Seahawk Burning

Seahawk Trilogy #3

by Randall Peffer

A Novel of the Civil War at Sea

This final volume in the Raphael Semmes trilogy of Civil War naval thrillers, Seahawk Burning , follows the real-life adventures of Confederate Captain Raphael Semmes and his ship, the C.S.S. Alabama, on the final legs of their reign of terror on the high seas. The novel chronicles Semmes's rise to mythic stature as he becomes Lincoln's public enemy number one, seizing and burning scores of Yankee ships in the Caribbean Sea, the south Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the South China Sea before heading to France for sanctuary...all the while dodging scores of federal Navy ships pursuing him.

Enemy vessels, spy games, mutinies, storms, and loneliness stock Semmes's cruise during 1863-64. Meanwhile, back in the Lincoln White House, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles tries to marshal his warships to catch Semmes and simultaneously protect his president from spies and assassins, one of whom is Semmes's mistress.

In addition to the main characters, the cast of Seahawk Burning includes historical figures from the governments and navies of the North and South as well as the Black Moses Harriet Tubman, John Wilkes Booth, and his fellow conspirators.

All of the threads in this saga come together in a final showdown off Cherbourg, France, when Semmes decides to take the Alabama into battle against the U.S.S. Kearsarge, captained by his old friend John A. Winslow. It is one of the greatest naval battles in history.

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

Randall Peffer is the author of over 300 travel-lifestyle features for magazines like National Geographic, Smithsonian, Reader's Digest, Travel Holiday, Islands and Sail; he teaches writing and literature at Philips Academy in Andover.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a good sea yarn - fiction, non-fiction, and historical fiction. That's why I jumped at the chance to check out this title and see how Peffer's tale-telling stacks up against the classics in the genre of naval historical fiction.

This the last book in a trilogy of a little known/discussed part of the American Civil War - Confederate raiders and their devastating impact on Union shipping.

The book had great potential; it caught my interest, but, alas, when all was said and done it was only a mediocre read.

The only way I could gauge the quality of this offering was to compare it to the gold standard in this genre of naval historical fiction, e.g., C.D. Forester's Hornblower : Beat to Quarters and the rest of the Horatio Hornblower series, or Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey series including By Patrick O'Brian: Master and Commander.

Compared to the depth, richness, and detail of the tales of Forester and O'Brian, Peffer's effort is, sadly, only a low-watt bulb. I frankly finished "Seahawk Burning" because I'd already read about 80pp to get my feet wet with the story, and it's a fairly short read. I found the lead character, Semmes, to spend too much time pining for his young lover, and too little time feeling remorse for the wife and children he was planning to abandon, and even less time fighting pitched sea battles, etc. It has too little history to really be all that historical, too little action to be an action-adventure, and too little romance to be a romance...so what was it? Passable!

For these reasons I can award this offering only 2/5 stars.

[Stacy Bearse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the third book in a solid trilogy about naval operations during the Civil War. The characters, ships and battles are based on history; the dialog and romantic entanglements are products of the author's imagination. I enjoyed reading the detailed descriptions of the battles, and was deeply moved by the dismal circumstances of sailors who fought in this ugly war.