eighteen. He
was alleged to be the ringleader of the mutiny plot.
His two accomplices were a mismatched pair, the tallest man
on the ship, Chief Bosun's mate, Samuel Cromwell, and the
(02:12):
shortest seamen, Elisious Mall. After learning about the mutiny plot,
Commander Mackenzie had arrested the men, Spencer first on November
twenty sixth, and then Cromwell and Small on the twenty seventh.
Even after these arrests, it seemed that the ship was
(02:33):
not safe. The prisoners were being kept on the quarter deck,
a raised deck behind the main mast, from which they
could see the crew at work, and the crew could
see them. Two Mackenzie and his officers had seen meaningful
looks and maybe even hand gestures exchanged between the prisoners
(02:56):
and the crew. How many conspirators did the plot have?
At any minute, Mackenzie feared some signal would trigger the
crew to rise up and rebel. That could mean dozens
of deaths. There were one hundred and twenty Navy sailors
(03:17):
on board the USS Summers, Commander Mackenzie stealed his resolve.
Executing prisoners was a grave matter, and it was technically
outside of his legal rights as a captain, but he
was convinced that it was the only path forward. Mackenzie
(03:39):
ordered that Spencer, Cromwell and Small be put to death.
He called the crew to the deck. If there were
indeed more conspirators amongst their ranks, Mackenzie wanted them to
see the consequences of crime. The crew of the US
(04:00):
Summers watched silently as the three prisoners were informed of
their fates, and then hung from the yard arm, slowly
suffocating to death. When the USS Summers arrived back in
New York two weeks later, bringing news of the attempted
mutiny and the subsequent executions, the public was horrified about
(04:25):
the mutiny, that is, not about the hangings. These were
seen as a difficult but necessary choice made by a
courageous captain in a terrible situation. But as the Navy
probed into the events aboard the USS Summers, troubling questions
began to emerge. Had Mackenzie's actions been justified even worse,
(04:50):
had this threatened mutiny even been real On December twentieth,
an anonymous letter published in a washing In, DC newspaper
alleged that the inquiry conducted by the officers into the
mutiny had been biased and had denied the prisoner's basic
civil rights. The letter claimed that the three men had
(05:13):
been hanged on the basis of extremely thin evidence. The
letter was only signed s, but many people knew right
away who had written it. It was Philip Spencer's father,
John Canfield Spencer, and that meant trouble for Commander Mackenzie.
(05:38):
Because John Spencer was not just any grieving father. He
was the United States Secretary of War, and he was
determined to get justice for his dead son. But could
the Navy administer justice to one of its own. That
(05:59):
question would be tested at the court martial of Commander
Mackenzie in early eighteen forty three, a trial that sparked
debates over just how far military discipline could go. Welcome
to history on trial, I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This
(06:20):
week the court martial of Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie. Philip
Spencer had always dreamed of going to sea, but not
with the Navy. No, Philip Spencer wanted to be a pirate.
(06:42):
Born in eighteen twenty four in Canadagua, New York, Philip
missed the peak of piracy, a period in the seventeen
tens and twenties during which some two thousand pirates roamed
the Atlantic and Caribbean, by a century, but the legend
of pirates lived on long after their numbers were decimated
(07:03):
by European naval forces. In eighteen thirty seven, when Philip
was thirteen, Charles Elms published The Pirate's Own Book, a
four hundred and thirty two page epic filled with swashbuckling
tales from the High Seas. The book was so popular
that it ran for eight editions. It was one of
(07:27):
Philip Spencer's favorite books. Philip's pirate fantasies were met with
disapproval by his father, John Canfield Spencer. A brilliant, combative,
ambitious man. John Spencer wanted great things for his children. Philip,
the sixth of John Elizabeth Spencer's seven children, always struggled
(07:51):
to meet his father's expectations. Philip was undeniably bright. He
had a facility for languages. He quickly picked up Latin
and Greek, and would later become fluent in Spanish, he
could give a speech better than almost any of his
classmates at Geneva College, where he studied in the late
eighteen thirties, and he was brave in an era before anesthesia.
(08:17):
Classmates remembered with awe how Philip had refused the traditional
restraints during surgery to try to correct his wandering eye,
holding himself still through the agonizing procedure through sheer force
of will. But the discipline he showed in enduring pain
did not translate to other areas of his life. He
(08:40):
neglected his schoolwork, He snuck off campus and into town.
He drank. In November eighteen forty, when he was sixteen,
the school cited Philip for participating in what they called,
hilariously a cider disturbance. We'd probably call it a door party.
(09:01):
In the spring of eighteen forty one, hoping that a
change of scenery might do Philip some good, John Spencer
made his son transfer to Union College. Before he left Geneva,
Philip gave the school a copy of the Pirate's own book.
At Union, Philip did not take advantage of his fresh start.
(09:23):
Instead of focusing on his studies, he devoted himself to
founding a fraternity, the perfect place to host more cider
disturbances and to create secret handshakes and codes and rituals,
the kind of thing that Philip loved. The fraternity Philip
helped found Kai Sai today has chapters at thirty four
(09:46):
colleges and universities. John Spencer, however, was not impressed by
Philip's activities. During the eighteen thirties, the elder Spencer's political
star had risen. In October eighteen forty one, President John
Tyler chose John Spencer to be his Secretary of War.
(10:08):
Managing the military might have seemed easy in comparison to
managing Philip Spencer. At his wits end with his son,
Secretary Spencer decided that maybe the Navy could instill some discipline.
In November eighteen forty one, Philip was appointed as a midshipman,
the lowest rank of officer in the United States Navy.
