Shaw (Flying Cloud) recounts the appalling fate of the steamship Arctic, a maritime calamity marked by human error and cowardice—and a few instances of astonishing bravery. On September 27, 1854, the ship collided bow-to-bow with the ironclad Vesta
off the coast of Newfoundland and plunged to the bottom of the Atlantic, sparing only 87 of her 408 passengers. Shaw culls his material from various news sources, accounts of survivors and eyewitnesses, and commercial shipping records. He carefully reconstructs the history of merchant-class ships, as well as the background of the Collins steam ship company, owner of the Arctic, which was attempting to secure a national identity (and federal loans) while in fierce competition with the British-owned Cunard line for monopoly of transatlantic mail service. Collins was fanatically bent on "maintaining its schedule and setting records whenever possible"—at the cost, ultimately, of human lives. Shaw presents the full range of experiences of those on the Arctic, from the courage of Captain James C. Luce, who risked his life to save as many people as possible, to the desperation of passengers trying to find family members amid the wreck, to the labor of the tough merchant marines and fishermen who faced crippling injury or death as part of their daily work. This is a spellbinding, visceral and thoroughly investigated narrative. Appendix, glossary, illus. (May)
