Submarine Warfare In The Civil War

Submarine Warfare In The Civil War PDF Author: Mark Ragan
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 078674717X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Many people have heard of the Hunley, the experimental Confederate submarine that sank the USS Housatonic in a daring nighttime operation. Less well known, however, is that the Hunley was not alone under the waters of America during the Civil War. Both the Union and Confederacy built a wide and incredible array of vessels that could maneuver underwater, and many were put to use patrolling enemy waters. In Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, Mark Ragan, who spent years mining factory records and log books, brings this little-known history to the surface.The hardcover edition, Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, was published to wide acclaim in 1999. For this new paperback edition, Ragan has revised and updated the text to include the full story of the Hunley's recovery and restoration.

Submarine Warfare In The Civil War

Submarine Warfare In The Civil War PDF Author: Mark Ragan
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 078674717X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

Get Book

Book Description
Many people have heard of the Hunley, the experimental Confederate submarine that sank the USS Housatonic in a daring nighttime operation. Less well known, however, is that the Hunley was not alone under the waters of America during the Civil War. Both the Union and Confederacy built a wide and incredible array of vessels that could maneuver underwater, and many were put to use patrolling enemy waters. In Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, Mark Ragan, who spent years mining factory records and log books, brings this little-known history to the surface.The hardcover edition, Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, was published to wide acclaim in 1999. For this new paperback edition, Ragan has revised and updated the text to include the full story of the Hunley's recovery and restoration.

Union And Confederate Submarine Warfare In The Civil War

Union And Confederate Submarine Warfare In The Civil War PDF Author: Mark K. Ragan
Publisher: Da Capo Press, Incorporated
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Submarine use and experimentation during the Civil War was far more widespread than generally known. Drawing on years of archival research, submarine expert Mark Ragan outlines the building programs, construction plans, and underwater operations of both the Union and the Confederacy. 50 photos/illustrations. 6 maps. Nationwide book signings.

War on the Waters

War on the Waters PDF Author: James M. McPherson
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807837326
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
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.

Infernal Machines

Infernal Machines PDF Author: Milton F. Perry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Submarine mines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description


Confederate Saboteurs

Confederate Saboteurs PDF Author: Mark K. Ragan
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623492785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Facing an insurmountable deficit in resources compared to the Union navy, the Confederacy resorted to unorthodox forms of warfare to combat enemy forces. Perhaps the most energetic and effective torpedo corps and secret service company organized during the American Civil War, the Singer Secret Service Corps, led by Texan inventor and entrepreneur Edgar Collins Singer, developed and deployed submarines, underwater weaponry, and explosive devices. The group’s main government-financed activity, which eventually led to other destructive inventions such as the Hunley submarine and behind-enemy-line railroad sabotage, was the manufacture and deployment of an underwater contact mine. During the two years the Singer group operated, several Union gunboats, troop transports, supply trains, and even the famous ironclad monitor Tecumseh fell prey to its inventions. In Confederate Saboteurs: Building the Hunley and Other Secret Weapons of the Civil War, submarine expert and nautical historian Mark K. Ragan presents the untold story of the Singer corps. Poring through previously unpublished archival documents, Ragan also examines the complex personalities and relationships behind the Confederacy’s use of torpedoes and submarines.

Confederate Underwater Warfare

Confederate Underwater Warfare PDF Author: Louis S. Schafer
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Though the Union Navy held a numerical advantage over its Confederate counterpart, the South's forces had one weapon that was not readily available to the North -- underwater mines, known at the time as torpedoes. More Union ships were destroyed by torpedoes than by all other means combined. The South's superiority in underwater weaponry can be directly traced to the work of an oceanographer named Matthew Fontaine Murray. Recognizing the South's limited capabilities, Murray persuaded its leaders to develop underwater weapons. This is the first detailed history ever of the South's development and deployment of both offensive and defensive underwater weaponry. Included are many photographs of actual salvaged Confederate mines.

The H. L. Hunley

The H. L. Hunley PDF Author: Tom Chaffin
Publisher: Hill and Wang
ISBN: 142999035X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
On the evening of February 17, 1864, the Confederacy's H. L. Hunley sank the USS Housatonic and became the first submarine in world history to sink an enemy ship. Not until World War I—half a century later—would a submarine again accomplish such a feat. But also perishing that moonlit night, vanishing beneath the cold Atlantic waters off Charleston, South Carolina, was the Hunley and her entire crew of eight. For generations, searchers prowled Charleston's harbor, looking for the Hunley. And as they hunted, the legends surrounding the boat and its demise continued to grow. Even after the submarine was definitively located in 1995 and recovered five years later, those legends—those barnacles of misinformation—have only multiplied. Now, in a tour de force of document-sleuthing and insights gleaned from the excavation of this remarkable vessel, distinguished Civil War–era historian Tom Chaffin presents the most thorough telling of the Hunley's story possible. Of panoramic breadth, this Civil War saga begins long before the submarine was even assembled and follows the tale into the boat's final hours and through its recovery in 2000. Beyond his thorough survey of period documents relating to the submarine, Chaffin also conducted extensive interviews with Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where the Hunley is now being excavated, to complete his portrait of this technological wonder. What emerges is a narrative that casts compelling doubts on many long-held assumptions, particularly those concerning the boat's final hours. Thoroughly engaging and utterly new, The H. L. Hunley provides the definitive account of a storied craft.

