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canoe aboutthirty-three feet long .... Chesapeake Bay in the Civil War, by Captain Turpin owned this boat and Eric Mills (Tidewater Publishers, was regularly engaged in the blockCentrevi lle MD, 1995, 284pp, illus, ade-running business, carrying pasnotes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-87033-4 79sengers and contraband goods. 4; $29.95hc) Though a very hazardous business, it At the start of the Civil War, Chesawas very profitable, twenty dollars in peake Bay was a crucially important gold being the fare each passenger piece of water real estate with North and had to pay. South struggling for its control. Up the Potomac lay the capital of the United This is a story of gunboats, smugglers, States; up the James lay the Confederate privateers, and the movement of mighty capital. Control of the Chesapeake could armies, of cavaliers and street-brawlers, determine the course of the war. In the political prisoners and prison-camp hell, Chesapeake's waters, fierce and tragic shoreline artillery and tidewater guerrilbattles would be waged, naval warfare las, blockade-running oystennen and the would be changed forever, and the Civil unsung sailors of the Potomac Flotilla. Historian Bruce Catton wrote: "The War would finally be won. The author portrays Chesapeake Civil War is the thing that makes country from the months preceding the America different. It is our most tregreat conflict to shortly after the death mendous experience, and it is not quite of Abraham Lincoln. A rich panorama like anything that ever happened to anyof fascinating Civil War history emerges: one else. The story of this war needs the war's first deaths on the streets of retelling because it helped to shape the Baltimore; Franklin Buchanan com- future of the human race. " (The Amerimanding the ironclad CSS Virginia can Heritage , 1960). And Eric Mills (popularly known as the Merrimack) as brings the people and events alive, so she sounded the death knell for the age that the reader fully experiences the of sail; Naval Academy instructor John actions and emotions of those long-ago Taylor Wood becoming one of the most courageous fighters. For the first time, feared Confederate raiders on the Bay; the complete history of the role of Chesacountless soldiers losing their lives at peake Bay in the Civil War is told. the hellish POW camp at Point Look- History buffs, Civil War buffs and readout; Jefferson Davis imprisoned at Fort ers in general will be captivated by one of the most exciting narratives of an Monroe. One scene describes President Lin- historical happening to come into print. LILA LINE coln aboard the Miami , determining Royal Oak, Mary land when and at what point troops would land at Ocean View, Virginia: Miami returned to the location with Sumner-Gearing Class Destroyers: President Lincoln. Earlier, he and Their Design, Weapons and EquipStanton had combed the same coast- ment, by Robert F. Sumrall (Naval Inline by tugboat; they, too, had thought stitute Press, Annapolis MD, 1995, it promising-in fact, they'd wanned 320pp, illus, appen, gloss, notes, biblio, to a spot just a mile or so away .... index, ISBN 1-55750-786-4; $59 .95hc) Sumrall, the curator of ship models The troops began moving out at midnight, nearly six thousand of them in at the US Naval Academy Museum, canal boats towed by steamers. The provides the reader with "a study of a soldiers rode in the boats while cav- single generation, the Sumner-Gearing alry steeds and fieldpieces filled the Class, covering its development and steamers. The guns of the Rips Raps evolution in the course of nearly forty bombarded Sewells Point to foster years and three wars in the service of the the illusion that the landing would be US Navy ." Beginning with a discussion made there. Meanwhile, the first troop of pre-World War II naval development transports were arriving at Ocean in general and destroyer evolution in particular, the author traces the design View by 1: lOam. Although the CSS Virginia and USS of destroyers through the 1920s and Monitor are probably the best known 1930s, culminating in the classic Fletcher seafaring participants in the conflict, class in 1940. The early years of WWII before US even the Chesapeake Bay log sailing involvement provided design and opcanoe got into the action. The boat used in conveying this party erational information which led to a across to the Virginia shore was a new design in 1942. It became the SEA HISTORY 77, SPRING 1996
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