(10:32):
But even the Navy could not tame Philip's energies. He drank,
fought with senior officers, and, on an official trip to Brazil,
brawled in the streets every time he got in trouble.
Though his father put in a good word with Abel Upscher,
the Secretary of the Navy, and Philip got another chance,
(10:55):
But by the summer of eighteen forty two, Secretary Upsher's
patients was wearing thin. He told Philip that he would
be watching carefully and gave him one last assignment on
which to prove himself. On August thirteenth, eighteen forty two,
Philip Spencer received orders to report to the USS Summers
(11:19):
in New York. Upon boarding, he met the man who
would one day order his death, Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie.
The Commander was born Alexander Slidell on April sixth, eighteen
o three, to John and Marjorie Slidell. In his thirties,
(11:40):
he would adopt his mother's maiden name Mackenzie, as a
condition of receiving an inheritance from a maternal uncle. The
Slydells were a wealthy, well connected family. One of Mackenzie's
brothers would become a US Senator and another would become
Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, but it was
(12:02):
his sister, Jane who would most influence Mackenzie's life. In
eighteen fourteen, Jane married Matthew Perry, a member of a
naval dynasty. Matthew's older brother, Oliver hazard Perry, was an
American hero for his victory at the Battle of Lake
(12:23):
Erie during the War of eighteen twelve. Matthew Perry too
would become a naval hero, eventually leading the mission that
opened trade with Japan. In the eighteen fifties. The Perry
family encouraged young Mackenzie to join the Navy, and he
became a midshipman at age eleven, sailing around the world
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throughout his teenage years. The Navy was a good fit
for the boy. Unlike Philip Spencer, Mackenzie liked discipline. He
liked rules and laws, making them and following them. In
his early days in the Navy, he saw what happened
when the laws were broken. Assigned to anti pirate duty
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in the West Indies, he witnessed the devastation pirate's pillaging
left in its wake, not nearly so glamorous in real
life as it was in the pirate's own book. In
eighteen twenty four, Mackenzie contracted yellow fever and took a
leave of absence from the Navy to recover. While on leave,
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he traveled to Spain and began to work on a
book about his experiences abroad. He befriended the writer Washington
Irving while in Madrid, and Irving would help Mackenzie publish
his first book, called A Year in Spain. The publication
made Mackenzie a minor celebrity, and he would continue writing
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even after returning from leave, though his later books received
cooler receptions. Journalist and historian Richard Snow argues in his
book Sailing the Graveyard Sea that Mackenzie's writings reveal quote
an opacity about common human feelings. They also depict a
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man full of contradictions, both moralistic and prudish. Mackenzie also
displays a taste for violence. He describes both crimes and
public executions, which, despite professing to dislike, he somehow couldn't
seem to stop attending while abroad in gruesome detail. In
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eighteen thirty six, Mackenzie married Kate Robinson. Soon after, he
adopted Mackenzie as his surname in order to receive the
family bequest. Using this money, he bought a farm in
New York's Hudson River Valley, near his friend Washington Irving.
He also began thinking seriously along with his brother in law,
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Matthew Perry, about how to reform America's navy. The Navy
at this point was struggling to attract, train, and retain
good men. The pay was low, the training programs were haphazard,
and promotions were difficult to obtain. In eighteen thirty seven,
Mackenzie and Perry wrote about the need for naval education
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in the Naval Magazine, calling for the establishment of an
apprenticeship program. Congress agreed with their recommendations and provided funding
to recruit and train boys aged thirteen to eighteen. Congress
also agreed to create a schoolship, a floating naval school
with on the job training for the young apprentices. The
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USS Summers, a beautiful new ship designed in part by
Matthew Perry, was chosen for the job. In eighteen forty one,
Alexander Mackenzie was promoted to the rank of commander. The
next year, he was assigned to the schoolship that he
and Perry had dreamed of. The stakes for this voyage
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were high. If it went well, the Navy might be
willing to produce more schoolships, Congress might agree to fund
more apprentices, and Mackenzie's beloved navy would flourish. To ensure success,
Mackenzie and Perry carefully selected the ship's officers. The first Lieutenant,
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Mackenzie's second in command, was thirty year old Garrett Gansvoort,
a member of a prominent New York family and a
skilled sailor who had risen quickly through the ranks of
the Navy. For the midshipmen, the lowest ranking officers, Perry
and Mackenzie filled the ranks with their relatives and their
friend's sons. Two of Perry's own sons were serving on board.
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Into this tightly knit crowd appeared the disruptive Philip Spencer.
Mackenzie took an immediate dislike to dists Spencer. He had
heard about Spencer's record and wanted him off the ship.
Mackenzie recommended that Spencer ask for a transfer. Spencer did so,
but Matthew Perry refused the request. Philip Spencer needed discipline,
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and Perry may have hoped the strict Mackenzie might be
just the one to provide a firm hand. Little did
anyone know just how firm that hand would be. The
voyage of the USS Summers began smoothly enough, departing New
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York on September thirteenth, eighteen forty two, the ship sailed east.
Its mission, an easy assignment fitting for a school ship,
was to deliver dispatches from America to another Navy ship,
the Vandalia, which was assisting the British Navy in intercepting
slave ships off the west coast of Africa. Quarters on
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the ship were tight, at one hundred feet long and
twenty feet wide at the thickest point. The Summers was
only meant to carry ninety men, but in an attempt
to squeeze as many apprentices in as possible, the Summers
had a crew of one hundred and twenty for this trip.
