Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy Thursday, September 3 2009.

• 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.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy Thursday, September 3 2009.

• Added a contributor: Jack D. Coombe: (Primary Author)