The Civil War was primarily a land conflict, but it was not only that.

“Nor must Uncle Sam’s web-feet be forgotten,” wrote Abraham Lincoln. “At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks.”

From the Arctic Circle to the Caribbean, swift Rebel raiders decimated Union commerce pursued by the U. S. Navy. Offshore, storm-tossed blockaders in hundreds of vessels patrolled from Hatteras to Galveston while occasionally lobbing a few shots at a speeding Rebel runner.

Around the continental periphery, it was ships vs. powerful fortifications as titanic clashes erupted: Port Royal, New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile. Massive army-navy amphibious operations presaged twentieth-century conflicts: The Peninsula, North Carolina Sounds, Fort Fisher. In the heartland, the two services invented riverine warfare: Forts Henry and Donelson, Island No. 10, Memphis, Vicksburg.

And through it all, emerging technology of the machine age played a critical role: iron armor, torpedoes, steam propulsion, heavy naval artillery.

However, nothing in the history and traditions of the United States Navy had prepared it for civil war. The sea service would expand tenfold from a third-rate force to (temporarily) one of the most powerful and advanced navies. Meanwhile, former shipmates in the Confederacy struggled to construct a fleet from nothing, applying innovative technologies and underdog strategies to achieve more than anyone thought possible.

Both sides faced unprecedented strategic, tactical, and technological challenges that made their navies indispensable—even as the navies themselves faced those same sorts of challenges.

The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War compiles favorite navy tales and obscure narratives by distinguished public historians of the Emerging Civil War in celebration of the organization’s tenth anniversary. This eclectic collection presents new stories and familiar battles from a unique perspective—from the water—sea, surf, and stream.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Photographing the War on the Water
• The Civil War Naval Theaters Near and Far
• The U.S. Naval Academy: Coming of Age for Civil War
• The Last Slaver: Voyage of the Clotilda
• Perpetual Beacons? Lighthouses and the Civil War
• Blockade, Privateering, and the 1856 Declaration of Paris
• The Leathernecks of 1861
• Town Between the Rivers: Cairo, Illinois
• On Dark Nights: Blockade Runners Supplying the Confederacy
• Fighting for California Gold on the Panamá Route
• Gideon Welles and Gustavus Fox: Dynamic Duo of the Deep
• Ships vs. Forts 1861: Off to the Races
• The Civil War on the OBX: 1861’s Forgotten Story Gets New Attention
• Rolling on the River: Civil War Brown-Water Navies
• The Old Stone Fleet: A Failure and Complete
• Sailors and Slaves in the Civil War
• Pirates in Gray and Blue: The CSS Nashville and the Trent Affair
• Burnside’s Sand March: The North Carolina Amphibious Expedition
• Attrition Rates of City-Class Ironclads
• View from the Ramparts: Fortress Monroe, Virginia
• Around We Go in the Monitor Turret
• The First Battle of Ironclads: Myths, Facts, What Ifs
• Gunboats USS Tyler and USS Lexington at Shiloh
• Dichotomy of Command Organizations at New Orleans
• The Less Famous Lees of the Navy
• Robert Smalls and the Daring Capture of Planter
• A Most Curious Battle: Memphis, Tennessee, June 6, 1862
• Into the Volcano with the Ironclad CSS Arkansas
• Sailor and Artist: Robert W. Weir of the USS Richmond
• Loss of the USS Monitor
• Mrs. First Mate’s Retribution
• Farragut vs. Port Hudson
• A Perilous Voyage on the Kanawha: Jenkins Attacks Victor No. 2
• Charles (Savez) Read and the Battle of Portland Harbor
• The Civil War Submarine in the Little Free Library
• Confederate Torpedoes Could Not Sink John Crosby for Long
• Blasting His Way into the History Books: Assessing the Role of Cmdr. Hunter Davidson
• “The Very Essence of Nightmare”: The Battle of Plymouth, NC, and the Destruction of the CSS Albemarle
• Buchanan at Mobile Bay
• A Most Profitable Ironclad: The Miniature Monitor That Raised Funds and Hope for the Union
• Wilmington: The Last Open Port on the Confederate Coast
• World on Fire: Confederates on the Far Side
• Ambitions of a European-Built Confederate Navy Squadron
• Having Done My Duty: Lowering the Last Rebel Banner
• No Civil War Monuments on the Ocean
• Contributors’ Notes
• Postscript