Of these one hundred and twenty, only thirty were older
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than nineteen. A third of the crew was between thirteen
and sixteen years old. Life at sea must have been
bewildering for these boys, many of whom had no sailing experience.
Time was measured in watches and bells. Sunday mornings were
spent mustard on deck. The sailors stood on deck while
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their uniforms were inspected. Attendance was taken, and the Articles
of War, a list of prohibited actions and resulting punishments
were read. Aloud. The one form of punishment was flogging,
lashing either with the Cat nine tails, a whip with
nine eighteen inch braided cords, or the Colt, a three
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foot long single strand whip. Both instruments could rip a
sailor's back. Open. Floggings were usually done in front of
the whole crew. Congress would ban flogging in eighteen fifty,
and some captains had already abandoned the practice, believing it
to be too cruel, but not Commander Mackenzie. He had
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a reputation as being quick to order floggings, and the
reputation was well earned. The boys of the Summers soon learned.
The first flogging happened only three days into the voyage,
six lashes each of the Colt for three crewmen accused
of avoiding work on the Summers, Sailors of all ages,
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even those as young as thirteen, were whipped frequently for
offenses as minor as borrowing someone else's shirts, smoking after
ten PM, or being impertinent. One fourteen year old apprentice,
Dennis Manning, received a total of one hundred and one
lashes during the ship's two month journey. Despite the frequent punishments,
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morale aboard the summers was high, at least for the
first few weeks. Part of the crew's good attitude might
have been due to Philip Spencer. Spencer had quickly found
himself the odd man out amongst the other officers, who
had all taken their commander's queue and shunned Spencer. He
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decided to search for friends amongst the crew instead. Spencer
amused the younger boys with a strange talent he had,
rhythmically dislocating his jaw to create eerie music. He won
the older sailors over with small gifts of smuggled brandy
or tobacco for money. Spencer especially concentrated his attention on
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two other misfits, Samuel Cromwell and Elisha Small. Cromwell was
widely disliked, and perhaps for good reason. As the chief
bosun's mate, Cromwell was in charge of administering the floggings.
An enormous man in his thirties, heavily muscled and scarred,
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Cromwell had a fierce temper and a filthy mouth. Crewman
whispered that he had once sailed with slavers or pirates.
Elishah Small, thirty years old, was a good sailor with
a bad drinking problem. He begun the voyage as the Summers' quartermaster,
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responsible for navigation, but had been quickly demoted for drunkenness. Small, Cromwell,
and Spencer soon formed trio. Spencer provided the men with
alcohol and tobacco. In return, Cromwell and Small told Spencer
wild stories from their lives at sea. The other officers
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judged Spencer for his friendship with lowly crewmen and got
annoyed by his laziness and tasteless jokes. Commander Mackenzie's dislike
for Spencer had also increased, but he largely ignored the
eighteen year old. By mid November, the Summers had reached Liberia,
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but they hadn't managed to catch up with the Vandalia,
which always seemed to be one port ahead of them.
Mackenzie decided that it was time to head home. Despite
this incomplete mission, everything was well aboard the Summers until Saturday,
November twenty sixth, that is, shortly after eight am, First
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Lieutenant Ganzifort burst into the Captain's cabin with shocking news
a mutiny was afoot. Kenzie was stunned. Gansafort laid out
the details for him that morning, Purser Stewart James Wales
had approached his superior purser, Horace High School, with a
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troubling story. The night before, Wales said he had been
approached by Philip Spencer. After swearing Wales to secrecy, Spencer
told him that he was planning to seize the ship.
Spencer said he had a number of the crew signed
up for his plan, which involved murdering the ship's officers
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and any uncooperative crewmen, sailing the Summers to the Caribbean,
and turning it into a pirate ship. While Spencer laid
out the details for Wales's Elisha Small approach, Spencer told
Small that he had enlisted Wales, and Small said he
was glad to hear it. When Spencer finished, he asked
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for his thoughts. Whales said he liked the idea, but
inside he was horrified. Wales resolved to report Spencer to
Commander Mackenzie as soon as possible. The next morning, and
able to easily get to Mackenzie, Wales had reported to
high school high school to ganzi Ort, and now ganzi
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Ort was telling Mackenzie. At first, the captain could not
believe it. It seemed to me so monstrous, so improbable, that
I could not forbear treating it with ridicule. Mackenzie later wrote,
I was under the impression that mister Spencer had been
reading some piratical stories and had amused himself with mister Wales.
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But improbable or not, Mackenzie felt he had a duty
to investigate. He told ganzi Ort to watch Spencer closely.
Ganza Ort followed Spencer all day, and what he saw
concerned him. I had observed, Gansibort reported to Mackenzie that
he was exceedingly intimate with the crew. I had noticed
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as individuals passed him by a strange flashing of the eye.
When Spencer had caught Ganzibart watching him, he had looked
at the lieutenant, in Ganshwort's words, with the most infernal
expression I have ever seen upon a human face. Moreover,
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gans of Ort had seen Spencer pouring over a map
of the Caribbean and asking the ship's surgeon, Richard Leacock,
about the Isle of Pine's, a notorious pirates haunt. It
wasn't much to go on, but Ganzibort and Mackenzie were
now convinced that Spencer was up to something. They couldn't
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risk a mutiny. Mackenzie decided that Spencer should be detained.
