Civil War Ironclads and Commandos Here at last is an action-packed portrait of one of America’s greatest but little-remembered Civil War heroes, Commander William Barker Cushing, who sank the Confederate ironclad Albemarle in a spectacular mission in 1864. Regarded as erratic and insubordinate, Midshipman Cushing was drummed out of the Naval Academy in March 1861. But with the outbreak of war, the Union needed every trained officer it could find— and whatever his flaws, Cushing was an extremely talented naval officer. Ferocious, uncompromising, courageous, and loyal, he became a U.S. Navy commando and at the age of twenty-one was sent to destroy the South’s ultimate naval weapon—the Albemarle, an unsinkable vessel with a devastating iron ram. This death-defying mission succeeded in sinking the Albemarle, helped reelect President Abraham Lincoln, and earned Cushing a hero’s grave in the Naval Academy’s cemetery. Here is that story, told with all the verve and drama it deserves, shining new light on one of the most important naval encounters of the war. Civil War Commando is a masterpiece of naval history that reads like a thriller and gives a neglected hero his due.

“Superbly entertaining.”—S. C. Gwynne, best-selling author of Empire of the Summer Moon October 1864. The confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle had sunk two federal warships and damaged seven others, taking control of the Roanoke River and threatening the Union blockade. Twenty-one-year-old navy lieutenant William Barker Cushing hatched a daring plan: to attack the fearsome warship with a few dozen men in two small wooden boats. What followed, the close-range torpedoing of the Albemarle and Cushing’s harrowing two-day escape downriver from vengeful Rebel posses, is one of the most dramatic individual exploits in American military history. Theodore Roosevelt said that Cushing “comes next to Farragut on the hero roll of American naval history,” but most have never heard of him today. Tossed out of the Naval Academy for “buffoonery,” Cushing proved himself a prodigy in behind-the-lines warfare. Given command of a small union ship, he performed daring, near-suicidal raids, “cutting out” confederate ships and thwarting blockade runners. With higher commands and larger ships, Cushing’s exploits grow bolder, culminating in the sinking of the Albemarle. A thrilling narrative biography, steeped in the tactics, weaponry, and battle techniques of the Union Navy, Commander Will Cushing brings to life a compelling yet flawed figure. Along with his three brothers, including one who fell at Gettysburg, Cushing served with bravery and heroism. But he was irascible and complicated—a loveable rogue, prideful and impulsive, who nonetheless possessed a genius for combat. In telling Cushing’s story, Malanowski paints a vivid, memorable portrait of the army officials, engineers, and politicians scrambling to win the war. But he also goes deeper into the psychology of the daredevil soldier—and what this heroic and tragic figure, who died before his time, can tell us about the ways we remember the glories of war.

A book with 23 illustrations, 19 maps, notes, a bibliography and an index offers a sweeping history of the Civil War navies in action.