Captain Called It Mutiny
On December 1, 1842, three crew members of the U.S. Navy brig Somers were hanged for mutiny. The alleged leader was eighteen-year-old Philip Spencer, son of President Tyler's Secretary of War. The author, a distant relative of one of the crew members suspected in the incident, attempts to uncover the facts of this controversial moment in United States naval history. - Summary by Mark Harrington