An American Seafarer in the Age of Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Buskirk, 1851-1870

Philip Van Buskirk, a 12-year-old who joined the U.S. Marines in 1846 as a music boy, played drums on a Navy ship, first in the Mexican War and then with the East India Squadron in 1851. He kept a diary recording life aboard ship and his adventures on liberty. Burg, a professor of history at Arizona State University, has constructed an intriguing narrative from the diaries, which span the years 1851-1870 and are indeed, as the subtitle notes, intimate. Van Buskirk describes his own and others' homoerotic acts, which apparently occurred frequently on warships and were ignored by superiors. Middle-class, with some schooling, he also writes of his unpopularity with his rough-and-tumble mates. The diaries provide an illuminating glimpse of class differences of the period as well as sex mores. Naval and social historians will find this book valuable source material. (Apr.)