Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels, Steam and Sail, Employed by the Union Army, 1861-1868 (review)

86CIVIL WAR HISTORY reading public became the beneficiary of his research in 1948 when E. P. Dutton published Dixie Raider: The Saga ofthe C.S.S. Shenandoah. The volume was well received immediately—despite the fact that it was the third book on the ship to appear in a little over a year—and it has been the standard reference work on the subject ever since. Its long-overdue republication by the Washington State University Press in 1995 is a most welcome event for Civil War scholars. A copy of the volume belongs in the library of everyone interested in the naval aspects of our most bloody and costly conflict. James L. Mooney Naval Historical Center Dictionary ofTransports and Combatant Vessels, Steam andSail, Employedby the Union Army, 1861-1868. Compiled by Charles Dana Gibson and E. Kay Gibson. The Army's Navy Series (Camden, Maine: EnsignPress,1995. Pp. lxvi, 348. $43.00.) In order to win the Civil War, the Federal government commandeered or leased virtually everything afloat. Over four thousand vessels—about halfofthem sail and half steam—served the army on rivers, sounds, and oceans. Certainly any volume that attempts to compile those vessels has a daunting task, but Charles Dana Gibson and E. Kay Gibson have successfully taken up the challenge. This volume is much more than just a list of ships. The Gibsons first sketch the organization of the Quartermaster Department as it related to shipping resources. Next is a valuable "commentary" on primary and secondary sources. Prior to 1868 records for the U.S. merchant marine were decentralized, maintained on a port-by-port basis. Further complicating record keeping was the decentralized system of chartering vessels for army use. As a result, government shipping records are unreliable. In one major source, an 1868 report of the quartermaster, clerical errors abound: steamers misidentified as barges; missing or incorrect dates; confusion because of the reuse of vessel names; and discrepancies regarding the rigs or recorded tonnage of sailing vessels. The most useful preliminary section is the essay on vessel admeasurement, the "tonnage puzzle of 1 861-1868." The Gibsons do an excellent job of untangling the changing rules and regulations—beginning with the 1789 Treasury Department regulations, then through the nineteenth century until 1895. The Civil War, as usual, marked a turning point in government regulation. In the admeasurement act of 1864, Congress for the first time established exact standards applying to all vessels. As a result, for example, Charles W. Morgan, previously rated at 351 tons, after 1864 was rated at 314 tons. But there are "widely fluctuating tonnage figures" for other reasons too: "major alterations" to ships, fraud, and sloppy record keeping, for example. The Dictionary itself is arranged logically and conveniently in three columns : name, type, and tonnage of vessel; facts about the vessel's period(s) of government charter; and reference sources. Gibson packs the listings with BOOK REVIEWS87 information, but, curiously, some of the data in Gibson's main source—House Executive Document 337, the 1 868 quartermaster report—is omitted. For example , the report cites the vessel's owner and the per diem rates and distinguishes between "chartered," "hired," "employed," and "pressed" vessels. The report includes barges, which the Dictionary excludes because they are not "self-propelled." Admittedly, the Dictionary is already lengthy, and adding such omitted information would expand it to an unmanageable length. From that perspective, then, the Dictionary should not be faulted for its omissions. On one matter of interpretation Gibson misses the mark. He makes the valuable point that the traditional interpretation of a "flight from the flag" during the war fails to take into account the construction of many coastal steamships. There are, of course, alternative views on the "flight" (such as this reviewer's, propounded in this journal). Yet it is undeniable that the American merchant marine was decimated during the war—and for the rest of the century. Pointing to the construction of coastal steamships illuminates the postbellum coastal trade but obscures our understanding of the postbellum merchant marine and foreign trade. A sharp-eyed editor could have made the volume better. Too many words are misused, and there are too many punctuation and typographical...