Sea Wolf of the Confederacy
The Daring Civil War Raids of Naval Lt. Charles W. Read
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In June 1863, just days before the epic clash at Gettysburg ended the last rebel land invasion of the North, a small party of the Confederate Navy mounted a devastating series of raids on the New England coast, culminating in a battle off Portland, Maine. Veteran author David W. Shaw brilliantly re-creates this almost forgotten chapter of the Civil War in rich narrative detail drawn from accounts of the participants.
At the center of the conflict were two men: the hotheaded young adventurer Charles W. Read, who resigned his commission as a Union midshipman to become a lieutenant in the Confederate Navy; and Secretary of the United States Navy Gideon Welles, a well-connected politician who ably oversaw the explosive growth of the fleet -- including the revolutionary ironclads -- during the war despite his lack of maritime experience. Serving aboard CSS Florida off the coast of Brazil, Read hatched a daring plan to sail a captured brig directly into the Union's home waters and wreak havoc on their shipping lanes. Burning or capturing more than twenty merchant vessels in less than three weeks, and switching ships several times to elude capture, Read's rampage caused widespread panic in Northern cities, made headlines in the major daily newspapers, and brought enormous pressure on Welles to "stop the rebel pirate." At one point there were nearly forty Union ships sent to hunt down Read in a cat-and-mouse game that finally led to his dramatic capture off the coast of Maine.
Sea Wolf of the Confederacy brings to light this fascinating yet little known episode of the war, combining Shaw's flair for powerful storytelling with extensive research culled from contemporary newspapers, journals, and official war records. Taking readers to the heart of the action on the decks of the burning ships, Shaw offers a compelling portrait of the complex Read and an insightful new perspective on the divisions splitting North and South during this dark time in American history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Confederate commerce raider Charles Read rampaged up the Atlantic seaboard in the summer of 1863, capturing and burning dozens of Yankee merchant ships and augmenting Union panic in the weeks leading up to the battle of Gettysburg. Drawing on official reports, news accounts and diary entries of participants, journalist Shaw, author of America's Victory, a 19th-century yachting saga, brings this adventure to life in a sprightly historical study of Read and Gideon Welles, the Union Naval Secretary charged with hunting him down. In contrast to the Gettysburg bloodbath, Read's campaign was an almost gallant feat of quick-wittedness and derring-do that destroyed much property but caused almost no casualties. Jumping his command from one captured Yankee ship to the next, always on the alert for fresh victims and novel ruses by which his punily armed crew might overcome them, Read lived the life of a buccaneer but was simultaneously mindful of the punctilious rules governing naval warfare against civilians. Arranging for the safe return of his prisoners to shore was one of Read's biggest headaches, necessitating complex negotiations with passing neutral--or even Yankee--ships; vessels with too many passengers to accommodate were simply released in exchange for an IOU to the Confederate government for their value. Shaw fleshes out the picaresque with sailing lore, sharply etched portraits of figures on both sides, and engaging background material on Union and Confederate naval strategy. Civil War and nautical buffs alike will enjoy this well-told account of a colorful chapter of the Civil War at sea.
