The Optic, Oliver 1822-1897 creator text utu 2025 monographic en 1 online resource : multiple file formats "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.) Release date is 2025-07-22 Aaron Adrignola, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Originally published: Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Company, 1915 United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Naval operations -- Juvenile fiction PZ Chicago: M. A. Donohue & Company, 1915 https://archive.org/details/sailorboyorjacks00adamiala https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76545 https://archive.org/details/sailorboyorjacks00adamiala https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76545 UtSlPG 260607 20260610134754.0 76545