Sam Cavell, PhD.

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

Books and Book Chapters: 

• Forthcoming. “’The Nearest Run Thing’: Britain’s Strategic resourcing in the Napoleonic Wars”, in Resourcing Great State Wars (working title), est. 2026.

• “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:

• "The Cost of Wartime Innovation: Copper Bottoms and British Naval Operations During the American War, 1779-1783”, in The Trafalgar Chronicle, New Series (2024).

• “Self-Interest and High-Command Rivalries in Combined Operations on Martinique and Guadeloupe, 1808—1811”, in International Journal of Maritime History (2024).

• “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:

• 2025 US Marine Corps University, Quantico, VA, "Resourcing Great State Wars - British perspectives on the Napoleonic Wars"

• 2025 North American Society for Oceanographic History (NASOH), Natchez, MS, “Naval Life-Writing: Challenges and Opportunities” Roundtable with Evan Wilson, Ryan Wadel, and Abigail Mullen.

• 2025 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, Auburn University, Auburn AL, “’The Nearest Run Thing’: Resourcing Crises and Britain’s Struggle to Survive in the Napoleonic Wars”

• 2025 Battle of New Orleans Symposium, New Orleans, LA, “Why the War of 1812 and the Battle of New Orleans Matter.”

• 2024 North American Society for Oceanographic History (NASOH), St, Catherines, Ontario, “Embracing the Enemy: Acadian Expulsion and the Wreck of the Duke William, 1759.”

• 2024 Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, LSU, Baton Rouge, LA “’Servant of the Board’: Admiralty Secretary John Croker’s Influence on the War at Sea, 1809 –1815.”

• 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: 

• Fleet Seminar Professor, College of Distance Education (New Orleans), U.S. Naval War College

• Editorial Board, International Journal of Naval History

• Louisiana Historical Association 2026 Conference, chair

• The Problem of Piracy Conference, committee (since 2021)

• CRE and LSU History Graduate Student Association Conference 2024, committee

• Veterans of Recent Wars Project at Southeastern, director

• American Battlefield Trust Teacher Institute, keynote speaker & presenter

• 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