The sailor boy : or, Jack Somers in the navy by Oliver Optic
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"The sailor boy : or, Jack Somers in the navy" by Oliver Optic is a juvenile adventure novel written in the mid-19th century. It follows Jack Somers, a spirited New England boy whose patriotism and love of the sea draw him into the U.S. Navy during the American Civil War. Readers can expect brisk nautical action, moral lessons, and detailed shipboard routine as a young sailor learns courage, discipline, and duty. The
opening of the novel shows Jack electrified by news of a Union naval victory while his widowed mother worries over losing another son to war. When a naval lieutenant, Bankhead, urgently needs a skilled boatman to reach Fort Warren in a gale, Jack pilots Captain Barney’s yacht through a furious night, later rescuing Bankhead after a near-collision sends him overboard. Grateful, the officer helps win Jack’s mother’s consent; Jack enlists in Boston as an ordinary seaman, receives his kit, and learns the hard edges of discipline on the receiving ship Ohio—including a clash with a bullying mess-cook and a crafty, rule-safe “payback” advised by veteran Tom Longstone. Soon drafted to the sloop-of-war Harrisburg with a few new friends, Jack is assigned stations and roles, and the narrative sketches the ship’s structure and hierarchy as he eagerly awaits getting under way. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Optic, Oliver, 1822-1897 |
|---|---|
| Title | The sailor boy : or, Jack Somers in the navy |
| Original Publication | Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Company, 185-, reprint 1915. |
| Credits | Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Reading Level | Reading ease score: 78.8 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres |
| Subject | United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Naval operations -- Juvenile fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 76545 |
| Release Date | Jul 22, 2025 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 291 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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