Free Downloads Mississippi River Gunboats Of The American Civil War 1861-65 (New Vanguard)
At the start of the American Civil War, neither side had warships on the Mississippi River and in the first few months both sides scrambled to gather a flotilla, converting existing riverboats for naval use. These ships were transformed into powerful naval weapons despite a lack of resources, trained manpower and suitable vessels. The creation of a river fleet was a miracle of ingenuity, improvisation and logistics, particularly for the South. This title describes their design, development and operation throughout the American Civil War.
Series: New Vanguard (Book 49)
Paperback: 48 pages
Publisher: Osprey Publishing (March 25, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1841764132
ISBN-13: 978-1841764139
Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 0.1 x 9.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #858,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #55 in Books > History > Americas > United States > Civil War > Naval Operations #1884 in Books > History > Military > Naval #8549 in Books > History > Military > United States
Someone wanting a brief survey of the role of the gunboats during the Civil War on western waters will find this book moderately useful. My view is that it spends too much time on the Confederate river forces, given their almost utter lack of success and strategic insignificance after the battle of Memphis. Also I would question the selection of the battle of New Orleans as illustrative of the usage of gunboats on the rivers; the Confederate gunboats in that battle were handled terribly, and they were up against ocean-going warships, hardly typical of western gunboat fighting. Much better instead would have been to treat one of the operations on the White or the Yazoo. But reasonable people might disagree.I was very disappointed, however, to encounter some grave errors. It says on page 46 that "The 'walking beam engine' was the most common type of engine used on the paddleboats that plied the western rivers in peace and in war." That is entirely false. By at least 1830 and probably even earlier, the walking beam transmission (typically associated with low-pressure engines, and essentially always with vertical cylinders) had been entirely superceded on the western waters by the Evans-type, horizontal-cylinder, high pressure steam engine, with direct drive from the piston rod to an oscillating "pitman," a wooden beam that turned the crank of the paddle wheel. The principal motion of the pitman was fore-and-aft, though it moved up and down just enough to accomodate the rotation of the crank.
If I might be forgiven for adapting that old cliché about buses; I was blissfully unaware of the existence of Osprey Publishing until several books from this particular publisher came along at once. More importantly, I have yet to be disappointed by any title so far studied. My review of their "US Cruisers 1883-1904" attracted several comments in which I was asked about similar titles covering historic US Ships - so I asked for more.Up to last week, I thought the USS Lexington was an aircraft carrier from WW2 and had no idea that name had been used previously. From this book, however, I learned that the first ship of that name was one of three Union river gunboats to see service on the Mississippi during the American Civil War. She displaced 362 tons and carried four 8 inch smoothbore and two 32 pounder guns.Whilst warships have changed considerably since that time, I shall never look at the Natchez or Creole Queen (two similar, albeit unarmed, river boats which still ply the Mississippi) in quite the same way - should I ever see those magnificent vessels again.If anything, this book will teach almost everybody something they did not previously know about the shallow-draught river gunboats which fought the naval battles within the confined spaces of one of the world's greatest rivers at that time. A particularly intriguing incident came about when the Governor Moore rammed the Varuna. Locked together for that short time before the Governor Moore could reverse away, the Varuna's gun crew were confronted by an enemy ship which was so close as to be below the trajectory of their main bow gun. Consequently they depressed the barrel to its absolute maximum and fired a round through their own decks and into the attacking ship causing mortal damage.
Mississippi River Gunboats of the American Civil War 1861-65 (New Vanguard) Union River Ironclad 1861-65 (New Vanguard) Dispatches from Bermuda: The Civil War Letters of Charles Maxwell Allen, United States Consul at Bermuda, 1861-1888 (Civil War in the North) Confederate Ironclad 1861-65 (New Vanguard) Union Monitor 1861-65 (New Vanguard) River Gunboats: An Illustrated Encyclopedia A Treasury of Mississippi River Folklore Stories, Ballads, Traditions and Folkways of the Mid-American River Country The Civil War on the Mississippi: Union Sailors, Gunboat Captains, and the Campaign to Control the River Sons of Privilege: The Charleston Light Dragoons in the Civil War (Civil War Sesquicentennial Edition) (Civil War Sesquicentennial Edition (University of South Carolina Press)) Citizen-officers: The Union and Confederate Volunteer Junior Officer Corps in the American Civil War (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 3: Red River to Appomattox (Vintage Civil War Library) War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 (Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861-1865 (The Littlefield History of the Civil War Era) American Civil War Marines 1861-65 (Elite) The Civil War: 1861-1865 (See American History) A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) The Free State of Jones, Movie Edition: Mississippi's Longest Civil War (The Fred W. Morrison Series in Southern Studies) All for the Regiment: The Army of the Ohio, 1861-1862 (Civil War America) Ships of the Civil War 1861-1865: An Illustrated Guide to the Fighting Vessels of the Union and the Confederacy Vicksburg: The Campaign That Opened the Mississippi (Civil War America)
