Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy

Written by Ian W. Toll

Narrated by Stephen Lang

Before the ink was dry on the Constitution of the United States, the establishment of a permanent military had become the most divisive issue facing the young republic. Would a standing army be the thin end of dictatorship? Would a navy protect American commerce from the vicious depredations of the Barbary pirates, or would it drain the treasury and provoke hostilities with the great powers? How large a navy would suffice? The founders -- particularly Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Adams -- debated these questions fiercely and switched sides more than once.

In 1794, President Washington signed legislation authorizing the construction of six heavy frigates. The unique combination of power, speed and tactical versatility -- smaller than a battleship and larger than a sloop -- that all navies sent on their most daring missions. It was the first great appropriation of federal money and the first demonstration of the power of the new central government, calling for the creation of entirely new domestic industries, and the extraction of natural resources from the backwoods of Maine to the uninhabited coastal islands of Georgia.

From the complicated politics of the initial decision, through the cliffhanger campaign against Tripoli, to the war that shook the world in 1812, Ian W. Toll tells this grand tale with the political insight of Founding Brothers and a narrative flair worthy of Patrick O'Brian. In the words of Henry Adams, the 1812 encounter between USS Constitution and HMS Guerriere "raised the United States in one half hour to the rank of a first class power in the world."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Oct 3, 2006
• ISBN: 9780743565295

Ian W. Toll

Ian W. Toll has been a Wall Street analyst, a Federal Reserve financial analyst, and a political aide and speechwriter. Six Frigates is his first audiobook. He lives with his wife and two-year-old son in San Francisco.

Reviews for Six Frigates

[Benjamin Birch · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An extremely interesting look on an extremely unknown era and history of the United States. I had thought the Star Spangled Banner was from the American War of Independence as well as "Old Iron Sides". Narration was amazing as was the stories told. There were times of silence between chapters that was too long but other than that what a gem this is!

[james · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very little known history of what is essentially the founding of the USA navy

[MaggieAnne Downing · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Exhilarating & informative. Beautifully read & engaging throughout. Felt like I was there!

[Mike Ross · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Educational. Entertaining enough to finish. Wish they spent more time talking about life on the boats vs the politics of the era.

[cedric breuel · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great narration. I had to listen to it twice. This book was just riveting.

[msaucier818 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a fantastic survey of the earliest years of the United States Navy. Taking us from the birth of the country through the completion of the War of 1812, Ian Toll writes a narrative that sucks the reader in from the first pages and makes this page turner difficult to put down. Toll does a great job of mixing in the history of war and politics with the building, maintaining, and running of the early Navy.

I think anyone with a love of early American History or Naval history would enjoy this book. It doubles as both a great history and an action story of battles at sea. I highly recommend this to all.

[anthonybuono · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book reminded me why I love history so much.

[dsha67 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Finished Ian Toll’s Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy.An interesting work on the foundation of the United States Navy originally during the American Revolution just to have all the ships scrapped after the war. The true founding occurred during John Adams Administration to aid U.S. merchants during the Barbary Wars and later during the Quasi War with France. Later the original six frigates laid down were used by the Jefferson Presidency in the Tripolitania Wars and by the Madison administration during the War of 1812 and it is these conflicts that the bulk of the book addresses and goes into a fair amount of detail.The epic fights between the Federalists who supported the development of the navy versus the Republicans who were against it. The Republicans who after every conflict decommissioned all or most of the fleet or invested in largely useless gunboats.A worthy read on the forging of a fledgling navy.

[4bonasa · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written story of the trials, tribulations and growing pains overcome of the young Navy of the nascent Republic.

[waldhaus1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The US Constitution was known to me. I have walked her decks as a museum ship in Boston. It was illuminating to hear the early history of the American navy. The story of the war of 1812 was better told than any other account I have read. It hasn’t been long since I read Chernows book on Hamilton. The immersion in early US history has been fun..I find Toll to be my favorite writer about our wars. I wonder if we are begging to become as fascinated with the revolutionary way era as with the Civil war.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Six Frigates is Ian Toll's first book, published in 2006. It recounts the history of the first US Navy war ships, commissioned to fight Barbary Coast pirates and then to be dismantled once the job was done. Events intervened like the War of 1812 and of course the US Navy was never decommissioned. The ship design was innovative and controversial but turned out be effective and vindicated. This is a long book and contains a lot of scene setting and anecdotal details. If you know nothing about the Barbary or 1812 war you will learn a lot, however it's not a good book for understanding the war. Thus it is a popular account that really shines in the battle descriptions. In a way the book is hobbled by its focus on the six frigates, instead of the war, and the length of time and events covered.

