July 23, 2012
Symonds, professor emeritus of history at the U.S. Naval Academy, combines his expertise as a scholar of both sea power and the Civil War in this study of an aspect of the conflict largely neglected until now (James McPherson’s War on the Waters comes out in September). Symonds covers the operational history of navies that on both sides were products of improvisation. Synergizing chronology and themes, the text begins by discussing the effect of the mid-century technological revolution. Steam engines, armor plate, and rifled cannon shaped both the war on the high seas and a riverine/littoral dimension unique in naval history. The Confederacy, Symonds says, was initially more creative, introducing ironclads, torpedoes, and a submarine. Southern commerce raiders devastated Union shipping, The Union’s repeated failures before the first battle of Charleston showed a ship could still be a fool to fight a fort. But the new technology of naval war eventually enabled the Union to overwhelm or bypass even complex, well-sited defenses. The Union blockade, though never complete, contributed heavily to the South’s “ growing sense of isolation and eventually depression, both economic and psychological.” Sea power, itself not decisive, significantly influenced the Civil War ’s duration and trajectory, concludes Symonds in this substantive analysis. 24 b&w illus., 4 maps.
February 15, 2010
Most military histories of the Civil War place naval campaigns in a subordinate position. Yet these campaigns were essential to the ultimate Union triumph. Naval blockades helped cripple the Southern economy, and Union mastery of the rivers eventually cut the Confederacy in half, destroying Southern long-distance commerce and troop mobility. Symonds account of the campaigns, strategies, tactics, and personalities that characterized the naval conflict is both detailed and comprehensible for laypersons. He effectively places the naval war within the broader context of an emerging industrial age, as steam and steel led to great changes in the construction and use of warships. The author uses a topical approach, with his descriptions of the Union blockade and Confederate efforts to thwart it particularly interesting. A good addition to Civil War collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)