Gunsmoke Over the Atlantic: First Naval Actions of the Civil War [Naval Chronology: 1860-1865 -- Naval Nomenclature -- 1. Fort Sumter and the U.S. Navy -- 2. A Navy Yard Falls -- 3. The Blockade and the Blockade-Runners -- 4. A New Navy Is Born -- 5. The First Amphibious Operations, Part 1: Cape Hatteras]

1st ed., 1st printing ; xix, 268 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm ; ISBN 9780553801620, 0553801627 ; OCLC 48265601 ; white and brown cloth in color pictorial dustjacket ; Contents: Naval Chronology: 1860-1865 -- Naval Nomenclature -- 1. Fort Sumter and the U.S. Navy -- 2. A Navy Yard Falls -- 3. The Blockade and the Blockade-Runners -- 4. A New Navy Is Born -- 5. The First Amphibious Operations, Part 1: Cape Hatteras -- 6. The First Amphibious Operations, Part 2: Port Royal -- 7. The Trent Tribulation -- 8. Mopping Up the Sounds: Roanoke -- 9. Monitor vs. Merrimack, Part 1: The Antagonists -- 10. Monitor vs. Merrimack, Part 2: The Conflict -- 11. Monitor vs. Merrimack, Part 3: The Aftermath -- 12. Fort Pulaski Falls -- 13. Fort Sumter Revisited -- 14. The Hunley and Underwater Warfare -- 15. The Albemarle Saga -- 16. Kearsarge vs. Alabama: End of a Raider -- 17. Climax at Fort Fisher, Part 1 -- 18. Climax at Fort Fisher, Part 2 -- 19. Twilight of the Confederate Navy -- 20. A Glance Backward ; Historian Jack D Coombe, author of the critically acclaimed Thunder Along the Mississippi and Gunfire Around the Gulf, combines brilliant research with a novelist's flair for re-creation to put us directly into the action of the Civil War on river, on shore, and at sea. In this vivid account, we experience the soul-gnawing terror of a bombardment, the claustrophobic confines of a still-unproven submarine, and the smoke-choked chaos of a harbor in the grips of a full-bore naval engagement between two desperate enemies. Coombe focuses on the Civil War as it was fought along the Atlantic coast, a fierce contest of blockaders and blockade-runners, ironclads, wood-hulled battleships, land cannon, submarines, and the first underwater antiship weapons. For the North, the challenge was to implement a blockade over 3,500 miles of Confederate coastline, from Virginia to Texas. To do so, they would have to modernize an ineffective and outdated U.S. Navy fallen into incompetence and disrepair. For the South, the challenge was to create a fledgling navy from whatever meager resources were at hand. The Confederacy patched together a navy of river runners and converted battleships, turned cornfields into shipyards, and put the first ironclad battleship into action. And it was the South thatintroduced the new concept of underwater weaponry, sending spar torpedoes, mines, submarines-and a few incredibly brave men willing to deploy them-into battle against the North. Gunsmoke over the Atlantic chronicles the key engagements, from the Monitor" "and the Virginia dueling at Hampton Roads to the ill-fated campaign against Fort Fisher. Along the way, we meet a remarkable cast of naval strategists and warriors on both sides of the battle, witness the crucial, often deadly role played by the weather and the sea itself, and get a vivid view of such important events as the first amphibious landing in history, at Cape Hatteras in 1861. ; Jack Coombe is the author of "Thunder along the Mississippi," which was nominated for the Fletcher Pratt Award. He & his wife live in Oak Park, Illinois. ; FINE/FINE.…