Hard Cover
2012 · Chapel Hill, North Carolina
by McPherson, James M
Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Book Club (BCE/BOMC). Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good. 6x1x9. Book club edition. Bottom edge of rear jacket panel clipped, rear jacket flap creased. 2012 Hard Cover. 277 pp. 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 warâs naval campaigns and their military leaders. McPherson recounts how the Union navyâs blockade of the Confederate coast, leaky as a sieve in the warâs 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 worldâs first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. But in the end, it was the Union navy that won some of the warâs 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. (Inventory #: 2337161)