Civil War Ironclads

Civil War Ironclads PDF Author: William H. Roberts
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801868306
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Contrary to widespread belief, Roberts concludes, the ironclad program set Navy shipbuilding back a generation.--Kathy Crewdson and Ian Dew "The Northern Mariner"

Dignity of Duty

Dignity of Duty PDF Author: Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath
Publisher: Pritzker Military Museum and Library
ISBN: 0989792854
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
Published 117 years after his death, the journals of the American soldier Erasmus Corwin Gilbreath provide a compelling vantage point by which to view contemporary American history. They tell, first and foremost, a tale of war in which there is no glory—only carnage and death. Through Gilbreath’s firsthand accounts we get a sense of what life was like during the Civil War, the Indian Wars, and the War with Spain from an accomplished field officer, rather than from high command. Gilbreath illuminates the true horrors of war in the 19th Century for soldiers—boredom, fatigue, death, and crude medical care for the wounded—and their families, as Gilbreath’s wife and children followed him wherever his orders would lead, enduring the primitive conditions they found along the way. From his instrumental role in raising a company that would become part of the 20th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, to his death while serving with the 11th U.S. Infantry in Puerto Rico at the tail end of the Spanish–American War, Gilbreath’s life exemplifies the dignity of his service and the importance he placed on duty to his nation. In his journals, Gilbreath paints a vivid picture of the turmoil and change that was 19th Century America. Passages such as the lyric firsthand account of the Battle of the Ironclads or his reconnecting with a fellow Gettysburg veteran in Chicago 21 years after the battle are beautifully written, and carry a personal and emotional gravity that are found in the best literary works. Gilbreath is one of America’s sons, a proud citizen soldier who helped to forge the United States, and we are truly fortunate that his legacy lives on in these pages.

USS Monitor

USS Monitor PDF Author: John D. Broadwater
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1603444734
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Lavish illustrations (photographs, site drawings, and artifact sketches) complement this informative and highly readable account. Naval warfare buffs, amateurs and professionals involved in maritime archaeology, and Civil War aficionados will be intrigued and informed by USS Monitor A Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage.

Duel Between the First Ironclads

Duel Between the First Ironclads PDF Author: William C. Davis
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0307817504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
One was called "a tin can on a shingle"; the other, "a half-submerged crocodile." Yet, on a March day in 1862 in Hampton Roads, Virginia, after a five-hour duel, the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia (formerly the U.S.S. Merrimack) were to change the course of not only the Civil War but also naval warfare forever. Using letters, diaries, and memoirs of men who lived through the epic battle of the Monitor and the Merrimack and of those who witnessed it from afar, William C. Davis documents and analyzes this famous confrontation of the first two modern warships. The result is a full-scale history that is as exciting as a novel. Besides a thorough discussion of the designs of each ship, Davis portrays come of the men involved in the building and operation of America's first ironclads-John Ericsson, supreme egoist and engineering genius who designed the Monitor; John Brooke, designer of the Virginia; John Worden, the well-loved captain of the Monitor; Captain Franklin Buchanan of the Virginia; and a host of other men on both Union and Confederate sides whose contributions make this history as much a story of men as of ships and war.

Confederate Ironclad Vs Union Ironclad

Confederate Ironclad Vs Union Ironclad PDF Author: Ron Field
Publisher: Osprey Publishing
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
The Ironclad was a revolutionary weapon of war. Although iron was used for protection in the Far East during the 16th century, it was the 19th century and the American Civil War that heralded the first modern armored self-propelled warships. With the parallel pressures of civil war and the industrial revolution, technology advanced at a breakneck speed. It was the South who first utilized ironclads as they attempted to protect their ports from the Northern blockade. Impressed with their superior resistance to fire and their ability to ram vulnerable wooden ships, the North began to develop its own rival fleet of ironclads. Eventually these two products of this first modern arms race dueled at the battle of Hampton Roads in a clash that would change the face of naval warfare. Fully illustrated with cutting-edge digital artwork, rare photographs and first-person perspective gun sight views, this book allows the reader to discover the revolutionary and radically different designs of the two rival Ironclads - the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor - through an analysis of each ship's weaponry, ammunition and steerage. Compare the contrasting training of the crews and re-live the horrors of the battle at sea in a war which split a nation, communities and even families.

The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship

The Introduction of the Ironclad Warship PDF Author: James Phinney Baxter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : es
Pages : 442

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Book Description


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.

Union River Ironclad 1861–65

Union River Ironclad 1861–65 PDF Author: Angus Konstam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178200839X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 87

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Book Description
At the start of the American Civil War, neither side had warships on the Mississippi River, which was a vital strategic artery. In what would prove the vital naval campaign of the war, both sides fought for control of the river. While the Confederates relied on field fortifications and small gunboats, the Union built a series of revolutionary river ironclads. First commissioned in January 1862, these ironclads spent the next two years battling for control of the Mississippi, fighting in a string of decisive engagements that altered the entire course of the war. This book explains how these vessels worked, how they were constructed, how they were manned and how they were fought.

The Laird Rams

The Laird Rams PDF Author: Andrew R. English
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476643679
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
Built in Birkenhead, England, from 1862 to 1865, the "Laird rams" were two innovative armored warships intended for service with the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. The vessels represented a substantial threat to Union naval power, and offered the Confederacy a potential means to break the Union blockade of the Southern coastline. During 1863, the critical year of the Confederacy's last hope of recognition by the British and French, President Lincoln threatened war with Britain if the ships ever sailed under Confederate colors. Built in some secrecy, then launched on the River Mersey under intense international scrutiny, the ships were first seized, and then purchased by Britain to avoid a war with the United States. These armored warships were largely forgotten after the Admiralty acquired them. Historians rarely mention these sister warships--if referred at all, they are given short shrift. This book provides the first complete history of these once famous ironclads that never fired a shot in anger yet served at distant stations as defenders of the British Empire.

Iron Afloat

Iron Afloat PDF Author: William N. Still
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9780872496163
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
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.

Ironclad

Ironclad PDF Author: Arthur Mokin
Publisher: Backinprint.com
ISBN: 9780595093793
Category : Armored vessels
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
With a novelist's eye and the historian's devotion to research, Mokin recreates these early years of the Civil War, immersing the reader in this time and place. We share the motivations and emotions of the country's leaders, the soldiers and sailors, and the families at home-feeling their fears and experiencing their frustrations. Ironclad is immensely readable-popular history at its best. "Arthur Mokin's vivid account...presents absorbing portraits of the personalities involved, as well as lucid account of the naval tactics and strategy on both sides." —Lloyd's List