Book Description

This thorough account of the South’s efforts to hold the Mississippi River is “fast-paced, easy to read, and well supported by archival research”(The Civil War Monitor). Most studies of the Mississippi River focus on Union campaigns to open and control it, while overlooking Southern attempts to stop them. This book tells the other side of the story—the first modern full-length treatment of inland naval operations from the Confederate perspective. Jefferson Davis realized the value of the Mississippi River and its entire valley, which he described as the “great artery of the Confederacy.” This was the key internal highway that controlled the fledgling nation’s transportation network. Davis and his secretary of the navy knew these vital logistical paths offered potential highways of invasion for Union warships and armies to stab their way deep into the heart of the Confederacy, and had to be held. They planned to protect these arteries of rebellion by crafting a ring of powerful fortifications supported by naval forces. Different military branches, however, including the navy, marine corps, army, and revenue service, as well as civilian privateers and even state naval forces, competed for scarce resources to operate their own vessels. A lack of industrial capacity further complicated Confederate efforts and guaranteed the South’s grand vision of deploying dozens of river gunboats and powerful ironclads would never be fully realized. Despite these limitations, the Southern war machine introduced many innovations and alternate defenses including the Confederacy’s first operational ironclad, the first successful use of underwater torpedoes, widespread use of army-navy joint operations, and the employment of extensive river obstructions. When the river came under complete Union control in 1863, Confederate efforts shifted to its many tributaries, and a bitter, deadly struggle to control these internal lifelines. Despite a lack of ships, material, personnel, funding, and unified organization, the Confederacy fought desperately and scored many localized tactical victories—often at great cost—but failed at the strategic level. Written by a former Navy Surface Warfare Officer, this study, grounded in extensive archival and firsthand accounts, official records, and a keen understanding of terrain and geography, “very astutely gets to the heart of the main internal factors that lay behind the CSN's catastrophic failure to defend the strategic waterways of the Mississippi River Valley” (Civil War Books and Authors).