Booknotes: The Civil War on the Water

New Arrival:
• The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War edited by Dwight Sturdevant Hughes and Chris Mackowski (Savas Beatie, 2023).

The Emerging Civil War collective continues to celebrate its first ten years of content creation through its ECW Anniversary Series. Its volumes collect contributor blog posts and transcriptions of podcasts and talks. Original material is also sprinkled about, and the previously published material "updated and, in most cases, expanded and footnoted." Contributors are remarkably free to explore their personal interests, so one finds "military, social, political, and economic history; memory studies; travelogues; personal narratives; essays; and photography" (pg xiv).

All series volumes revolve around a theme, with past installments addressing "Monuments and Memory," "Grant vs. Lee," 1863 Gettysburg, and 1863 Vicksburg/Tullahoma. With at least three more titles in the current pipeline (covering western theater, "Fallen Leaders," and pop culture themes), the series remains very active. The latest release is The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War.

Edited by Dwight Sturdevant Hughes and Chris Mackowski (with Hughes himself being a very heavy chapter contributor), the volume contains 45 standalone pieces supported by 12 maps. The description offers a good idea of topical breadth, which encompasses "fresh accounts on unfamiliar topics as well as second looks at familiar battles, ships, leaders, and events":

The "war on the water stretched from the Arctic Circle to the Caribbean in a stunning display of machine-age technologies that included ironclads, torpedoes, submarines, steam propulsion, and improved heavy artillery. Swift Rebel raiders like the CSS Shenandoah decimated Union commerce while hundreds of storm-tossed blockaders patrolled the meandering southern coastline from Hatteras to Galveston to interdict enemy commerce.

Titanic clashes erupted between seacoast fortifications and Mr. Lincoln’s warships at Port Royal, New Orleans, Charleston, Wilmington, and Mobile. Massive amphibious operations on the Virginia Peninsula, in the North Carolina Sounds, and at Fort Fisher presaged 20th-century conflicts. Farther inland, the two services invented various riverine warfare tactics that played decisive roles at Memphis, Forts Henry and Donelson, Vicksburg, Island No. 10, and elsewhere."