[setnahkt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An interesting take on the War of 1812. The author, Ian Toll, is a financial analyst and focuses on the economic and political aspects of the founding of the US Navy. Toll starts with the debates over the correct approach to the Barbary Pirates (“Millions for defense but not one cent for tribute!”) and detailed accounts of the construction of the Humphreys heavy frigates. The U.S. eventually spent a lot more maintaining a naval force in the Mediterranean than the tribute demanded, and ended up having to ransom captives of the captured frigate Philadelphia (but got the “…to the shores of Tripoli” verse for the Marines in return).
After the “Quasi-War” with France and some unlucky encounters with the English (HMS Leopard vs. USS Chesapeake and HMS Little Belt vs. USS Constitution, things got underway in 1812 (at one point, it was suggested that the US declare war on both France and England, since both had been impressing US seamen and confiscating ships; this would have made for some interesting sea battles, but a vestige of sanity remained and the US only took on the world’s largest navy rather than the largest army, too). The initial stages of the war were the reverse of what everyone expected; it had been predicted that conquering Canada would be “only a matter of marching” but the Canadians turned out to be somewhat tougher than expected and soon Michigan and Maine were occupied. One the other hand, both British and Americans had predicted that the Royal Navy would quickly sweep the US off the seas; much to everyone’s astonishment, the US Navy quickly and decisively beat the Guerriérre, Macedonian, and Java in single ship actions. It’s been the conventional wisdom that these victories didn’t really mean very much; the Royal Navy outnumbered the US Navy something like 14:1 on just the North American station. However, Toll makes the interesting economic point that the Royal Navy became so obsessed with redeeming its honor that it concentrated its blockade on the ports where the American frigates were holed up, allowing American privateers a free hand. Insurance rates on cargoes to Canada and the Caribbean went up by a factor of 10 and Wellington became concerned about supplies for the Peninsula Campaign. Eventually things got sorted out; the Royal Navy captured Chesapeake, President and Essex and burned Washington, and a peace was signed based on status quo ante bellum.
Toll makes the interesting case that the war had a profound effect on the 20th century US Navy through the medium of Theodore Roosevelt. The young Teddy couldn’t find a good history of the war, so he decided to write one himself. This lead to a lifelong interest in the Navy, the Panama Canal, and the Great White Fleet.
This is not the book to get if you want an operational history of the naval war. Toll gives only cursory mention to ships other than the six big frigates, and to the naval battles on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain (which, from a strictly military standpoint, were much more decisive than anything that happened on the high seas). He also isn’t very good with maps. But there’s an excellent bibliography. Four and a half stars.

[razinha-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A thoroughly enjoyable and educational book, Ian Toll easily mixes historical narrative of facts relating to the early days of the true US Navy with thrilling accounts of significant engagements from the Tripolitan and 1812 Wars. Calling on a tremendous wealth of resources from the Navy's chronicling of Quasi War with France, the Barbary Wars and of course, the War 1812, Toll paints the first Captains of "The Constitution" and its five sisters and the legendary battles that established a fledgling nation and it's Navy as a sea power not only to be taken seriously, but one who competed on equal, if bloody "ground" and upset the supremacy of the mighty British empire.

As noted by others, this reads more like a story than a historical text. Fine reading at that.

Most highly recommended!

[themulhern · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The early history of the US Navy. It is nice to be reminded that at its inception the United States was paying tribute to a bunch of North African pirate kingdoms.

[lisamaria_c · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The subtitle, "The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy" is a misnomer. The Continental Navy established during the American Revolution gets short shrift. Toll in a few lines disposes of sad tale of 13 frigates, 11 of which were destroyed or captured by the British in the course of the Revolutionary War. American Revolutionary naval hero John Paul Jones ("I have not yet begun to fight!") gets 19 lines--British Napoleonic War admiral Horatio Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar gets much more space. Rather, the "six frigates" of the title refer to the ships authorized by a 1794 bill to fight the Barbary pirates that would form the nucleus of the infant navy. The United States, the "Old Wagon," was the first--Herman Melville of Moby Dick fame would serve on it. The Constellation won distinction in the "Quasi-War" against France. The Constitution, the celebrated "Old Ironsides," is the oldest commissioned ship in the U.S. Navy today. The "unlucky" Chesapeake, the "runt of the litter," would have its own storied history. The President was the speediest, and the Congress would serve as a teaching ship--in essence the first American naval academy. It was in focusing closely on the stories of these ships and their men that Toll was at his best. Judging from his biography Toll can't boast a military or maritime background, nor can he sport credentials as a historian. He had worked as a financial analyst on Wall Street and as a political operative. He is good at detailing some of the economic and political forces that form the context for the story of the United States Navy, but those parts of his tale come across as rather superficial. Many people split contemporary histories into the "popular" versus the "scholarly" but I don't think Toll embodies the strengths of either side of the divide. He doesn't have the kind of evocative prose nor narrative drive of the popular David McCullough or Stephen Ambrose. Nor is there the kind of close analysis or sweeping themes of academic historians David Hackett Fischer or Bernard Bailyn. His acknowledgements,"Debt of Gratitude" implies Toll relied heavily on secondary sources; (he mentions McCullough's John Adams in particular) and Six Frigates reads that way. It doesn't have the depth of something written by someone who has immersed himself in primary material and has thought through and argued the issues. Much of the framing material struck me as dull, because I'd read so much of that story before. But ah, it was a different case when he focused on the ships, men and battles of the young United States Navy from 1794 to 1815 from "the shores of Tripoli" to the "perilous fight" of the War of 1812. Maybe it's been told better somewhere else. I don't know. I picked up this book because it was recommended in The Ultimate Reading List. But those parts did sparkle. How could I, Star Trek fan that I am, not be entertained reading of dashing naval hero Stephen Decauter, commander of the USS Enterprise, who would cause women to swoon by entering a room? How could I not be enthralled by the story of his fellow officers who when not killing each other in duels would indulge in "single-ship" duels between them and the British in the War of 1812? Toll's accounts of naval battles read like something out of CS Forester or Patrick O'Brien and indeed at one point he quotes from Fortune of War O'Brien's fictionalized account of a battle between a British ship and the USS Constitution. Really, if I hadn't been spoiled by some outstanding works of history these past months by the likes of Bernard Bailyn, David Hackett Fisher, David McCullough and Nathaniel Philbrick, I would have rated this higher. Because yes, I was very much entertained while getting an eduction about naval warfare, American style, in the Age of Sail.

