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  • The Civil War at Sea by Craig L. Symonds
  • Robert G. Angevine (bio)
The Civil War at Sea. By Craig L. Symonds. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Pp. viii+ 248. $17.95.

Historians have typically given short shrift to the naval aspects of the U.S. Civil War. The contest between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (née USS Merrimack) in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 9 March 1862 usually receives attention as the first clash of ironclad warships, but the rest of the war at sea is often treated as a sideshow of only peripheral interest and importance. In The Civil War at Sea, eminent naval historian Craig Symonds seeks to redress this historiographical imbalance by surveying the full range of naval operations during the war and the technological and industrial developments that made them possible.

Although naval forces did not determine the outcome of the Civil War, Symonds demonstrates convincingly that they did affect its trajectory and [End Page 538] length. Fighting a new kind of naval war, the Union and Confederate navies employed steam-powered, armored warships equipped with large, rifled guns firing explosive shells. The Union imposed an ambitious blockade that sought to cut off all Southern seaborne trade. Lacking the industrial might to match the Union’s shipbuilding program, the Confederacy had to rely on the traditional naval weapons of the weak—coastal fortifications, commerce raiding, and blockade running. In the end, Symonds argues, the Confederacy’s creativity could not compensate for its industrial inferiority, particularly since technological change had shifted the balance between ships and fortifications in favor of the former.

Symonds employs a topical approach to recount the operational history of the Union and Confederate navies. He devotes chapters to Civil War naval technology, the Union blockade and Confederate blockade running, Confederate commerce raiding, the riverine war on the Mississippi and its tributaries, the siege of Charleston, and the final year of the war at sea. The approach enables him to interweave examinations of issues, such as the effectiveness of the Union blockade, with detailed narratives, such as the story of Confederate blockade runner Banshee No. 2 as it sneaked into Wilmington, North Carolina, one night in 1863 carrying a load of gunpowder. While the early chapters use the narratives to dramatize broader topics, the later chapters raise larger issues to provide background for detailed examinations of naval events in specific locations. Symonds’s discussion of the difficulties Union navy and army commanders experienced coordinating joint operations, for example, furnishes context for his accounts of the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, and the assault on Wilmington, North Carolina.

The Civil War, Symonds argues, marked the culmination of an era of technological innovation that changed naval warfare. Propeller-driven steam warships dominated the conflict, although many were still auxiliary steamers equipped with masts and sails to minimize dependency on foreign coaling stations. Many of the ships carried new, deadlier guns. Rifled barrels extended the range of the guns while explosive shells increased their destructiveness. Throughout the book, Symonds highlights two major effects of this naval technological revolution. First, it elevated the importance of the industrial, financial, and organizational underpinnings of naval power. Symonds describes the Union’s construction of numerous classes of ships, including eighty-four ironclads, and explains how it contributed to the emergence of a modern industrial system in the North. Meanwhile, the South lacked the industry and materials, especially iron plate and marine engines, to build an ironclad navy to compete with the North. Although the Confederacy began construction of fifty ironclads, only twenty-two were ever completed and commissioned. Second, the naval technological revolution altered the balance between warships and [End Page 539] coastal fortifications. Since the South’s industrial inadequacy had forced it to counter the Union’s naval dominance with defensive fortifications at key positions, the increased capability of modern weaponry against such defenses put the Confederacy at a further disadvantage.

The Civil War at Sea is an excellent introduction to the roles that the Union and Confederate navies played in the Civil War and to the technology that shaped the course of the conflict. Symonds provides ample context, fascinating characters, and compelling narratives...

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