When he approached Spencer and asked him about the plan,
Spencer replied that it was just a joke. This joke,
Mackenzie told Spencer, may cost you your life. He ordered
that Spencer be shackled, and, because the Summers had little
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free space below deck, be taken to the quarter deck
and kept under observation. The next day, the investigation into
the mutiny continued. Lieutenant Ganziwort and Midship in Henry Rogers
searched Spencer's belongings. Inside his razor case. They found several
pieces of paper. Two of these were written in Greek letters. Rogers,
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who could read Greek, translated the words. It turned out,
were just English words spelled out with Greek characters. On
one page, a paragraph read those marked X will probably
be induced to join before the project is carried into execution.
The remainder of the doubtful will probably join when the
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thing is done. If not, they must be forced. If
any not marked down wish to join after it is done,
we will pick out the best and dispose of the rest. Below,
a list of names was sorted into three categories, certain, doubtful,
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and to be kept Nolan's Volan's willingly or not. It
was a damning document, to be sure, but also a
confusing one. The list of crew members who were certain
was small and included the name E Andrews, which did
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not match anyone on board. Elisha Small's name was not
on the certain list, but per Wales's story, he was
indeed involved. Despite these discrepancies, Mackenzie was now sure that
Spencer had been plotting a mutiny, and the captain had
concerns about Samuel Cromwell too. Spencer had not mentioned to
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Cromwell to Wales, and Cromwell's name was not anywhere on
Spencer's list, but Cromwell was known to be close to Spencer.
That afternoon, Mackenzie's suspicions seemed to be confirmed. One of
the ship's top masts suddenly collapsed, causing a number of
sails to fall. In the chaos that followed, Mackenzie noticed
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that Cromwell and Small were first on the scene. Had
they caused the mast collapse? He wondered, It was just
the type of distraction that mutineers could use to their advantage.
It was true that no uprising had begun. The masts
and sales were repaired, but Mackenzie believed that the crisis
had only narrowly been averted. He ordered Cromwell and then
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Small arrested and stowed on the quarter deck. Cromwell denied
any involvement in the plot, and Spencer also said that
the man was innocent. Small, on the other hand, said
that he had heard of plans. Mackenzie informed the three
men that they would be kept under lock and key
until the ship arrived back in America, where they would
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be tried for the crimes. Over the next three days,
tensions on the ship reached a fever pitch. Mackenzie ordered
his officers to arm themselves and patrol the ship. He
informed the crew about the mutiny plot and warned them
to abandon any schemes to free the prisoners. He arrested
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three more men believed to be connected with Spencer and
put them on the quarter deck. These further arrests brought
new concerns. The Summers was a small ship, Surely it
could not hold many prisoners, and Mackenzie was convinced that
the existing prisoners were plotting an escape with their uncaptured
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co conspirators. Maybe the leaders of the mutiny needed to
be removed permanently. Mackenzie had always seen his ships as
quote little worlds, self contained environments in which discipline meant harmony.
One bad apple could spoil the whole bunch, But he
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didn't want to make such a serious decision alone. On Wednesday,
November thirtieth, Mackenzie wrote a letter to his officers asking
them to investigate the situation on board and come to
a conclusion about the best path forward. The seven officers
moved swiftly. They took over the wardroom, the officer's mess hall,
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and brought in crew members for questioning. Many of the
crewmen claimed that Spencer had spoken to them about dreaming
of being a pirate and of hoping to have a
ship of his own. They all agreed that Spencer, Small
and Cromwell were the ringleaders. Many of the sailors spoke
especially harshly about Samuel Cromwell. The questioning continued throughout the
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day and into the next morning. The officers reached a decision.
They wrote to Mackenzie and told him that they believed
the prisoners should be executed. Mackenzie wasted no time in
carrying out the sentence. Summoning the crew to the deck,
McKenzie donned his full dress uniform and told his officers
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to arm themselves. Then he told the prisoners their fate.
Elishah Small took the news calmly. Philip Spencer began to weep.
Samuel Cromwell fell to his knees and yelled, God of
the Universe, looked down upon my poor wife. I am innocent.
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Spencer regained his composure and told Mackenzie quote, as these
are the last words I have to say, I trust
they will be believed. Cromwell is innocent. Mackenzie was unsettled.
Seeking reassurance, he questioned his officers if they were certain
of Cromwell's guilt. They said they were, and this was
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enough for the captain. Returning to Spencer, mackenzie began a
strange conversation with the eighteen year old. When Spencer said
that he felt bad for wronging his parents, Mackenzie told
Spencer that his father was part of the reason for
his death sentence. If mackenzie had taken Spencer back to
the United States for court martial, the captain said, John
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Spencer likely would have interfered in the trial for those
who have friends or money in America, Mackenzie said there
was no punishment for the worst of crimes. He spoke
to Spencer for nearly an hour. He asked his steward
to bring paper and ink so that Spencer could write
a letter to his parents. When Spencer said he could
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not write with his hand shackled, Mackenzie wrote for him,
and then finally the terrible moment arrived. The execution itself
was gruesome and painful. The prisoners, faces covered, hands and
feet still shackled, had nooses fastened around their necks. The
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ropes trailing from these nooses hung over the yard arm
of the ship, the large beam running perpendicular to the mainmast.
Groups of men held the other side of the rope.
On a signal the firing of a gun, the men
pulled the ropes, dragging the prisoner's twenty feet in the air,
where they slowly strangled to death, their bodies spinning in
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the wind. Mackenzie, with the bodies still hanging above the deck,
gave his crew a speech about the dangers of disobedience.
The rest of the journey held a tenor of muted fear.
