Description
In 1861, the Confederacy was protected on its western flank by the Mississippi River and a devil's gauntlet of fortresses and shore batteries that prevented the Union from sending troops and supplies up and down the river. With Grant determined to strike a land blow through Vicksburg, the Mississippi had to be won. To achieve this goal, the Union forces unleashed a deadly new fleet of warships: ironclad gunboats, armed to the teeth. There had never been anything like these ships--the Civil War ironclads wrote a stunning new page in naval history and helped seal the fate of the rebellion. Nominated for the prestigious Fletcher-Pratt Award, Thunder Along the Mississippi brings to life an all-but-forgotten chapter of the Civil War. A meeting of raw human courage and advancing naval technology, the battles of the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico to Vicksburg were some of the fiercest and most crucial--though least known--in American Naval History. Jack Coombe depicts the river battles that brought naval warfare into the modern age so well you can almost smell the smoke and cinder.
