![]() Mahan sought to resurrect Horatio Nelson as a national hero in Britain and used his biography as a platform for expressing his views on naval strategy and tactics. Mahan stressed the importance of the individual in shaping history and extolled the traditional values of loyalty, courage, and service to the state. ![]() Mahan's lectures, based on secondary sources and the military theories of Jomini, became his sea-power studies: The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (2 vols., 1892) Sea Power in Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols., 1905), and The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (2 vols., 1897). There, in 1888, he met and befriended future president Theodore Roosevelt, then a visiting lecturer. Though he was prepared to become a professor in 1886, Luce was given command of the North Atlantic Squadron, and Mahan became President of the Naval War College by default (JJanuary 12, 1889, JMay 10, 1893). During his first year on the faculty, he remained at his home in New York City researching and writing his lectures. Luce pointed Mahan in the direction of writing his future studies on the influence of sea power. Before entering on his duties, College President Rear Admiral Stephen B. In 1885, he was appointed as a lecturer in naval history and tactics at the Naval War College. He had an affection for old square-rigged vessels rather than the smoky, noisy steamships of his time and he tried to avoid active sea duty. While in actual command of a ship, his skills were not exemplary and a number of vessels under his command were involved in collisions, with both moving and stationary objects. As commander of the USS Wachusett he was stationed at Callao, Peru, protecting US interests during the final stages of the War of the Pacific. In 1865, he was promoted to lieutenant commander, and then to commander (1872), and captain (1885). Early careerĬommissioned as a lieutenant in 1861, Mahan served the Union in the American Civil War as an officer on USS Worcester, Congress, Pocahontas, and James Adger, and as an instructor at the Naval Academy. Against the better judgment of his father, Mahan then entered the Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class in 1859. He then studied at Columbia for two years, where he was a member of the Philolexian Society debating club. Mahan attended Saint James School, an Episcopal college preparatory academy in western Maryland. ![]() ![]() Mahan's middle name honors "the father of West Point", Sylvanus Thayer. Mahan was born on September 27, 1840, at West Point, New York, to Dennis Hart Mahan (a professor at the United States Military Academy) and Mary Helena Okill Mahan (27 February 1815 – 8 March 1893), daughter of John Okill and Mary Jay (daughter of Sir James Jay). ![]()
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