Rocks & Shoals: Naval Discipline in the Age of Fighting Sail (Bluejacket Books)

Using a wealth of material from old logbooks and diaries along with verbatim transcripts of general courts-martial and courts of inquiry, author James E. Valle paints a dramatic and highly instructive picture of the justice system in the U.S. Navy between 1800 and 1861 - a period when almost as many naval officers died in duels as in combat, and when spitting on the berth deck brought the bloody lash down six times.