Stories of Our Naval Heroes Every Child Can Read

IN the ship _Essex_, one of the fleet that was sent to the Mediterranean to deal with the Moorish pirates, there was a brave young officer named Stephen Decatur. He was little m...

AN old friend of ours is David G. Farragut. We met him, you may remember, years ago, on the old _Essex_, under Captain Porter, when he was a boy of only about ten years of age....

YOU have been told how Captain Paul Jones lost his ship. He was given another in June, 1777. This was the _Ranger_, a frigate carrying twenty-six guns, but it was such a slow ol...

"_OLD IRONSIDES_ was a noble old ship, and a noble old ship was she." Come, I know you have not heard enough about this grand old ship, so let us go on with her story. And the f...

WHEN did our country win its greatest fame upon the sea? I think, when you have read the story of the War of 1812, you will say it was in that war. It is true, we did not do ver...

IN the year 1813, when war was going on between England and the United States, the whole northern part of this country was a vast forest. An ocean of trees stretched away from t...

THE story I am now going to tell you takes us forward to the beginning of the great Civil War, that terrible conflict which went on during four long years between the people of...

ONCE upon a time there lived in Scotland a poor gardener named John Paul, who had a little son to whom he gave the same name. The rich man's garden that the father took care of...

ANY of you who have read much of American history must have often met with the names of Porter and Farragut. There are no greater names in our naval history. There was Captain D...

NO doubt most of my readers know very well what a wasp is and how nicely it can take care of itself. When I was a boy I found out more than once how long and sharp a sting it ha...

WAS it not a dreadful pity that Benedict Arnold should disgrace himself forever by becoming a traitor to his country? To think of his making himself the most despised of all Ame...

THERE are victories of peace as well as of war. Of course, you do not need to be told that. Everybody knows it. And it often takes as much courage to win these victories as it d...

THE heroes of our navy were not all Americans born. More than one of them came from British soil, but a footprint on the green fields of America soon turned them into true-blue...

I HAVE told you what Hobson did and what Wainwright did at Santiago. Now it is time to tell all about what the ships did there; the story of the great Spanish dash for liberty a...

GEORGE DEWEY was a Green Mountain boy, a son of the Vermont hills. Many good stories are told of his schoolboy days, and when he grew up to be a man everybody that knew him said...

MANY of us, all our lives, have seen vessels of every size and shape darting to and fro over the water; some with sails spread to the wind, others with puffing pipes and whirlin...

DOES it not seem an odd fact that little Rhode Island, the smallest of all our states, should have two capital cities, while all the others, some of which would make more than a...

NOW I am going to tell you about one of the most gallant deeds done in the navy during the whole Civil War. The man who did it was brave enough to be made admiral of the fleet,...

HOW would any of you like to go back to the days when people had only tallow candles to light their houses, and the moon to light their streets, when they traveled on horseback...

OF course you know what a tremendous task the North had before it in the Civil War. The war between the North and the South was like a battle of giants. And in this vast contest...

THE United States navy had its _Hornet_ as well as its _Wasps_. And they were well named, for they were all able to sting. The captain of the _Hornet_ was a noble seaman named J...

WE have so far been reading the story of legal warfare; now let us turn to that of the wild warfare of the pirate ships. Pirates swarmed during and after the War of 1812, and th...

SOME of us know what a dark night is and some of us don't. Those who live in cities, under the glare of the electric light, hardly ever see real darkness. One must go far into t...

YOU must think by this time that we had many bold and brave sailors in the Revolution. So we had. You have not been told all their exploits, but only a few among the most gallan...

THE United States is a country rich in lakes. They might be named by the thousands. But out of this host of lakes very few are known in history, and of them all much the most fa...

I SUPPOSE all the readers of this book know what a pirate is. For those who may not know, I would say that a pirate is a sea-robber. They are terrible fellows, these pirates, wh...

CAPTAIN SAMUEL TUCKER was a Yankee boy who began his career by running away from home and shipping as a cabin-boy on the British sloop-of-war _Royal George_. It was a good schoo...

NOW I have a story to tell you about how this country looks after its citizens abroad. It is not a long story, but it is a good one, and Americans have been proud of Captain Ing...

IF you look at a map of the country we dwell in, you will see that it has a finger pointing south. That finger is called Florida, and it points to the beautiful island of Cuba,...