| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Lindley S. Butler. Pirates, Privateers, and Rebel Raiders of the Carolina Coast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2000. Pp. xvi, 275. Cloth $28.95, paper $15.95.

This volume's comic-book-like dust jacket reflects its contents, which, according to Lindley S. Butler, are "thrilling adventure stories" that "abound with action, suspense, and tragedy about flesh-and-blood historic characters" (p. xi). The book is a collection of biographical sketches of pirates Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet, privateer Otway Burns, U.S. naval officer Johnston Blakeley, and Confederate naval officers James W. Cooke, John N. Maffitt, John Taylor Wood, and James I. Waddell, all of whom were either North Carolina natives or sailed in North Carolina waters. The catchy title suits neither Blakeley, who won two single-ship battles and raided British commerce during the War of 1812 but was no rebel, nor Cooke, who commanded the Confederate ironclad Albemarle during engagements with Union naval vessels but was no commerce raider. 1

The sketches are long on acts of piracy, privateering, commerce raiding, and combat but short on biography. The backgrounds, motivations, relationships, and personalities of these eight historical figures receive only superficial treatment at best. Although the bibliography lists a wealth of manuscripts and published documents and includes some of the relevant secondary literature, the book says little that is new, nor does it engage in any of the debates surrounding the subjects it touches upon. Argument and analysis are absent. Consequently the text does little more than narrate "real-life sea tales" (p. xi). . . .

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