The Sea Shall Embrace Them: The Tragic Story of the Steamship Arctic

The 1854 collision at sea between the American ship Arctic and the Vesta a much smaller French steamship set in motion one of the most harrowing events in maritime history. David W. Shaw has based this fascinating account on the firsthand testimony of the few who survived the wreck including the Arctics heroic captain James C. Luce who was forced to fight his mutinous crew as they took the lifeboats and left hundreds of passengers to suffer a cruel and painful death. Not only did 400 people -- including Luces own frail son -- die by daybreak but the wreck also ended the domination of the seas by the American maritime fleet for the rest of the nineteenth century. Utterly compelling The Sea Shall Embrace Them is a stirring slice of heretofore little-known American history. Beautifully written it puts the reader on deck as a ship full of men women and children do battle both with a mighty ocean and with their own baser instincts.