[mirrani_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If ever a reader wanted to be thrown into the depths of history, Six Frigates is the book that will do it. This is a wonderful, in-depth look at the founding of the American Navy as well as the historical tale of the various adversaries that first crossed the path of the original ships, their Captains, and their crews.Readers should ignore the book's size and dive right in because there is no worry for being lost in drab facts and recitations here. It is all too easy to be pulled in to the various battles, experience what life in America was like under the first Presidents, or imagine the sights of these first ships being cheered and celebrated on their return to their home ports. The text is engaging and the storytelling is in a factual style, but with emotion and some humor thrown in for excellent balance with fact and quote.This is a book that will make many want to run out and experience life on these ships first hand, and is a must-read for anyone wishing to visit one of the remaining historical ships. The words within will make certain the experience on board is truly appreciated and that the ship itself is properly absorbed as as the important monument that it is..

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good popular account of the United States Navy in the early republic, with almost as much emphasis on the political context that the force was embedded in as on the naval action. If there was one particular section that interested me above the others it was the combat actions of the Quasi-War with France, mostly due to my relative ignorance.

[jztemple · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book, very readable but also very informative. It describes the history of the United States Navy from just after the War For Independence through the War of 1812, with an epilogue taking the story up through Teddy Roosevelt. Covers not just naval actions but also the politics and national controversies over the creation and maintaining of a naval force.

[mk885 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read after visiting Old Ironsides USS Constitution in Boston on Thanksgiving. Enjoyed history of Navy at beginning of 19th century and also hearing about growing US trade and 1812 war with England

[worcester_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A wildly uneven work that often seems like a Frankenstein monster assembled from the parts of other, better books. One can fairly easily identify scenes from McCullough's John Adams, Dumas Malone's Jefferson, Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, Morris's The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Roosevelt's own The Naval War of 1812. Toll does well when he describes incidents of naval combat, particularly his recounting of the campaign against Tripoli and frigate duels of The War of 1812. Also good is his explanation of the code of dueling prevalent in the U.S. Navy's early officer corps. Other parts of the book are mystifying. While "Six Frigates" ostensibly examines the "epic history of the founding of the U.S. Navy", Toll, oddly, devotes only a paragraph each to the Battle of Lake Erie and the Battle of Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain and a footnote to the capture of U.S.S. Essex, while devoting three pages to the Battle of New Orleans, a land battle where the U.S. Navy failed to make an appearance. Also strange is Toll's decision to spend four pages of his epilogue attempting to link Roosevelt's studies of the War of 1812 with his decision while President to back the building of the Great White Fleet, rather than focusing on the fates of the "Six Frigates" and the men who fought in them. Skip this one and go right to Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812. It's better written and more insightful.

[johnleague · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Take the seven weeks your basic U.S. History class spends on the period from the ratification of the Constitution through the War of 1812. Mash it up with any of Patrick O'Brian's novels. Append a little bit about how this particular cocktail affected Teddy Roosevelt (and subsequently the U.S. as global political and military power).What you wind up with is Ian Toll's Six Frigates, a wonderfully detailed examination of the evolution of the young United States.Really, imagine the U.S. History class you took in high school as it would have been taught by a naval historian. That's what Toll has created here. Also imagine that he brought in Patrick O'Brian to teach the parts about the conflicts with the Barbary States and individual engagements with the Royal Navy. Toll's accounts, both of political machinations and sea battles, are vividly rendered with exhaustive use of first-hand accounts and details. A long book, Six Frigates reads quickly in large part because of the rich evocations of pre-Industrial sailing, war and politics.The one thing that holds this book back is the generally undefined use of nautical and ship's terms (larboard, mizzenmast, royal yards, top sails, etc.) Toll points out in a brief foreword that the book might have been half-again as long had he paused to define all these terms, and he is likely correct. But a short glossary or a diagram of Constitution with her various sail apparatus would have made many of the details in the book more meaningful.

[rcsj_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating history of the US Navy's earliest days. I truly enjoyed all of the historical detail surrounding the construction of the US Navy's first frigates and their subsequent battles. The book does much to establish the early US Navy as a successful organization that managed to produce important victories (if only for moral support) against the much larger British Navy. Equally interesting is all the biographical information of the sea captains who piloted these great ships - what a different era.