Commanding Old Ironsides: The Life of Captain Silas Talbot
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Overview
Silas Talbot’s life illuminates his time—not with greater brightness than the lives of his more famous contemporaries, but with perhaps broader range and greater insight into the experiences and circumstances of a plain citizen of the new republic—a citizen whose bravery and energy helped to create it.
Silas Talbot was a farmer’s son who went to sea, learned the building trades, saved and invested his money wisely, married well several times, fought as a Rhode Island soldier in the Revolutionary War, became a lieutenant colonel, served with courage and competence, became a privateer and a prisoner-of-war in the conflict at sea, speculated in western lands, was elected to the New York State Legislature and the U.S. Congress, represented the interests of American sailors forced to serve in Britain’s navy, and was appointed second commanding officer of the frigate USS Constitution.
In a full and energetic life of sixty-two years he met and served famous leaders, including Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Lafayette; raised a family; advanced in the social, political, and business circles of New York and Rhode Island; and was, as the author notes, “among the first of the new citizens of the new republic to seize its gifts.”
Professor Bill Fowler’s biography of Silas Talbot is a gift to the American public. To read his account of Talbot’s life is to revisit a world nearly forgotten, from America’s pre-Revolutionary era to the nation’s birth; and especially revealing to see, through Talbot’s eyes, the nation’s dependence on maritime trade and the birth of the U.S. Navy. Fowler traces Talbot’s emergence as a prototypical American, from his humble beginnings in Rhode Island to his life-forming experiences in the Continental Army, privateering, service in Congress, shipbuilding, and his rise as the second captain of the frigate Constitution. Fowler gives us the whole man as he rises in fame, his wife Becky, their children, land speculation in the west, and his declining years. It’s wonderful to see his book republished in this new edition.
Silas Talbot may not be the first person you think of when you hear the words “Founding Father.” But as this terrific biography shows, he was no mere bystander to the grand events of his time. Historian William Fowler takes us on Talbot’s journey from Revolutionary privateer to commander of the USS Constitution, capturing the politics of the era in broad, bright strokes while defining the character of the time—and the people—in vivid, detail-rich vignettes. He gives us a superb study of a man who lived his own adventure and a brilliant depiction of the world he lived in. And when you’re done, you’ll feel that you’ve lived it all right along with Silas Talbot.
Fans of William Fowler’s astonishing breadth of American colonial and maritime histories will welcome this fine reprint of his early biography of Silas Talbot. Commanding Old Ironsides: The Life of Silas Talbot is a perfect showcase of Fowler’s celebrated ability to illuminate grand, often world-changing events through the lens of individual experience. And what experiences Silas Talbot had! From privateer to frontiersman, political infighter to ambitious capitalist—and all that before taking command of the storied frigate USS Constitution—Talbot’s action-packed life reflects the complexity of America’s Revolutionary period and its tumultuous aftermath. The narrative is insightful and engaging, and leaves the reader yet again amazed at the birth of America and the extraordinary figures who made it happen.
America’s maritime past often gets lost in the great sweep of our history, but here William M. Fowler, Jr. (once again) does yeoman’s service correcting that oversight. Like Fowler’s other excellent histories, Commanding Old Ironsides is both scholarly and a great read, illuminating the life and career of Silas Talbot, a man who is largely and undeservedly forgotten. This is an important contribution to the study of United States naval history, and a lively tale to boot.
No one knows the Navy’s history so well or tells its story as vividly as William Fowler. In this biography we meet Silas Talbot, but we also come to understand the world in which he lived, and the new nation he and the USS Constitution served.
- Title: Commanding Old Ironsides: The Life of Captain Silas Talbot
- Authors: Jr. William M. Fowler, Anne Grimes Rand
- Publisher: Lyons Press
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 254
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781493077892, 9781493077885, 1493077880, 1493077899
- Resource ID: LLS:9781493077892
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T00:03:11Z
William M. Fowler, Jr. is the 2023 recipient of the U.S. Naval Institute’s Commodore Dudley W. Knox Naval History Lifetime Achievement Award. He was former director of the Massachusetts Historical Society and consulting editor to The New England Quarterly. He received his undergraduate degree from Northeastern University and his PhD from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of many books on American history, including Empires at War: The French and Indian War and the Struggle For North America, 1754–1763, Rebels Under Sail: The Navy in the Revolution, The Baron of Beacon Hill: A Biography of John Hancock, Jack Tars and Commodores: The American Navy 1783–1815, Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War, and Steam Titans: Cunard Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic. He is also coauthor of America and the Sea: A Maritime History of America. He was Distinguished Professor of History at Northeastern University from 1971 to 1998 and taught a variety of courses in American history. He also taught at Mystic Seaport Museum and lectured at the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Naval War College, and the Sea Education Association. He is a member of the Massachusetts State Archives Advisory Commission, The Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the American Antiquarian Society, and an Honorary Member of the Boston Marine Society and the Society of the Cincinnati. He received an Honorary degree from Northeastern University in 2000. He lives in Massachusetts.
Anne Grimes Rand is President and CEO of the USS Constitution Museum, which received the 2023 NMHS Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Maritime Education.