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An impressive documentary on the dark legacy of the Somers
The Curse of the Somers is a very impressive documentary on the history of the U.S. Brig Somers and the underwater archaeology efforts that resulted in the discovery of the wreck some 150 years after the ship sank during the Mexican War. The history of the Somers is a lurid tale indeed, not to mention a story of fascinating historical relevance. A "mutiny" on board the ship led to the hangings of three men, after which the ship came to be regarded as a cursed ship upon which no one wished to serve. In 1846, four years after the Somers first set sail, the ship overturned and sank as it tried to help enforce a naval blockade off the shores of Veracruz. This ship's dark and bloody legacy would have an important impact on the development of the U.S. Navy, and its story of mutiny at sea would later serve as the influence for Herman Melville's final novel Billy Budd.

The Somers was actually the first U.S. Navy training ship, a small and fast vessel cramming 120 sailors onboard (three-fourths of them between 15 and 19 years old). The captain was a man named Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (the brother-in-law of Commodore Matthew Perry), a ruthless disciplinarian who ordered forty-three brutal floggings in the first three weeks and 2265 over the course of the first six months. One particularly unruly midshipman onboard was a young man named Philip Spencer, and there was reportedly much antagonism between Mackenzie and Spencer from the very start. One night Spencer told a buddy about a plan afoot to kill the captain, seize control of the ship, and make it a pirate vessel. This information was reported to the captain, and in short order Spencer and two other men were arrested, found guilty, and hanged from the ship's yardarm. It was a scandalous affair for the navy, and Mackenzie only escaped a murder conviction by a whisker. Not only were these the first executions in U.S. naval history, Midshipman Spencer was the son of Secretary of War John Canfield Spencer. Many researchers find no evidence for any supposed mutiny plans and argue that, in any case, Mackenzie greatly overstepped his bounds by summarily executing the men. Future sailors onboard the vessel reportedly witnessed shrouded images of the dead men's ghosts and heard phantom voices at times, and the curse of the Somers would find the ship buried beneath the ocean less than four years after the dramatic events in question.

The legacy of this ship's history still lives. This whole incident served as the final impetus for the creation of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1845; here, officers were to be trained properly in order to ensure that no such incident as that of the Somers hangings ever took place again. The story also holds an important place in literature. The second-in-command onboard the Somers at the time of the "mutiny" was the first cousin of Herman Melville, and Melville would draw upon the story of the Somers mutiny incident for his final novel Billy Budd. Philip Spencer himself still lives on in the fraternity he helped found (Chi Psi); here, the rebellious young man is regarded (and praised in song) as a sort of mythic hero, an innocent man wrongly murdered by a less than perfectly rational captain who had it in for him.

The second half of this documentary covers the search for, discovery, and exploration of this long-lost ship in the mid-1980s. Images and video of the barnacle-covered wreck off the coast of Veracruz are fascinating, as this ship had not been seen by human eyes for 150 years. Music adds much to the presentation - especially the haunting melodies of old maritime songs devoted to the dark history of the ship. The Curse of the Somers really is a quite impressive documentary, striking a proper balance between the Somers of myth and history and the sunken vessel itself which has only recently begun giving up its own secrets after 150 years of silence beneath the waves.