Confederate Blockade Runner 1861 65

The lifeblood of the Confederacy, the blockade runners of the Civil War usually began life as regular fast steam-powered merchant ships. They were adapted for the high-speed dashes through the Union blockade which closed off all the major Southern ports, and for much of the war they brought much-needed food, clothing and weaponry to the Confederacy. This book traces their operational history, including the development of purpose-built blockade running ships, and examines their engines, crews and tactics. It describes their wartime exploits, demonstrating their operational and mechanical performance, whilst examining what life was like on these vessels through accounts of conditions on board when they sailed into action.

The Confederate states adopted radical solutions to counter the naval superiority of their opponents. One of the more successful solutions they adopted was the use of commerce raiders. This book describes the reasons which forced the Confederates to resort to commerce raiding, and outlines the way in which these craft were converted or specially built to perform their role. It details not only the way these craft were operated and manned, but also their brutal attacks, daring escapes and climatic battles against the large numbers of Union warships forced to hunt them down.

This book recounts the history and activities of the Denbigh, one of the Civil War's most successful blockade runners. A new introduction by J. Barto Arnold III (which includes a lengthy appendix) reviews recent archival and archaeological research and highlights the blockade runner's place in the Confederacy's complex and ultimately insoluble problem of obtaining manufactured items from abroad. From the reviews "[A]n important contribution to the historian's knowledge of a significant aspect of the military operations of the Civil War." George L. Anderson in Civil War History "[O]ffers much light in a hitherto little regarded area of Confederate studies. Professor Nichols deserves great credit for this fine contribution to Civil War knowledge." Allan C. Ashcraft in Southern Historical Quarterly "This [volume] . . . should help future scholars to a better understanding of the period 1861-65 than has ever been possible before." Robert A. Brent in Journal of Mississippi History "[A] pioneering work in the field of Trans-Mississippi logistics." William T. Windham in Journal of Southern History

Although previously undervalued for their strategic impact because they represented only a small percentage of total forces, the Union and Confederate navies were crucial to the outcome of the Civil War. In War on the Waters, James M. McPherson has crafted an enlightening, at times harrowing, and ultimately thrilling account of the war's naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navy's blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the war's early months, became increasingly effective as it choked off vital imports and exports. Meanwhile, the Confederate navy, dwarfed by its giant adversary, demonstrated daring and military innovation. Commerce raiders sank Union ships and drove the American merchant marine from the high seas. Southern ironclads sent several Union warships to the bottom, naval mines sank many more, and the Confederates deployed the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the war's most important strategic victories--as an essential partner to the army on the ground at Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Mobile Bay, and Fort Fisher, and all by itself at Port Royal, Fort Henry, New Orleans, and Memphis.

The primary Union strategy during the American Civil War was a massive naval blockade of the entire Southern coastline of the Confederacy, and it was in the effort to counter this blockade that the Confederates developed their first submarines and torpedo boats. This book traces the development of these new technologies, including the CSS 'Little David' and 'Hunley' - respectively the first torpedo boat and submarine to sink an enemy warship. The wreck of the 'Hunley' was raised in 2000, and this is the first book ever to integrate details of its recovery with an account of Confederate submarines in action.

"This book re-examines multiple aspects of the Union blockade during the American Civil War. Michael Bonner and Peter McCord scrutinize the blockade's operation under international maritime law, its psychological effect on citizens of southern-port cities, and the actuality of blockade runners outside of Confederate lore. This deep examination of the blockade critiques the often uncritically accepted notion that the blockade was, by and large, extremely effective"--

- Illustrated. The naval battles of the American Civil War, fought between the Union and the Confederacy, changed the foundations of naval warfare with the first use of ironclads and submarines, and the introduction of newer and more powerful naval artillery.The first shots of the naval war were fired on April 13, 1861, during the Battle of Fort Sumter, by the US Revenue Cutter Service cutter USRC Harriet Lane. The final shots were fired on June 22, 1865, by the Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah in the Bering Strait, more than two months after General Robert E. Lee's surrender of the Confederate Army.This is a firsthand account of blockade running by a participant in the events he describes. He also provides useful information on the British attitude toward the technicalities of the blockade.