A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren - Hardcover

Schneller, Robert J

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557507627 ISBN 13: 9781557507624

Publisher: Naval Institute Press, 1995

Synopsis

To win glory and power, to be renowned throughout posterity—such was the ambition that fueled Dahlgren's controversial rise to eminence during the Civil War era. This rich, balanced portrait examines in detail the admiral's quixotic, frustrating quest.

About this title

About the Author

Robert J. Schneller Jr. received a PhD in military history from Duke University in 1991. He then worked more than twenty years as an official historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington D.C. An award-winning author, Schneller published eight books during his career. He is now retired and living in northeastern Pennsylvania.

From the Back Cover

To win glory and power, to be renowned throughout posterity - such was the ambition that fueled John A. Dahlgren's controversial rise to eminence during the Civil War era. While he ranks with the foremost contributors to the American naval tradition and is known as the "father of American naval ordnance", personal conflicts and the lack of major victories at sea nearly obscured his historic legacy. This rich, balanced portrait examines in exhaustive detail Dahlgren's quixotic, frustrating quest. Chief of the Bureau of Ordnance in 1862, Dahlgren was recognized as the top ordnance expert in America and was known around the world. He achieved this reputation largely for inventing the Dahlgren gun, the most powerful and reliable naval cannon of its day and the standard armament on Union warships. But because ordnance work did not yield the glory he so desperately desired, he abandoned the post of bureau chief for a fighting berth. With the help of friend Abraham Lincoln, he took command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron - only to preside over the Navy's greatest disappointment during the war, the failure to capture Charleston. Drawing on Dahlgren's meticulously kept diaries and records and recently uncovered family papers, author Robert Schneller describes with a biographer's sensitivity and a historian's perspective the admiral's many technical triumphs as well as the plots, duels, intrigues, and betrayals that plagued Dahlgren's life.

Edition details

• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557507627
• ISBN 13: 9781557507624
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 476