Americas and to Australi a, rounding the Horn, never losing hi s sang froid . Except for once in a whi le; when seeing the convict settlements in Botany Bay, witnessing the treatment of the Aborig ines and sailing in the company of a slaver, his Calvinist conscience erupts. Macintyre ' s great-granddaughters (no strangers themselves to adventu res in distant lands) have edited nine of his manuscript volumes with great skill. The illustrations are exce llent. Let us hope there is another volume in the offing.
"Authenticitg runs throughout the book, carrging total conviction.... Nelson writes with the eagerness of a goung man sailing his first command." -Patrick O'Brian, author of the Aubrey /Maturin Series
i:?i:r tr tf i:? i:?i:?i:?i:?i:?i:?i:? BY FORCE OF ARMS
RALPH TOWNLEY
The first novel of
Marion, Massachusetts The Old Steam Navy: Volume Two, The Ironclads, 1842-1885, by Donald L. Canney (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1993 , l62pp, illus, appen , notes , biblio , index , ISBN 0-87021-5868; $49~95hc) In this second volume of his history of the o ld steam navy , Canney provides a systematic, chronological treatment of ironclad warships during the years 1842-1885 . Covering more than ninety warships, he describes the construction, machinery, armament and technology in full detail. Ironclads, or wooden warships protected from gunfire by iron armor, were nontraditional in that they incorporated technological advances of the period and in some respects pointed towards future developments in propulsion, gunnery and hull design. US Navy Civil War ironclads were diverse in design and were used in two naval theaters of war. Coastal ironclads were represented in the popular mind by ships such as the Monitor while the lesser-known casemated ships were used on the western river campaigns. Interestingly , the first to authori ze the use of ironclads during the Civil War was Army Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs on 2 July 1861. The navy ' s attitude towards these ships was a combination of grudging admission that they had a role to play and a lin gering doubt whether they would be effective once built. Events during the Civil War laid to rest both concerns. Within this context Canney provides a comprehensive survey of the types of ironclads beginning with their pre-Civil War precedents and then chronologically covering coastal ironclads , riverboats, monitors , casemated river ironclads and turret river ironclads. He ends hi s study with a chapter on the dismal SEA HISTORY 76, WINTER 1995-96
Revolution at Sea, anew naval adventure trilogy. I
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