“Puleo has found a new way to tell the story with this well-researched and splendidly written chronicle of the Jamestown, its captain, and an Irish priest who ministered to the starving in Cork city…Puleo’s tale, despite the hardship to come, surely is a tribute to the better angels of America’s nature, and in that sense, it couldn’t be more timely.” –The Wall Street Journal The remarkable … Wall Street Journal
The remarkable story of the mission that inspired a nation to donate massive relief to Ireland during the potato famine and began America’s tradition of providing humanitarian aid around the world
More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The first vessel to sail in the other direction, to help the millions unable to escape, was the USS Jamestown, a converted warship, which left Boston in March 1847 loaded with precious food for Ireland.
In an unprecedented move by Congress, the warship had been placed in civilian hands, stripped of its guns, and committed to the peaceful delivery of food, clothing, and supplies in a mission that would launch America’s first full-blown humanitarian relief effort.
Captain Robert Bennet Forbes and the crew of the USS Jamestown embarked on a voyage that began a massive eighteen-month demonstration of soaring goodwill against the backdrop of unfathomable despair–one nation’s struggle to survive, and another’s effort to provide a lifeline. The Jamestown mission captured hearts and minds on both sides of the Atlantic, of the wealthy and the hardscrabble poor, of poets and politicians. Forbes’ undertaking inspired a nationwide outpouring of relief that was unprecedented in size and scope, the first instance of an entire nation extending a hand to a foreign neighbor for purely humanitarian reasons. It showed the world that national generosity and brotherhood were not signs of weakness, but displays of quiet strength and moral certitude.
In Voyage of Mercy, Stephen Puleo tells the incredible story of the famine, the Jamestown voyage, and the commitment of thousands of ordinary Americans to offer relief to Ireland, a groundswell that provided the collaborative blueprint for future relief efforts, and established the United States as the leader in international aid. The USS Jamestown’s heroic voyage showed how the ramifications of a single decision can be measured not in days, but in decades.
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This is a true story about America coming to the aide of the Irish during the Potato Famine. It shows the compassionate side of Americans . The result was saving lives along with giving America a good name. The captain of the first US ship along with the Irish pastor Mathew are wonderful stories in themselves.
I received a free electronic ARC copy of this history from Netgalley, Stephen Puleo, and St. Martin’s Press – History. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this work of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of Voyage to Mercy. Stephen Puleo is an author on my must-read shelves – he brings history alive.
Voyage of Mercy is the full story of the United States’ first humanitarian mission – essentially the first humanitarian mission carried out by any country. And it is a history of the lives of two outstanding men – a Boston sea captain and lifelong sailor, Robert Bennet Forbes, and Catholic priest Theobald Mathew of Cork City, Ireland. These two men saved the lives of innumerable Irish men, women, and children, and opened the way for many others to carry on their work.
In 1847 glib-tongued Bennet Forbes talked the American military into loaning him a 157 foot, three-decker warship, the Jamestown (we were at war with Mexico at Veracruz at the time, so this was a minor miracle) and removed 20 of the 22 guns on the mid-deck to make room for donated foodstuff and clothing for the starving masses in Ireland. And he collected, from towns and individuals and farmers up and down the eastern seaboard and the Mississippi River farms, 8,000 barrels of foodstuff and crates of warm clothing. Forbes captained the crew, and the rest of the crewmen were volunteers. They set sail for Cove, in county Cork on March 27, 1847. Despite some problems – green crew, leaks, bad weather – they made the Irish shore in just fifteen days and three hours.
They were met by Father Mathew and a grateful, starving people. British help was too little, too late. Overlooking the fact that Ireland grew plenty in the way of grains and proteins to help themselves, their land had all been given over to British peers and was only rented to the farmers who husbanded it. All of those crops went immediately on harvest to England, to be sold on the world market. The potato crop was what the Irish ate, sold, traded for necessities and paid their rent on the land they farmed to their British landlords. With the partial failure of crops in 1846 and the complete failure of the potato crop in 1847, there were mass evictions, putting people out of their homes without warning. Over the winter of 1846-1847, the Irish population was dying in droves – of starvation, cholera, typhus, the ‘fevers’, and exposure. There were weeks just in Cove Town that Father Mathew buried as many as 300 souls. He fed, out of his home and his own pocket, as many as he could. And sadly, the western parts of Ireland and Scotland were in even worse shape than those coastal areas.
And the US just kept giving. Soon there were shiploads of foods being received in many of the port cities of Ireland, to be dispersed inland, and there was mass migration, mostly to Canada and the US. Boston saw 37,000 Irish immigrants arrive in’47, many ill, diseased and virtually all impoverished. Boston at that time had a population of only 115,000 and was quickly overwhelmed. New York, as well as other Atlantic coastal areas, did what they could. The last 20% of this story is a showcase of the growth of humanitarian assistance – what works, what doesn’t, and how to begin the wheels turning in the face of catastrophe.