Raising the Hunley

Raising the Hunley PDF Author: Brian Hicks
Publisher: Presidio Press
ISBN: 0307416488
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
The history of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley is as astonishing as its disappearance. On February 17, 1864, after a legendary encounter with a Union battleship, the iron “fish boat” vanished without a trace somewhere off the coast of South Carolina. For more than a century the fate of the Hunley remained one of the great unsolved mysteries of the Civil War. Then, on August 8, 2000, with thousands of spectators crowding Charleston Harbor, the Hunley was raised from the bottom of the sea and towed ashore. Now, award-winning journalists Brian Hicks and Schuyler Kropf offer new insights into the Hunley’s final hours and recount the amazing true story of its rescue. The brainchild of wealthy New Orleans planter and lawyer Horace Lawson Hunley, the Hunley inspired tremendous hopes of breaking the Union’s naval blockade of Charleston, only to drown two crews on disastrous test runs. But on the night of February 17, 1864, the Hunley finally made good on its promise. Under the command of the heroic Lieutenant George E. Dixon, the sub rammed a spar torpedo into the Union sloop Housatonic and sank the ship within minutes, accomplishing a feat of stealth technology that would not be repeated for half a century. And then, shortly after its stunning success, the Hunley vanished. This book is an extraordinary true story peopled with a fascinating cast of characters, including Horace Hunley himself, the Union officers and crew who went down with the Housatonic, P. T. Barnum, who offered $100,000 for its recovery, and novelist Clive Cussler, who spearheaded the mission that finally succeeded in finding the Hunley. The drama of salvaging the sub is only the prelude to a page-turning account of how scientists unsealed this archaeological treasure chest and discovered the inner-workings of a submarine more technologically advanced than anyone expected, as well as numerous, priceless artifacts. Hicks and Kropf have crafted a spellbinding adventure story that spans over a century of American history. Dramatically told, filled with historical details and contemporary color, illustrated with breathtaking original photographs, Raising the Hunley is one of the most fascinating Civil War books to appear in years.

A Short History of the Civil War at Sea

A Short History of the Civil War at Sea PDF Author: Spencer Tucker
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780842028684
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
In A Short History of the Civil War at Sea, Spencer C. Tucker, eminent naval and military historian, provides a concise and lively overview of the blue water Civil War, or fighting on the seas and attacks directed from the sea. This volume covers the drama of significant naval battles, like the first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads, the Union capture of New Orleans, fierce action in the Charleston Harbor, and the Battle of Mobile Bay. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea also discusses important themes, like the technological revolution in naval warfare; the Confederate use of torpedoes, submarines, and commerce raiders; and the Union's successful strategy of blockade. The struggle at sea might not have been as bloody as the fighting on land, but it was every bit as interesting and included a colorful cast of characters, like David G. Farragut, the North's highest ranking and most accomplished naval officer, and Confederate naval officer, commerce raider, and Rebel Seadog Raphael Semmes. And the advances of naval technology during the Civil War are fascinating - from the use of new Dahlgren guns to the design and redesign of the ironclads to the extensive use of mines an

Civil War Special Forces

Civil War Special Forces PDF Author: Robert P. Broadwater
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
This timely addition to Civil War history shares the stories of 25 unique military organizations, showing how past and future collided in the first modern war. The Civil War, of course, pitted North against South. It also pitted ancient ways of war against new, technology-inspired weaponry and tactics. In surveying the war's elite fighting units, this work covers both. The book showcases novel weapons and unorthodox strategies, including machine gunners, rocket battalions, chemical corps, the Union balloon corps, and the Confederate submarine service, all of which harnessed new technologies and were forerunners of the modern military. Chapters also cover archaic special forces, such as lancers and pikers, that had their last hurrah during this transformational conflict. Readers will also meet the fighting youth of the North Carolina Junior Reserves, the "Graybeards" of North Carolina, and the female combatants of the Nancy Harts Militia of Georgia. Going where few other studies have gone, the book fills a gap in existing Civil War literature and brings to life the stories of many of the most extraordinary units that ever served in an American army. The tales it tells will prove fascinating to Civil War and weapons buffs and to general readers alike.