The summers made it back to New York Harbor two
weeks after the executions, and a messenger was quickly dispatched
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to Secretary of the Navy, Able Upsher. Soon news of
the shocking events on board the Summers had spread across
the country. Most people praised Captain Mackenzie. The New York
Tribune wrote, quote, by the prompt and fearless decision of
Captain Mackenzie, one of the most bold and daring conspiracies
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ever formed. Was frustrated and crushed. But six days later,
on December twentieth, John Canfield Spencer published his anonymous rebuttal
of Mackenzie's accounts of the events on board. Spencer questioned
the legality of Mackenzie's impromptue on board court martial and
questioned whether the threat of a mutiny was even real.
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The Navy promised a full investigation, but would an investigation
be enough for John Spencer? Pending an investigation into the mutiny,
no one was allowed to leave the USS Summers once
it docked in New York. No one except Mackenzie, that was,
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who went to visit his brother in law, Matthew Perry Commodore.
Perry was now the commandant of the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Before leaving the Summers, Mackenzie ordered the arrest of eight
more men who he believed to be involved in the mutiny.
Criticism of Mackenzie was growing louder, both within and outside
of the Navy. Captain Francis Gregory, commander of the USS
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North Carolina, visited the Summers after it docked. He was
horrified by conditions on board. I have never known the
crew of an American man of war so dirty and
dejected in their personal appearance as hers were at the
time of her arrival here, he wrote a colleague. Gregory
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was also shocked by the number of floggings Mackenzie had ordered,
a number Gregory said that was quote beyond all precedent
within my knowledge. News of Gregory's discoveries quickly became public.
On December twenty eighth, the Navy convened a Court of Inquiry.
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This court could only investigate, it could not punish, and
unlike in a traditional trial, the person being investigated did
not need to appear in person. Mackenzie could instead submit
his statement in writing. In writing his narrative of events,
Mackenzie brought his authorial experience to bear to ill effect
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the document was bloated full of tangents and philosophical musings.
Mackenzie's own legal counselor despaired of the narrative, calling it
quote a diabolical document. People wondered if, given the document's
excessive length, the captain was protesting a little too hard,
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but the testimony of Mackenzie's officers supported their captain. Their
stories were consistent with Mackenzie's narrati of On January twenty eighth,
the day that would have been Philip Spencer's nineteenth birthday,
the Court of Inquiry announced their findings. They concluded that
quote the immediate execution of the prisoners was demanded by
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duty and justified by necessity. It was a victory for McKenzie,
but this was just the first battle. John Spencer, along
with Samuel Cromwell's widow Margaret, were pushing to have Mackenzie
tried for murder in a civilian court, but a judge
ruled that a civilian court did not have jurisdiction over
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the case. Only a military court did. That meant a
court martial. Mackenzie himself had requested a court martial, believing
that it would clear his name and believing that a
civilian jury might not understand what he called his quote
conscientious performance of my duty. Secretary Upsher agreed, and on
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February second, eighteen forty three, Commander Mackenzie's court marcial began.
It took place at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, first Aboardisteship,
and then when the audience grew too large, in the chapel.
The Navy charged Mackenzie with five crimes murder for the
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killing of Philip Spencer, oppression for the killing of Samuel
Cromwell without sufficient cause, illegal punishment for the killing of
Elishah Small, conduct unbecoming an officer for his treatment of
Philip Spencer before his execution, and cruelty, and oppression for
his excessive punishment of his entire crew throughout the voyage.
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Eleven high ranking naval officers served as jurors on the case,
serving in the prosecutor's role called in this context. The
judge advocate was William M. Norris, a lawyer from Baltimore.
Little is known about Dorris or how he was chosen
for this role. It was a difficult job. Norris had
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to go into the trial completely unprepared because none of
the Summers's officers would speak to him before the trial,
but Norris was tireless and determined. Over the next five weeks,
he relentlessly questioned the witnesses. The testimony could be repetitive
and tedious. Norris did not know who had valuable information
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until he managed to uncover it. But uncover it he did, slowly, steadily,
Norris began to poke holes in the rock solid story
of impending mutiny. One of Norris's main themes was how
little evidence the captain and officers actually had. During his
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examination of First Lieutenant Gansuwort, Norris asked if ganzi Ort,
in all the hours he spent guarding Spencer on deck,
had ever tried to question Spencer about the plan. If
you made no inquiries of Spencer, Norris asked, what did
you do in pursuance of the Commander's instructions to find
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out from mister Spencer what you could as to the mutiny?
Ganzi Ort could only answer, I inquired among the crew.
Ganzi Ort had, also, on Mackenzie's orders, followed Philip Spencer
around on November twenty sixth. His observations, he testified, had
convinced him that Philip Spencer was up to no good.
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But Norris revealed how flimsy these observations really were. He
asked gans of Ort, quote, was mister Spencer till the
time of his arrest engaged in the usual duties of
an officer of his station? Ganzi Ort admitted that Spencer
had been, with the exception of getting a tattoo from
a crew member. Sailor getting a tattoo was hardly unusual.
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Ganza Ort also claim that Spencer had given him quote
a menacing look and displayed, quote, the most infernal expression
I have ever beheld on a human face. Was this
the kind of evidence that justified executing a man? And
what about proof of Cromwell's involvement? Norris got Ganziwort to
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admit that Cromwell's name never appeared on Spencer's alleged list
of conspirators. Not only had the investigation been shoddy, Norris implied,
but it had also trampled on the prisoner's civil rights.
From the time of Spencer's arrest to the time of
his execution, did any officer explain to mister Spencer his
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situation and what was contemplated in respect to him? Norris
asked ganz of Ort. Ganza Ort said no, neither had
Cromwell nor Small been warned that they were on trial
for their lives until the sentence had already been passed.
