

Hard Aground
The Wreck of the USS Tennessee and the Rise of the US Navy
Author: Andrew C. A. Jampoler
Narrator: Chris Monteiro
Unabridged: 9 hr 43 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 01/16/2024
Categories: Nonfiction, History, Military History, United States Military
Synopsis
The first story focuses on the reconstruction of the US Navy following the swift and near-total dismantling of the Union Navy infrastructure after the Civil War. Jampoler argues that the federal government discovered that the fleet requested by the navy, and paid for by Congress, was the wrong fleet.
The second story relates the short, tragic life of the USS Tennessee. The USS Tennessee was ordered on two unusual missions in the early months of the First World War, long before the United States formally entered the war. These little-known missions and the ship's shocking destruction in a storm surge in the Caribbean serve as the centerpiece of the story.
Jampoler rounds out this fascinating account with the story of how the USS Tennessee's destruction prompted fierce deliberations about the US Navy's operations and chains of command for the remainder of the First World War and the high-level political wrangling inside the Department of the Navy immediately after the war.