by Kurt D. Voss All proceeds from this pictorial history benefit the ELISSA preservation fund.
Published by Arcadia Publishing and Galveston Historical Foundation $21.99. 128 pages, 200 photographs Autographed copies available at (409) 763-1877, or online at:
w w w. t s m - e l i s s a . o r g Anne T. Converse Photography
Neith, 1996, Cover photograph
Wood, Wind and Water
A Story of the Opera House Cup Race of Nantucket Photographs by Anne T. Converse Text by Carolyn M. Ford Live vicariously through the pictures and tales of classic wooden yacht owners who lovingly restore and race these gems of the sea. “An outstanding presentation deserves ongoing recommendation for both art and nautical collections.” 10”x12” Hardbound book; 132 pages, 85 full page color photographs; Price $45.00 For more information contact: Anne T. Converse Phone: 508-728-6210 anne@annetconverse.com www.annetconverse.com
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Confederate seafarer prisoners of war, who were a potential source of manpower if they could be persuaded to change their allegiance and enlist in the US Navy. The terrible hardships of prison life made fidelity fungible to many. The banks of the Potomac also demarcated the split state of Maryland—officially Union with many southern sympathizers—and rebel Virginia. The author takes his reader on a sojourn, an intimate and sometimes emotional look into the lives of slaves during this time, followed by “Blood Hounds,” a moving chapter about the disparate enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law to capture and return runaway slaves. Shomette includes an amusing side story that involved Colonel LaFayette C. Baker (Union), who early in the war was ordered to look after post office operations in southern Maryland. Because the area had a large population with sympathies for the insurgents’ cause, it was difficult to find reliable and loyal men to accept the position of local postmaster. Many people there described themselves as states’ rights proponents, but not secessionists. One postal worker in the area constructed a pine box for delivering mail to both sides. The container was partitioned through the center with a hole for letters in each side. Over one part was inscribed “southern letters,” and on the other, “northern letters.” The southern mail went to Richmond, and the other side went to Washington. The mail became a means of smuggling contraband in numerous guises between the North and the South. Shomette provides this and numerous other examples of cunning, bravery, and betrayal, and likely stories few have heard before. The most exhaustive narrative comes in the closing chapters, which examine the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators, their escapes, hiding capers, captures, and punishments. They are riveting in their detail and comprehensive, citing a vast array of people, both prominent and ordinary, who took part in or were touched by these events. In summary, Anaconda’s Tail: The Civil War on the Potomac Frontier is an epic journey through Civil War history on a grand scale, principally in Maryland’s Chesapeake region. The book displays the
author’s intellectual breadth as a historian and talents as a storyteller. An ambitious, deeply researched, and deftly told engrossing tale; it provides detail within a broad context of a momentous and tumultuous time. Quite deservedly, this work received the Maryland Historical Society’s prestigious Brewington Book Prize for 2020, the latest of several literary distinctions for which Don Shomette has been recognized over the years. Louis Arthur Norton, DMD West Simsbury, Connecticut All at Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolutionary War by John Dillon (Helion & Co., Warwick, UK, 2019, 297pp, maps, notes, biblio; isbn 978-1-912866-67-0; $37.95pb) John Dillon’s All at Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolutionary War is a study not of the battles of the American War for Independence but of the logistics of sustaining an 18th-century combat navy and army 3,000 miles from home. Everyone knows that an army marches on its stomach—but who cares? The outcome of a war is determined by the fighting, or is it? Dillon’s All at Sea is anything but a boring exegesis on a mundane topic. Reading it forces one to consider the consequences of failure to feed the troops. Take Tarleton’s army and its resounding defeat at Cowpens in 1781. We learned afterward that the troops had not eaten for a prolonged period, during which they were force-marched. Even the toughest soldier (or sailor or marine) must have fuel to function. Toughness evaporates as calories disappear. So, the fighting may decide the victor but the logistics determines if there is to be a battle and who will fight—the German army could not stop or even slow down General Patton’s Third Army as it surged across Europe, but a shortage of gasoline did. The achievement of the Allies in transporting millions of tons of supplies to France in support of Operation Overlord is, in many ways, matched by the achievement of the British in supplying its army and navy in the New World. The American naval icon John Paul Jones, in command of the Continental frigate Alfred, seized the British supply vessel Mellish on 13 November 1776. The loss for the British and gain SEA HISTORY 173, WINTER 2020–21