Sam Cavell, PhD.
Assistant Professor, Military History
Southeastern Louisiana University, Department of History & Political Science
Undergrad Courses:
American Military History to 1865
American Military History From 1865
American Civil War & Reconstruction
History of the U.S. Navy
Great Military Blunders of WWII
How the Wehrmacht Fought & Lost WWII
Western Civilization to 1500
Western Civilization from 1500
Graduate Courses:
"Fake History" & Memory Wars in American Military History
Forgotten U.S. Military History of the 20th Century
Power & the Sea: Sea Power and Strategy from Salamis to Midway
Spies, Codes & Conspiracies
Greatest Military Blunders: Napoleon's Russia Campaign to the Cuban Missile Crisis
Qualifications:
PhD, University of Exeter, UK
MA, Louisiana State University, USA
BBus, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Books and Book Chapters:
“Sir Francis Holmes Coffin”, in From Across the Sea: North Americans in Nelson’s Navy. London: Helion & Company, 2020.
“That Hamilton Woman: Lord Nelson as Propaganda in WWII”, in Biography and History in Film. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
“British Naval Administration and the Manpower Problem in the Georgian Navy”, co-author with Evan Wilson and J. Ross Dancy, in New Interpretations in Naval History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019.
“Context of the War of 1812 – American and European Affairs”, “Cochrane’s Grand Southern Strategy”, and "The Battle of Lake Borgne”, in The Battle of New Orleans Reconsidered. New Orleans: Louisiana Institute of Higher Learning Press, 2014.
Midshipmen and Quarterdeck Boys in the British Navy, 1771—1831. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2012.
Academic Journal Articles:
Forthcoming. “Self-Interest and High-Command Rivalries in Combined Operations on Martinique and Guadeloupe, 1808—1811”, in International Journal of Maritime History (2023).
“Napoleon and New Orleans: the Emperor’s First Surrender and its Impact on Britain in the Last Major Battle of the War of 1812”, in The International Journal of Naval History (2022).
“Abolition, The West India Colonies, and the Troubling Case of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, 1807-1832”, in The Mariner’s Mirror, 107:1, 23—39 (February 2021).
“Jean Laffite: Piracy and the Limits of State Power in New Orleans, 1814—1815”, in International Journal of Maritime History, Vol. 32(3) 713–728 (September 2020).
“A Second Naval War: The immediate effects of the American War on Royal Navy Operations, June 1812 –July 1813”, in The Trafalgar Chronicle, New Series 5, 161—174 (2020).
“The Midshipmen’s Mutiny, 1791”, in The Mariner’s Mirror, 98:1, 28—40 (February 2012).
Recent Conference Papers:
2023 Problem of Piracy III, Tulane University, New Orleans. "Metal Pirates of the South Pacific & Indonesia,"
2023 McMullen Naval History Symposium, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD. "POWs in all but Name: The Capitulation of Nantucket, 1814."
2023 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Fort Worth TX. “The Cost of ‘Desperate Innovation’: Copper-Bottoms and British Naval Operations during the American Revolutionary Wars, 1779—1782.”
2022 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Starkville, MS. "Self-Interest and High-Command Rivalries in Combined Operations on Martinique and Guadeloupe, 1809-1810."
2021 McMullen Naval History Symposium, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD. “Napoleon and New Orleans: the Emperor’s First Surrender and its Impact on Britain in the Last Major Battle of the War of 1812.”
2021 North American Society for Oceanographic History (NASOH), Pensacola, FL. “Royal Navy Prizes, Vice-Admiralty Courts, and the Limits of State Power in the West India Colonies, 1803-1815.”
2021 Problem of Piracy II, Virtual Conference, University of Strathclyde, Scotland. “Maritime Predation by the Royal Navy in the Age of Abolition, 1808-1823.”
2020 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Tallahassee, FL. “West India Slavery, The Royal Navy, and the Troubling Case of Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane.”
2020 Battle of New Orleans Symposium, New Orleans, LA. “The Battle of Fort St. Philip, 1815.”
2019 McMullen Naval History Symposium, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD. “A Second Naval War: The immediate effects of the American War on Royal Navy Operations, June 1812 – July 1813”
Other Involvement:
Associate Fleet Professor, Fleet Seminar Program, US Naval War College
CRE and LSU History Graduate Student Association Conference 2024, committee
The Problem of Piracy Symposium, committee
Veterans of Recent Wars Project at Southeastern, director
American Battlefield Trust Teacher Institute, keynote speaker
Centennial Women’s Suffrage Project with Southeastern and the National Women’s History Museum, committee
Naval Order of the United States (NOUS), Historian General’s Committee and NOUS Prize/National History Day, Louisiana State Competition, coordinator
HIPS (History & Political Science) Society, faculty advisor
Phi Alpha Theta, History Honors Society, LA board member and faculty advisor