Booknotes: Forward to Richmond

New Arrival:

• Forward to Richmond: The Virginia Campaign of 1862 by Brian K. Burton (Univ of Neb Press, 2026).

University of Nebraska Press and imprint Bison Books started the Great Campaigns of the Civil War series back in 1999 with Steven Woodworth's Six Armies in Tennessee: The Chickamauga and Chattanooga Campaigns. These are not detailed microhistories, the focus being more on broader context, themes, and analysis. As described by the publisher, the series "offers readers concise syntheses of the major campaigns of the war, reflecting the findings of recent scholarship. The series points to new ways of viewing military campaigns by looking beyond the battlefield and the headquarters tent to the wider political and social context within which these campaigns unfolded; it also shows how campaigns and battles left their imprint on many Americans, from presidents and generals down to privates and civilians."

I was informed several years ago that a Peninsula Campaign installment was in the works, so the release of Brian Burton's Forward to Richmond: The Virginia Campaign of 1862 did not come as a surprise. I am certainly glad to have it in my hands as the topic ranks very high among my areas of interest. Preceding it was Perry Jamieson's 2015 contribution Spring 1865: The Closing Campaigns of the Civil War and before that B.F. Cooling's Counter-Thrust: From the Peninsula to the Antietam (2007), so the gaps between the most recent series titles has been pretty substantial. I haven't read them all (there are now ten volumes in total), but so far Cooling's book is my personal favorite of the bunch.

In line with the most recent military history scholarship's coverage of the fighting in Virginia over the first half of 1862, Burton's Forward to Richmond "treats the military actions in the Shenandoah Valley, the Piedmont, and the Peninsula as part of a theatre-wide campaign." Indeed, of the book's seventeen maps, seven specifically depict events from the Shenandoah.

Fully aligned with the series mission statement quoted above, Burton's narrative "goes beyond military events to also examine the political, social, and diplomatic interactions with military events, including the meetings of Union soldiers with Southern civilians and African Americans, ultimately leading to a turn away from conciliation and a beginning of a move toward support of emancipation."

Review - "This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans" by Neil Chatelain

[This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans by Neil P. Chatelain (Savas Beatie, 2026). Softcover, maps, photos, illustrations, appendix section, reading list. Pages main/total:xxv,147/192. ISBN:978-1-61121-777-3. $16.95]

Adequately summarizing the Civil War naval component's enormous impact on Union victory and Confederate defeat requires not only the ability to skillfully condense a highly multifarious area of study but also the mastering of a vast and constantly expanding literature. In producing his latest book This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans, it is readily apparent that Neil Chatelain, himself a major recent contributor to Civil War naval history studies, was able to meet those steep challenges. The pleasing result far surpasses what one might consider to be merely adequate.

Given that the clashes between opposing field armies were the Civil War's primary driving force, the land-oriented convention of dividing the conflict into three major theaters of operation remains valid. Complicating this traditional arrangement of lines on a map is the complex geography and nature of the naval war, and Chatelain convincingly conceptualizes that aspect of the war as unfolding along four naval theaters: the blockade, the littoral zone ("beaches, estuaries, deltas, bays, and harbors"), the rivers, and the oceans. Within the volume's discussion of each, chapters unfold in phases consisting of one or more years. In this way, each theater, with its men, machines, strategies, tactics, and clashes both large and small, gets its proper due. Where these four naval theaters were interconnected is also discussed.

Of course, a grand overview narrative of this kind limits the amount of operational detail that can be conveyed, but Chatelain still manages to present a remarkably comprehensive account of naval actions ranging from individual ship engagements to squadron-level battles. Beyond that, on both the domestic and international stages, the naval war is explored in its economic and diplomatic contexts. While a chapter specifically devoted to the common sailors of both sides would have been welcome (and it is understood that not every sub-topic can be covered), brief excerpts from firsthand accounts are sprinkled about, and the impact of individual officers, both well-known and obscure, are highlighted throughout.

