Gunboats, Muskets, and Torpedoes: Coastal North Carolina, 1861-1865

by Michael G. Laramie

Overview

The Clash of Arms and Technology for a Critical Region that Lasted the Entire American Civil War
From the first shots at Cape Hatteras in the summer of 1861 to the fall of Fort Fisher in early 1865, the contest for coastal North Carolina during the American Civil War was crucial to the Union victory. With a clear naval superiority over the South, the North conducted blockading and amphibious operations from Virginia to Texas, including the three-hundred-mile seacoast of North Carolina. With its Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds—fed by navigable rivers that reached deep into the interior—and major Confederate port of Wilmington, the Carolina coast was essential for the distribution of foreign goods and supplies to Confederate forces in Virginia and elsewhere. If the Union was able to capture Wilmington or advance on the interior waters, they would cripple the South’s war efforts. 
            In Gunboats, Muskets, and Torpedoes: Coastal North Carolina, 1861-1865, award-winning historian Michael G. Laramie chronicles both the battle over supplying the South by sea as well as the ways this region proved to be a fertile ground for the application of new technologies. With the advent of steam propulsion, the telegraph, rifled cannon, repeating firearms, ironclads, and naval mines, the methods and tactics of the old wooden walls soon fell to those of this first major conflict of the industrial age. Soldiers and sailors could fire farther and faster than ever before. With rail transportation available, marches were no longer weeks but days or even hours, allowing commanders to quickly shift men and materials to meet an oncoming threat or exploit an enemy weakness. Fortifications changed to meet the challenges imposed by improved artillery, while the telegraph stretched the battlefield even further. Yet for all the technological changes, many of which would be harbingers of greater conflicts to come, the real story of this strategic coast is found in the words and actions of the soldiers and sailors who vied for this region for nearly four years. It is here, where the choices made—whether good or bad, misinformed, or not made at all—intersected with logistical hurdles, geography, valor, and fear to shape the conflict; a conflict thatwould ultimately set the postwar nation on track to becoming a modern naval power.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594163364
Publisher:	Westholme Publishing
Publication date:	05/29/2020
Edition description:	1
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	1,047,061
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Michael G. Laramie is the author of King William’s War: The First Contest for North America, 1689-1697, winner of the New York Society of Colonial Wars Annual Book Award, and By Wind and Iron: Naval Campaigns in the Champlain Valley, 1665-1815. He lives with his family in Arizona.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Plans and Privateers 1

2 The Great Southern Expedition 11

3 The Gathering Storm 22

4 Burnside's Expedition 32

5 The Battle for Roanoke Island 45

6 The Destruction of the Mosquito Fleet 61

7 The Siege of Newbern 73

8 Fort Macon 89

9 The March to South Mills 101

10 Wilmington 111

11 The Blockade of Cape Fear 121

12 The Cape Fear Flotilla 140

13 The Road to Goldsboro 155

14 Guns and Bread 175

15 The Last Battle of Newbern 185

16 The Siege of Plymouth and the CSS Albemarle 199

17 The Battle of Albemarle Sound 217

18 The Descent of the Armada 235

19 The Sands of Fort Fisher 248

20 The Armada Returns 263

21 The Last Days 283

Epilogue 297

Glossary and Terms 306

Notes 313

Bibliography 329

Acknowledgments 337

Index 339

Editorial Reviews

Countless books have been written about the Civil War’s land battles and campaigns, but few have covered the war’s naval history as well as author Michael Laramie’s excellent book on the combined Army-Navy operations on North Carolina’s 300-mile coastline from 1861-1865.”—Military Officer

“The narrative presentation of the material strikes a nearly perfect balance between descriptive military detail and popular accessibility (a craft undoubtedly honed during the creation of the author’s award-winning work on Colonial-era land and naval campaigns). a fitting candidate (arguably the best overview so far written) for first-line introduction to the Civil War in eastern North Carolina. General readers will find Laramie’s narrative style highly engaging, and the author’s comprehensive treatment of campaigns and battles possesses more than enough detail to attract experienced Civil War readers wanting to learn more about the topic.”—Civil War Books and Authors

“Outside of Virginia, no other state saw as much military activity during the Civil War as North Carolina. That is particularly true of the coastal regions of the Tar Heel State, east of Raleigh and the Wilmington & Weldon Railroad that was a vital lifeline for Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Several excellent books chronicle specific episodes of the conflict along North Carolina’s 300 miles of coastline—Chris Fonvielle’s The Wilmington Campaign: Last Rays of Departing Hope, Rod Gragg’s Confederate Goliath, and James L. Walker, Jr.’s Rebel Gibraltar all come to mind. Michael G. Laramie’s new offering is a welcome addition to those standards of the state’s Civil War history bookshelves.Laramie does a fine job of telling the story of what may be one of the most important yet neglected theaters of the war. He weaves stories of personal courage with an analysis of how evolving technology impacted how the war was fought. Rifled naval cannon were countered with sand-walled forts that absorbed the pounding blockading ships delivered. Telegraph lines made communication quicker and easier, and trains made moving troops from one battlefield to the next impossibly fast. All the while, the story never loses sight of the heart of the tale, the men who braved rifle and cannon against daunting odds to win. Michael G. Laramie has produced a fine book that spotlights America’s most deadly conflict as it was fought where the tide meets the shore in North Carolina.”—Carolina Chronicles

From the Publisher