REVIEWS York NY, 2002, 424pp, illus, appen, notes, biblio, index, ISBN 0-1 9-5 1474 1-3; $35hc) This carefully researched book fills in many details of Nelso n's flawed life, but hardly lives up to its tide. T he N elson touch, well-recognized in his life time, which gave Britain's Royal Navy the needed edge to overth row Napoleon's despotic empire, is to be fo und in N elso n's soa ring devotion to dury, his imagination and abiliry to inspire men beyond their norm, and his sincere love ofB ri tish freedom. Don't look fo r much app reciation of these quali ties here. For one example, the auth or's acco unt of Nelson 's victory at the N ile gives terse credit to the "bold things in this attack which few other co mmand ers wo uld have dared," but then suggests that the risk of N elson's ships running agro und on the shoals of Aboukir Bay migh t have cost him the bat tl e, co nve ni entl y neglecting to n ote th at Foley in Goliath, the lead ship, had accurate charts. Just one ship ra n agro und. Nelson, Foley and the rest of his captai ns knew what they we re doing-this was no gambler's ro ll of the dice. Coleman continues with a length y refuta tion of the no tion that Nelso n ordered Foley to envelop the French va n, cred iti ng this decisive step to Foley alo ne. But Foley, who adored N elson, kn ew N elson wo uld support him! T his was the Nelso n to uch in action, which the author utterly misses . N elso n met frequently with his captains in open discuss io n, more often than any other admiral of his day. T hey knew that N elson co unted on their using their God-given wits, courage and initiative. We see little of this challenging, open, genero us spirit that was at the heart of the N elson touch in this dour and carping presentation. As revisionist history, this wo rk may have its value in correcting an overenthusias tic view of a popular hero . But calling this book The Nelson Touch is a PS case of deceptive packaging. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea, by Spencer C. T ucker (Scholarly Resources, W ilmington D E, 2002, 192pp, illus, biblio, index, ISBN 0-8420-2867-6; $60hc; ISBN 0-8420-2868-4; $ 17 .95pb) While scores of books can be found on nearly every single land engagement of the American C ivil W ar, little attenti on has been foc used on the naval and maritime as pects of the conflagration . Part of "The
44
American Crisis" series, this book picks up after the fi ring on Fort Sumter and includes derails on the creation of the U nion blockade, the first clas h of ironclads, the capture of New O rleans, th e siege of C harleston, commerce raid ing, coastal operations, and the fi nal seizure ofFort Fisher. T ucker asserts that the U nion Navy was an integral component of the federal warfighting machine. Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles's plans fo r the blockade, projecting land forces ashore, preventi ng fo reign intervention, and protecting trade were crucial to the cause of the US . Conversely, the author is cri tical of the strategy devised by Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory, which focused on iro nclad construction and commerce raiding. Too much of this book is taken up by technical specifi cati ons of sh ips instead of analysis. Fo r professional hi sro ri ans, the in frequen t use of foo tnotes and the selected bibl iography is a shortco ming. And it is to be hoped that the crucial river operations wi ll be addressed in a subsequen t volume. However, the general reader will fin d this an excellent work and the handsome ill ustrations, maps, and diagrams accentuate the understan ding of the litdeaddressed co nfl ict at sea. SALVATORE R. MERCOGLIANO Buies Creek, No rth Carolina The Tsar' s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima, by Constantin e Pleshakov (Basic Books, Perseus Boo ks Gro up, New York NY, 2002, 396pp, illus, maps, notes, biblio, ISBN 0465-0579 1-8; $30hc) In th e last years of the 19th centu ry and the first of the 20th, two naval battles determined th e course of history in the Pacifi c for the next half-centu ry. In 1898, Admi ral Dewey defeated the Spanish in Man ila Bay, acquired the Philippines, and made the U ni ted States a Pacific power. In 1905, Admi ral Togo engaged a Russian armada that had sailed halfway aro und the wo rld. T heensuingBatdeofTsushima, the fi rst defeat of a European navy by an Asian one, made Japa n a Pacific power. America and Japan were on a collision course. Here is a fasci nating, though flawed, acco unt ofTs ushima and the voyage that preceded it, raid fro m a Russian perspectiveoften misundersrood in Ameri ca. Little has appeared in English since Richard
H ough's The Fleet That HadtoDie(l958). Pleshakov's descriptio n of the personalities, history, and culture of th e Russian navy will contain info rmation new to many English-language readers. T hose familiar with seafaring, however, may be put off by the lubberly language: "merchan t boat" fo r merchant ship; "priva tes" fo r sail ors or seamen; and "ironclad " for the steel-hull ed wa rships of 1905. And there are disconcerting sim plifications: T hough she employed spies, the Bri tish Secret Service did not begin with Eliza beth I and radio, in 1905, transmitted d irs and dahs on continuous wave, hardly "reassuring talk in German. " T he author's attention to rhe faili ngs of Russian royals seems tangential to the naval story. Yer rhe core story is com pelling. Ir is hard not to concl ude, as officers and crews did, that th e Russ ian armada was doomed before it departed, do minated by the moral fo rce of a confident and competent Ja pan. T he campaign's grim conclusion warranted the dark Russ ian wo rld view. Japanese eve nts are covered in E nglish in Stephen H owartl1 's Fighting Ships ofthe Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1895-1945 and David C. Evans' Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the I mperialJapanese Navy, 18871941. U ntil a defi nitive acco unt of the Tsushima campaign using Japanese as well as Russian so urces appears, readers will fi nd Plesh akov a good place to start. JOSEPH F. MEANY, JR. An napolis, Maryland Over Seas: US Army Maritime Operations, 1898 Through the Fall of the Philippines, by C harles D ana G ibso n with E. Kay G ibson (Ensign Press, Camden ME, 2002, 474pp, illus, appen, biblio, index, ISBN 0-9608996-6-9; $49.95 hc) Having published fo ur p revious wo rks on United States Army maritime operations during the 18th and 19th centuries, C harles Dana G ibson, with the assistance of his wife Kay, rook on the challenge of compiling a 20th-century hisrory on this topic, selecting America's capture and loss of the Philippines to bracket the narrative. America's fo ray into imperialism posed immense ch allenges to army leaders who had to swsrain garrisons located on the fa r side of th<e Pacific. T he authors document the genessis of the Army Transportation SEA H-IISTORY 102, AUTUMN 2002