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Norris pushed the officers as to why they had not
sought a solution other than execution. Had the officers ever
considered just trying to reach a port they were in
the West Indies when they first learned of the mutiny
nearby islands abounded. Norris asked Acting Master Matthew Perry, the
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twenty one year old son of Commodore Perry, why they
had not tried to take the ship into harbor and
get help in suppressing the alleged mutiny. Was discussed as
to whether she could be taken into Saint Thomas. Matthew
replied Saint Thomas at this time was a Danish colony,
but the officers did not want to go to Saint
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Thomas for help or any other foreign island, because, Matthew
explained quote, it would be a disgrace to the United States,
the Navy, and particularly to the officers if an American
man of war could not protect herself. A few men's
lives were a small price to pay to save face.
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It seemed many in the public believed that fear had
been a motivator in the officer's decision, fear for their
lives and for the lives of the crew, But Norris
pointed out that some of their behavior before the execution
did not hint a true fear. All the officers cited
the incident of the collapsing mast as proof that danger
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was imminent. Norris asked Matthew Perry about the event. Matthew
had been below deck when he heard the ruckus above
and ran up to see what the matter was, but
he didn't arm himself before running up, and Norris reminded
Matthew for his testimony at the Court of Inquiry. After
seeing the situation, Matthew quote went below because he found
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nothing to do if he really thought mutiny was imminent,
Norris asked Matthew Perry, would it not have been your
duty to remain on deck. There were also troubling inconsistencies
in the officer's stories. While investigating the case, Norris had
learned that before the execution, Mackenzie had transcribed a letter
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from Spencer to his family, but in his narrative, Mackenzie
claimed that this had never happened, that Spencer had declined
to write a letter, and the Spencer family had never
received a letter. Initially, the officers had backed up their
captain's claims, but Norris, armed with his discoveries, pushed the
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officers for the truth. Oliver Perry, the seventeen year old
commander's clerk and another son of Matthew Perry, initially testified
that he had not seen any writing, but under pressure
he admitted that he actually had. In the face of
Oliver's testimony, Mackenzie now admitted that he had helped Spencer
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write a letter. Two more men, Edbert Thompson and Daniel McKinley,
confirmed that they had seen the pair writing something. Where
was this letter? The letter would appear under strange circumstances
Almost a week later, on March fourteenth, Mackenzie said he
was too ill to come to court and the court
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martial was adjourned. This continued for three days. The court
would assemble only to receive a note excusing Mackenzie from appearing.
These notes were all signed by the Summers surgeon, Richard
Lee Cock. Eventually, on March seventeenth, Mackenzie showed up, bringing
with him a document that he claimed was the one
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he had written with Spencer on the day of the execution.
This document is baffling, to say the least. It reads
like a stream of consciousness of the hours leading up
to the execution. Occasionally the narrator seems to be Philip Spencer,
but Mackenzie's voice dominates. The writing is nearly illegible, many
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sentences are fragmented, and there is no reference to Spencer's family.
Was this really the letter that Philip Spencer had dictated
in his final hour? William Norris did not think so.
He thought that Mackenzie, caught in a lie, had called
in sick and used the time to write a letter.
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If Mackenzie was lying about this, Norris wondered what else
was he lying about, but time to find out was limited.
The patience of the court, after nearly two months of
repetitive testimony, was running out. On March twenty first, Norris
told the court that he was resting his case. The
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next day, Mackenzie's lawyer, George Griffin, presented the case for
the defense. He would not be calling more witnesses, viewing
the evidence, and arguing his client's position. Griffin was a
skilled lawyer and a passionate speaker. He spoke for an
hour and a half, enthralling his audience, taking them on
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to the Summers. In those trying days before the execution,
a nation's honor was at stake. Griffin told the court,
a vessel which had been consecrated as a defender of
her country's glory and one of the protectors of the
great commonwealth of civilized man, was about to be torn
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from her sphere and let loose a lawless wanderer upon
the deep, carrying along in her devious course like a
comet loosened from its orbit, devastation and terror and death.
In the face of such a grave threat, what could
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Mackenzie do but take immediate action? Griffin asked the court
not to punish Mackenzie, but to commend him. Mackenzie, in
Griffin's words, had quenched the flame of mutiny. He had
saved not only the Summers but all future navy's ships
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from quote the demoralizing, destructive principle of insubordination. It was
a powerful emotional message, especially to the career navymen who
sat in judgment of Mackenzie. Over the next five days,
all of the testimony was read aloud again. Then, on
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March twenty seventh, William Norris presented his summation. Norris said
Mackenzie was not a defender of American values, he was
a destroyer of them. Though the military code was different
from the civil law, Norris acknowledged naval men are still
quote shielded by guaranteed privileges. The law tells of a
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legally constituted court of the right of challenging the judges,
of examination and confrontment of witnesses. Whether or not Philip
Spencer had really planned a mutiny, and Norris did not
believe he had. Spencer was still due these sacred rights.
Public ships are creatures of the law, Norris concluded, and
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meant to sustain it and not to overstretch it. The
Navy's officers are sworn to sustain the constitution, but Mackenzie
had not upheld the law. Norris argued he had put
himself above it. The panel of Navy officers deliberated for
five days and then delivered their verdict on April first.
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They had made the same finding for each one of
the five charges Mackenzie faced on the charges of murder,
illegal punishment, oppression, conduct, unbecoming an officer, and cruelty. Commander
Alexander Slidell McKenzie was found not guilty. The verdict had
(50:10):
not been unanimous. General court martials did not and still
do not, require unanimity for a guilty verdict, only a
two thirds majority. The panel of jurors concluded that Norris
had not addressed the fourth and fifth charges, those of
unbecoming conduct and cruelty for the general treatment of the crew.
