Blue & Gray Navies: The Civil War Afloat (review)

Blue & Gray Navies is an excellent introduction to the naval aspects of the American Civil War. Written primarily for a general audience, it successfully integrates much recent scholarship in a very readable narrative.

After an introduction that covers American naval developments through 1860, the author surveys the condition of the United States and Confederate States naval establishments and the state of naval technology at the beginning of war in 1861. He discusses the organization, leadership, and shipbuilding practices of both services and describes the personnel of the navies and their life aboard ship. His expertise in the field of ordnance shows clearly in his descriptions of the ships and their weapons.

The remainder of the book is for the most part organized by campaigns; that is, by geographical area and period. Among the themes are the blockade and the early coastal operations that made an effective blockade possible; ironclad warfare in Hampton Roads and at Charleston; commerce raiding; and the riverine warfare campaigns waged in the western theater. The Union Navy, due to its relative size, tends to dominate any naval history of the war, and the organization of the book reflects this. Yet those campaigns were far from one-sided, and the author ensures that the Confederate Navy receives its due.

Dr. Tucker's promise of a lively narrative that includes key battles is amply fulfilled. Hatteras Inlet, Port Royal, Hampton Roads, New Orleans, Charleston, Memphis, Vicksburg, and Mobile are clearly described with the aid of maps. The author does an especially good job of making sense of the Red River campaign, surely among the most chaotic of Civil War joint operations.

It is not clear from this work how the campaigns were made to fit together, especially for the Union, which generally maintained the strategic initiative. The author points out some of the difficulties that both sides experienced for lack of joint command—if Army and Navy commanders could not agree, their first common superior was their President—but even within the US Navy, there were frictions. In early 1863, for example, Assistant Secretary Gustavus V. Fox denied ironclads to other commanders in order to reinforce Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont's attack on Charleston. How did the Union Navy Department coordinate and balance the requirements of its different squadrons?

As in any work of this scope, a few errors appear, many of which could have been avoided with tighter editing ("electronically" for "electrically," "Mexico" for "Mexican," "script" for "scrip"). Unfortunately, the author perpetuates the discredited myth that Ericsson's "most unusual" contract for Monitor "reflected doubts about the ship's viability" (pp. 165-166). The discussion of ship classes and varieties of ordnance in Chapter 2 could easily overwhelm the general reader, and a tabular or graphical presentation would have been helpful.

Dr. Tucker has fulfilled his stated aim of discussing the rival strategies and changing technologies of the Civil War navies while providing a lively narrative. Soundly based in recent scholarship and lucidly written, this book is well worth the general reader's attention.