Progressive Union domination of southern rivers and coastlines as well as the inexorable tightening of the blockade are well outlined, with due emphasis placed on the importance of army-navy combined operations, and all phases of Confederate naval resistance, along with countermeasures such as mine warfare, are discussed in turn. While the Confederates achieved noteworthy successes in evading the blockade over almost the entire duration of the war, continually expanding Union naval enforcement combined with the loss of major ports and their rail connections to the Confederate interior were strong limiting factors. In only one of the four theaters were the Confederates able to seize real momentum. In the oceanic theater the Confederates employed commerce raiding, an asymmetrical military and economic strategy that damaged the United States global merchant fleet (the second largest in the world at the time) to such an extent that much of the shipping was driven into foreign flagging and the merchant marine industry itself forced into a course of long-term decline.

Chatelain's text is not just a reorganized regurgitation of oft-repeated history. It also references fresh work and suggests future paths of study. For example, in addition to incorporating key points from his own specialized research in Confederate naval mismanagement of their early-war Mississippi River Valley defenses as well as the economic war centered on safeguarding or intercepting U.S. gold shipments passing through the Panamanian isthmus, Chatelain calls attention to other recent work such as Michael Bonner and Peter McCord's reexamination of the blockade's overall effectiveness. As was the case with prior series installments, readers have to go to the main Emerging Civil War website to find the volume's footnotes and bibliography (available in pdf format here).

Strong synergy between main text and supporting visual aids (among the latter abundant photographs, period drawings, and original maps) has been a major force behind the appeal and popularity of the ECW series of books, and this one excels in that category. Another common series feature is an appendix section populated with an eclectic mix of supplemental topics and discussion. In this volume's collection, Chatelain surveys the Civil War contributions of black sailors and offers some top-down organizational notes as well as commentary on sites associated with the naval war that are worth visiting today.

A compact yet comprehensive survey study encompassing both big picture strategy and naval activities of all scales and types, Neil Chatelain's This Great Contest Afloat: The Civil War on the Seas, Coastline, Rivers, and Oceans is a great option for those seeking an updated introductory-level Civil War naval history.

Booknotes: An Officer of Six Navies

New Arrival:

• An Officer of Six Navies: The Life of Confederate Commander Hunter Davidson by John M. Coski & Charles T. Jacobs (Savas Beatie, 2026).

Born at Georgetown in the District of Columbia but possessing Virginia family roots, Hunter Davidson (1826-1913) lived a long life that included a long and eventful naval career. Even though Confederate naval officers and their Civil War activities have received increased attention of late, Davidson remains an obscure figure. Awareness should increase with the publication of his biography An Officer of Six Navies: The Life of Confederate Commander Hunter Davidson by John Coski and Charles Jacobs.

Three of nine chapters discuss Davidson's Confederate naval assignments. From the description: "Davidson earned his fifteen minutes of fame in May 1864 when he and his Confederate Submarine Battery Service became the first force to destroy an enemy warship using an electrically detonated torpedo. Davidson also makes the history books as the commander of two gun sections on CSS Virginia in her epic battle against USS Monitor."

Coski and Jacobs cover their subject's two decade-long antebellum U.S. Navy career in the two preceding chapters. More from the description: "Before he fought against the U.S. Navy, he served in that navy for nearly two decades, spending time in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the coast of Lower California during the Mexican War, the new Naval School, the Coast Survey, the Africa Squadron, and aboard the exploring vessel HMS Resolute. Considered an intelligent and promising, albeit contentious, young officer, Davidson was an instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1861 when he resigned to join the Virginia State Navy."

Like so many other career military officers who fought with the Confederacy, Davidson, barred from returning to the U.S. Navy, had difficulty finding fitting postwar employment. While suitable domestic opportunities did not come Davidson's way, his experience in conducting torpedo warfare caught the attention of foreign navies. More: "The Chilean Navy recruited him and his torpedo expertise to help repel a threatened Spanish invasion. He went on to spend four years as the first commander of the Maryland State Oyster Police before finding a new home in Argentina as commander of that nation’s Torpedo and Hydrographic departments. An “unreconstructed” Confederate, Davidson did not return to his family in Maryland but retired to Paraguay, where he started a second family and endeavored to defend from afar his place in Civil War history." Part of what would be a forty-year exile from his homeland, these activities are explored in four chapters.

Coski and Jacobs insist that Davidson's military life "was virtually unique." Indeed, "(h)is Confederate career alone made him an important and fascinating figure, but his service in or with six different navies gives his life an epic quality." Confederate mine warfare and its key role in countering Union naval superiority has been heavily explored in the recent literature, and this biography of a major figure involved with it should strongly contribute to that ongoing reappraisal.