44: The USS Somers: Midshipman Philip Spencer's Pirate Obsession and Captain Mackenzie's Taste for Violence. Richard Snow's book, Sailing the Graveyard Sea, recounts the 1842 voyage of the USS Somers,

The USS Somers: Midshipman Philip Spencer's Pirate Obsession and Captain Mackenzie's Taste for Violence.Richard Snow's book, Sailing the Graveyard Sea, recounts the 1842 voyage of the USS Somers, the US Navy's only mutiny. The mutiny centered on Midshipman Philip Spencer, born in 1824, son of prominent lawyer John Spencer. Philip was a difficult, unruly dreamer who withdrew into pirate stories, donating the massive The Pirate's Own Book to his school library. His father secured Philip a naval berth, hoping strict discipline would reform him. Spencer joined as a junior midshipman and quickly became isolated. He was walleyed, giving him a "slightly scary gaze" that could be interpreted as untrustworthy. The commander was Lieutenant Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, whose fame rested on A Year in Spain, largely ghostwritten by Washington Irving. Despite his respectable marriage, Mackenzie harbored a "tragic detail": he was a violent, flogging captain who wrote with "lubricious detail" about attending public hangings. The Somersset sail in September 1842 for Africa with a crew of 120, consisting of only 30 mature sailors. 1861