Pushing aside the long-held belief that the answers went up in flames when the Confederate Navy archives were torched during the evacuation of Richmond, Luraghi combed fifty archives in four countries and uncovered information that shattered prevailing myths about that service's contributions.

John Low came to America from England in 1856 at the suggestion of his uncle, Andrew Low, a prosperous Savannah- Liverpool businessman. Just as he established himself in nautical businesses in Savannah the Civil War broke out. Low was ordered to England to help in the undercover task of buying, building, and convoying warships to the South. William Stanley Hoole traces Low's adventures in the service of the Confederacy. Low aided in the acquisition and delivery of the ironclad Fingal and the Florida. He served with Admiral Semmes aboard the famed raider Alabama and was involved in the capture, commissioning, voyage, and detention of the Tuscaloosa. His final task was to deliver the Ajax in the last days of the war.

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.

By Richard T. Frey.

This work covers the real grounds for the Confederacy's failure to build a successful navy. The South's major problems with shipbuilding concerned facilities, materials, and labour. Each of these subjects is discussed, and the text concludes by joining these problems to the issues of the Civil War.

During the American Civil War, British-crewed warships harassed Union merchantmen, sinking a total value of more than $15,000,000 in ships and cargo. Considered pirates by the federal government, these ships and crew were at the center of a largely unknown but fascinating struggle between Commander James Dunwoody of the Confederate Navy, U.S. Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, and Consul Thomas H. Dudley. This history of British assistance to the Confederate Navy covers that story in full and provides a close look at the British seamen who manned warships and blockade runners.

American naval hero and Confederate secret agent James Dunwoody Bulloch was widely considered the Confederacy's most dangerous man in Europe. As head of the South's covert shipbuilding and logistics program overseas during the American Civil War, Bulloch acquired a staggering 49 warships, blockade runners, and tenders; built "invulnerable" ocean-going ironclads; sustained Confederate logistics; financed covert operations; and acted as the mastermind behind the destruction of 130 Union ships. Ironically, this man who conspired to destroy the Union and kidnap its president later stood as the favorite uncle and mentor to Theodore Roosevelt. Bulloch's astonishing life unfolds in this first-ever biography.

This is the first book-length study devoted to the vessels of the Confederate Navy, including all types used during the conflict: ironclads (both domestic and foreign-built), commerce raiders, blockade runners, riverine and ocean-going gunboats, torpedo and submersible vessels, and floating batteries. The book emphasizes the development, construction, and design of these vessels using, where available, original plans, photographs, and contemporary descriptions. The author describes these vessels in context with wartime conditions as well as with the transitional naval technology of the era. Over 100 vessels are detailed, including more than 30 ironclads, both American and foreign built. Over 150 illustrations are included, many of which have not previously been published. Also included is a section on steam engine technology of the era.

Everyone knows the story of the battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack. But how many people know the story behind the Confederacy's attempt to build a fleet of armorclad vessels of war? When the Civil War began, the South had virtually no navy, few seamen, and limited shipbuilding facilities. In order to defend its ports against a well-established Northern navy, the South had to resort to innovation, and the Confederate ironclad navy was born. The Confederate government commissioned and put into operation twenty-two armorclad vessels of war. This is their story. From the inception of the program, through the problems of building the vessels, through the careers of the vessels themselves (including gripping battle descriptions), to their eventual destruction or surrender, it is all here. Iron Afloat is history that reads like a novel and will appeal to readers interested in the Civil War and Confederacy as well as to military and naval historians.