(50:31):
On the charge of illegal punishment for the hanging of
Elishah Small, the jurors unanimously acquitted mackenzie. On the charge
of murder for the hanging of Philip Spencer. The jurors
split nine to three in favor of acquittal. On the
charge of oppression for the hanging of Samuel Cromwell, the
jury voted eight to four to acquit. The military also
(50:54):
decided to release the remaining sailors whom mackenzie had ordered arrested.
On March twenty nine, ninth, President John Tyler's cabinet met
to discuss the verdict. The other members encouraged John Spencer
to recuse himself from the meeting. He did not. Secretary
of the Navy Abel Upsher recommended that he and Tyler
(51:14):
publicly declare that the verdict was an honorable acquittal. Upsher's
support from Mackenzie apparently led to a full blown physical
fight between himself and John Spencer, which the President had
to break up. President Tyler himself was not happy about
the verdict. He had read the court martial transcript and
believed that Mackenzie ought to have been found guilty, but
(51:37):
his hands were tied under the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy.
Mackenzie could not be retried for a crime he had
been acquitted of, and Tyler did believe that the court
proceedings had been fair. Nonetheless, the President made his true
feelings clear. As long as my power should last, he said,
(51:58):
Mackenzie should never be a trusted with another command. He
publicly approved the verdict, but refused to call it an
honorable acquittal. Despite the President's criticisms, many people supported Mackenzie.
A public fund was taken up to cover his legal fees.
The famous poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of poems such
(52:20):
as Paul Revere's Ride, was just one of Mackenzie's prominent fans. Longfellow,
who knew Mackenzie through Washington. Irving wrote to Mackenzie after
the court martial, saying, quote, the voice of all upright men,
the common consent of all the good is with you. Mackenzie,
(52:41):
delighted and apparently remorseless, replied with the suggestion that Longfellow
write an epic poem about the USS Summers. But Mackenzie's
reputation was permanently painted by the Events on the Summers.
This was in part thanks to another famous literary figure,
one who made his disgust with the acquittal public in
(53:03):
impressive form. James Fenimore Cooper, best known today as the
author of the Last of the Mohicans, had pre existing
beef with Mackenzie. The two had disagreed over Cooper's writings
about the Battle of Lake Erie. Cooper had served in
the Navy himself and felt uniquely qualified to judge Mackenzie's actions,
(53:26):
believing that his insights might be helpful to others. Cooper
published two extensive dissections of the events on the Summers
and the proceedings of the court martial. In the dramatically
titled The Crews of the Summers Illustrative of the Despotism
of the Quarterdeck and of the unmanly conduct of Commander Mackenzie.
(53:47):
Cooper methodically exposed the absurdity of the mutiny claims. The
truth is, Cooper wrote, the story is an exaggeration. For
all the testimony gathered by the officers from the crew,
Cooper noted quote, not an individual gives any fact to
corroborate his suspicions. He criticized the investigation, noting that it
(54:09):
was on shaky grounds from the very beginning. Why had
Commander Mackenzie so readily accepted the words of the purser's steward,
James Wales? Besides a personal dislike of Philip Spencer? What
made his character so inherently less trustworthy than Wales's? Yes,
Spencer had a record, but so it emerged, did Wales.
(54:34):
The summer before the Summers's first official mission, Mackenzie had
taken the ship for a practice run to Puerto Rico.
While there, James Wales had gotten mixed up in some
sort of trouble, serious enough that Mackenzie acknowledged it in
his narrative of events. Why was Wales's word taken as
gospel while Cromwell, Small and Spencer were disbelieved? Cooper after
(55:00):
walking through each piece of supposed evidence, from the flimsy
importance of infernal expressions to the likely innocent explanation for
the mast's collapse, dove into the captain's psychological motivations. Many
people had attributed Mackenzie's harsh decision to fear, but we
(55:20):
should remember, Cooper wrote that peril is the very thing
a sailor expects to meet, wishes to meet. Indeed, wherever
he goes, he expects to face danger that requires more
than a landsman's nerve to meet. Despite the ship's isolation
and the tense circumstances, Cooper believed that a true naval
(55:43):
officer should be better equipped to deal with such events
than anyone else. Cooper also discussed a troubling point that
had emerged during the court martial. Horace High School, the
purser had been in charge of transcribing the officer's interviews
with crewmen during his testimony. High School acknowledged that some
(56:04):
of the transcripts had been edited after the interviews concluded.
This loose manner of taking down such important testimony, Cooper wrote,
is not only illustrative of the want of a decent
regard for the rights of the accused and for public opinion,
but very justly lays the published account of it open
(56:25):
to grave suspicions. These suspicions would later be confirmed. A crewman,
George Washington Warner, told his nephew, the journalist Frederick F.
Van der Water, that the officers had fabricated part of
his testimony. Warner, who had been flogged by Cromwell, had
(56:46):
told the officers that he would hang Cromwell if he could.
When the officers asked why, Warner said he'd just disliked
the man. But this answer didn't satisfy the officers. They
pushed Warren to say he believed Cromwell was guilty of mutiny.