And that spirit of giving, of helping the downtrodden, still lives today. We need more Father Mathews to distribute the giving where it is needed, however. Haiti and Puerto Rico have been very expensive lessons in the improper art of aiding the downtrodden. And further afield, we have Serbia and Bosnia…
Voyage of Mercy is why we read. It’s history as it should be written. It reads like a terrific, page-turning novel, with characters who live and breathe and struggle and yearn, with grand dramatic moments, with settings so vividly described in a world so impeccably researched that you think you’re there, with powerful themes that will resonate long after you’ve finished reading. It’s Stephen Puleo’s best book and a voyage that every reader should take.
5 stars for an outstanding story of the US extraordinary humanitarian mission during the Mexican-US war. In 1847, as news of the terrible famine in Ireland reached the US, voluntary relief committees were organized all across the US. The committee in Boston with the encouragement of Robert Bennet Forbes, merchant sea captain, petitioned the US Congress to make available 1 or more US warships to carry donated food to Ireland. Forbes volunteered to Captain this ship. He suggested the USS Jamestown, then in dry dock at the Boston Navy yard for repairs.
Congress granted the request, after 2 days of debate which veered of into pro and anti slavery issues at one point. Donations of money, food and clothing poured in from all across the US. President Polk convened a cabinet meeting for advice and they approved the request. Twenty of the ship’s twenty-two deck guns were removed to make room for food. Although Irish American Catholics were in the forefront of contributors, people from all faiths, including Jews, Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Unitarians and others set aside their fears of Irish “popery”, in the name of humanitarianism.
“Through July 4, 1848, fifteen months after the assistance began, Americans donated a massive amount of food, more than 9,900 tons, to sustain Ireland.”
Forbes sailed on March 28, 1847 with an all volunteer crew of civilians, like himself. Four experienced captains volunteered to be his officers.
This was the first time a country had decided to send aid to another country instead of a conquering army. This was also the start of the American tradition of public/private aid to countries in need. Some later examples include the Belgian relief committee in 1914 and the Berlin Airlift in 1948.
Well over 1 million men, women and children died from starvation and attendant diseases, in what some historians call the first genocide. British officials despised the Irish. In the words of Charles Trevelyan, assistant secretary at the British Treasury responsible for famine relief efforts “God had ‘sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson…[and it] must not be too much mitigated.”
British relief was halfhearted, penurious and far too little for the massive starvation. During the famine form 1847-1855, Ireland exported more food than it imported every single year. This food was transported to the ports under armed guard and enriched the English absentee landlords.
George Bernard Shaw in “Man and Superman
” Malone: My father died of starvation in the Black 47. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Violet: The Famine?
Malone: No, the starvation. When a country is full of food and exporting it, there can be no famine.”
This was a library book and I strongly recommend it.
Voyage of Mercy is a fascinating and moving tale of America as we wish it would always be ― kind, generous, and humane to people who are in dire need of help, wherever they may live. Puleo is a master storyteller who seamlessly weaves together the personal and the political in this enthralling narrative of the United States’ philanthropic and humanitarian roots. In today’s fractious and divisive world, this book is a tonic to the soul, and a potent reminder that we are at our best when we follow the ‘better angels of our nature’.
historical-setting, historical-research, historical-places-events, humanity, Ireland, family
“Perhaps the most disgraceful aspect of the Famine was that in each of its six years there was probably enough food EXPORTED out of Ireland to sustain the nation, certainly enough to have saved the million who died (of starvation).” Edward Laxton
With meticulous research, documentation, and presentation the author presents the conditions of that harsh winter of 1847-48 with no food, no heat, no roof, scant clothing or shoes, and precious little hope. In England, the politicians favored the merchants over humanity and conscience, and the papers did not see fit to inform the populace. In the US, first immigrant families and Irish Catholic congregations sent what they could followed by indignation and fundraising by the noted personalities of the day (such as Daniel Webster, President Polk, Herman Melville) who were instrumental in tackling this humanitarian crisis. Money was raised from New Orleans to Boston and from Chicago to Charleston. But least remembered was the personal donations of foodstuffs from farmers from the Mississippi to New England and the ship’s Captain Forbes who sailed the Jamestown across the Atlantic in hazardous seas as quickly as he could.
There is incredible detailing of the life histories of the major players and a whole lot more, but the undercurrent is the need by individuals in the US to do whatever they can whenever they feel that they can make a difference, regardless of nationality.
I requested and received a free ebook copy from St Martin’s Press via NetGalley. Thank you!