Commodore John Rodgers: Paragon of the Early American Navy (review)

Here is the life story of John Rodgers, the senior officer in the U. S. Navy at the time of the War of 1812. When the war started, only he, William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur were officially referred to as “commodores,” due to their status and leadership role in the service. Decatur went on to expand his existing national fame during the war and Bainbridge earned prominence when he commanded the U. S. Frigate Constitution during its victory over HMS Java in December 1812. Rodgers never managed such success and only Charles O. Paullin has ever written a biography of him (1910). In the current book, however, John Schroeder has expertly met the challenge of finally explaining the significance of one of the navy’s central officers.

John Rodgers was born in 1773, the son of an ambitious miller in Maryland and a Patriot during the American War of Independence. He was strong and energetic from the beginning and sought a career at sea in 1786. By the age of nineteen he had become a commander and sailed a merchant ship into the West Indies for five years. When the U. S. Navy was finally formed, Rodgers joined it in March 1798 as a second lieutenant and soon rose to first lieutenant in the U. S. Frigate Constellation under Captain Thomas Truxton. He was involved in the victory against the French L’Insurgent in February 1799 and a few months later was promoted to captain.

Rodgers rose to be the senior officer in the navy over the next decade and commanded the U. S. Frigate President when it violently damaged HMS Little Belt in May 1811, for which he was praised, as revenging the British treatment of the U. S. Frigate Chesapeake in June 1807. He made several voyages as a frigate and squadron commander during the war but never met the British in battle, missing a couple of activities for which some contemporaries were critical.

After the war Rodgers maintained his high status as an effective leader of the newly created Board of Navy Commissioners for most of the rest of his life, with a two-year period as squadron leader in the Mediterranean. He died in August 1838.

Schroeder demonstrates excellent writing style, making use of primary material effectively. He also uses the correspondence between Rodgers and his wife Minerva which reveals the human aspects of Rodgers, something that is so regrettably missing from recent biographies of other U. S. Naval officers. As well, Schroeder plainly points out Rodgers’s faults and his strengths, giving a comprehensive picture of one of the key officers of the early navy. The book is most commendable and worthwhile for all students of the period and anyone who admires the Age of Fighting Sail.