When he would not, they dismissed him. When Warner next
(57:07):
saw his testimony, someone had put in their own answer,
attributing it to him. Now. When asked why he believed
Cromwell should be hanged, the paper showed Warner saying, quote,
because I believe him guilty. This example is a neat
illustration of the whole story of the USS Summers. From
(57:32):
the beginning, Commander Mackenzie had believed Philip Spencer guilty, guilty
of what exactly he did not know, but when he
was given an opportunity to rid himself of a troublesome,
disliked officer, Mackenzie did not hesitate. This isn't to discount
the very real fear the officers of the Summers may
(57:53):
have felt at the idea of a mutiny, but Cooper's
point that naval men ought to be more for danger
than other men is a revealing one. Both he and
William Norris pointed out that the heightened powers of a
military commander should not give him greater leeway to act. Instead,
(58:14):
it should subject him to stricter scrutiny. In other words,
with great power comes great responsibility. This is particularly true
when those under your command are mainly children. The two
experienced officers aboard, Commander Mackenzie and First Lieutenant ganzi Ort,
(58:34):
should have remembered that their accused criminal was a fanciful teenager,
and they should not have asked the officers, many of
whom were teenagers themselves, to pass a death sentence. For
Ganziwort's part, he seemed haunted by the whole ordeal. He
would later be disciplined for drinking on the job and
(58:57):
during the Civil War for running a sloop he could
demanded a ground. He never held command again and died
in eighteen sixty eight. Ganzafort was not the only officer
to apparently struggle with what happened on the Summers. On
March thirty first, eighteen forty three, shortly before the verdict
(59:19):
in the court martial was announced, Richard Leacock, the twenty
eight year old ships surgeon who had both recommended the
executions and written Mackenzie's sick notes during the court martial,
killed himself aboard the Summers. Mackenzie, on the other hand,
never stopped defending himself. True to President Tyler's word, Mackenzie
(59:44):
did not command another ship during that president's tenure. He
spent this time at home working on his books. Then,
during the Mexican War, he was given command of a
steam freighter. This command seems to have passed without incident.
On September thirteenth, eighteen forty eight, Alexander Mackenzie died suddenly
(01:00:07):
at home of a heart attack, aged forty five. Three
years earlier, in eighteen forty five, the Navy had finally
established a permanent, comprehensive officer training school. This school now
the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, traces its
(01:00:27):
history in part to the Summers. Per the Academy's website
quote the incident cast doubt over the wisdom of sending
midshipmen directly aboard ship to learn. By doing so, mackenzie
had seen his hopes for an educated officer class realized.
But in a strange way, McKenzie had actually come closer
(01:00:49):
to achieving Philip Spencer's dreams than his own. McKenzie had
never become a truly famous author, nor risen to the
highest ranks of the Navy, but he had, by taking
the law into his own hands, become a pirate of sorts.
(01:01:09):
Justice there was none of on board the Summers, James
Fenimore Cooper wrote, A pirate's deck would have exhibited more mercy.
That's the story of the court martial of Commander Alexander
Slidel mackenzie. Stay with me after the break to learn
(01:01:30):
about how this case touched the life of yet another
famous author. Lieutenant Gerrett gans of Ort was part of
a prominent Dutch American family from New York. His grandfather,
Peter Gansavort, had served as a general in the Continental
Army during the Revolutionary War. Peter Gansibort had six children.
(01:01:53):
One of them, a son named Leonard, was Gerret Gansifort's father.
Another of Peter's children was a daughter, Maria. Maria married
a man named Allan. The couple would have eight children
of their own. The third was a boy who would
become perhaps the most well known chronicler of the nautical world,
(01:02:16):
Herman Melville. Melville, who was only seven years younger than
his cousin Garrett, was intimately familiar with the USS Summers.
He referenced the case in multiple works. The most direct
connection is in his posthumously published novella Billy Budd, which
tells the story of a British sailor who accidentally kills
(01:02:38):
a sadistic officer who has wrongfully accused Bud of plotting
a mutiny. Bud, in turn, is himself executed. The men
who hanged Bud, Melville writes, were brought to something more
or less akin to that harassed frame of mind, which
in the year eighteen forty two actuated the command of
(01:03:00):
the US brig of War Summers to resolve upon the
execution at sea of three men, Which resolution was carried out,
though in a time of peace and within not many
days sale of Home. Dryly, Melville says that the story
is quote cited without comment, though his sarcasm makes his
(01:03:22):
real feelings clear. Over the years, many have chosen to
comment more explicitly on the Summer's case. Some have supported
Mackenzie's choices, others have denounced them, But the story has
lingered on finding echoes in cases where questions of safety
are held up against the preservation of rights. Philip Spencer,
(01:03:46):
Samuel Cromwell, and Elijah Small may have been silenced by
a lack of due process, but their lives echo, As
James Fenimore Cooper so powerfully put it, though the prince
of perpetrator has safely passed the ordeal of a courtmercial,
the blood of the slain cries from out the deep,
(01:04:09):
and sooner or later will be heard, no matter what
attempts may be made to stifle it. Thank you for
listening to History on Trial. My main sources for this
episode were Richard Snow's book Sailing the Graveyard Seed, The
Deathly Voyage of the Summers, The US Navy's Only Mutiny
(01:04:30):
and the Trial that Gripped the Nation, and James Fenimore
Cooper's The Crews of the summers illustrative of the despotism
of the Quarterdeck and of the unmanly conduct of Commander Mackenzie.
For a full bibliography, as well as a transcript of
this episode with Citatis, please visit our website History on
Trial podcast dot com. History on Trial is written and
(01:04:55):
hosted by me Mira Hayward. The show is edited and
produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising producer Trevor Young and
executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams, Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward.
Learn more about the show at History on Trial podcast
dot com and follow us on Instagram at History on
(01:05:17):
Trial and on Twitter at Underscore History on Trial. Find
more podcasts from iHeartRadio by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Mira Hayward
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