Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War [Hardcover]

Jack Coombe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 17, 1999

From 1861 to 1865, some of the most horrific land battles in history were fought at places called Shiloh, Antietam, and Gettysburg. But while the soil ran with blood, it was the lesser-known naval battles raging for control of the Gulf of Mexico--the lifeline of supplies and weapons to the Confederacy--that would determine the outcome of the Civil War.

In this vivid and powerful account, acclaimed historian Jack D. Coombe combines meticulous research with a breathtaking narrative to re-create the fierce naval battles for the ports around the Gulf, including those at New Orleans, Mobile Bay, and Vicksburg, with all the adventure and immediacy of a great novel. This is an extraordinary story of the ingenuity, daring, courage, and--all too often--human folly upon which the fate of a nation rested.

Coombe takes us inside the suffocating hulls of steam-powered ironclads shuddering under the impact of cannonballs and battering rams, into nights lit by the fires of burning ships, and into harrowing battles as gunships hammer away at each other from virtually point-blank range, often unable to tell friend from foe.

From the politicians, industrialists, and engineers on both sides who scrambled to build navies almost from scratch, to daredevil blockade runners and privateers, and from wily Confederate commanders such as Raphael Semmes, who bagged sixty-nine Union ships, to a virtually forgotten old naval officer from Tennesse named David Glasgow Farragut, whose bold and courageous leadership on behalf of the Union would become the stuff of legend, here are the stories of the men who made history.

Here, too, is a compelling look at the ships, strategies, and pioneering technology that proved the difference between victory and defeat: the potentially invincible Confederate ironclad Tennessee; the squat, ugly, much-feared Manasses; the South's explorations into torpedoes, fire rafts, and even the first successful submarine; and the Union's relentless drive upriver, braving hazards both natural and manmade to run a fearsome gauntlet of stone citadels bristling with firepower.

Filled with colorful historical characters and unparalleled battle scenes, Gunfire Around the Gulf is an important addition to the history of a little-known but crucial theater of the Civil War as well as a gripping and unforgettable read.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

At the start of the Civil War, strategists for both the North and South understood the supreme importance of the seas. In Gunfire Around the Gulf, author Jack D. Coombe (Thunder Along the Mississippi) suggests that the War Between the States may in fact have been decided by the largely uncelebrated naval actions in the Gulf of Mexico. "One could argue that the defeats in the Gulf constituted the nadir of the Confederacy itself. The closing of such important and vital ports as New Orleans, Mobile, and Galveston isolated it from the rest of the world and kept vital sustaining material from reaching its armies and its populace," he writes. Coombe's main character is Admiral David Glasgow Farragut, the Union commander lauded as "the shining example of what a good leader should be, in the tradition of a Lord Nelson or a John Paul Jones." He credits Farragut with disproving "the old dictum that wooden ships could not go against stone forts" and win. Coombe is not a mere chronicler of men and events, but a sharp interpreter of why events unfolded the way they did. Just as Confederate troops on land benefited from exceptional military leadership, he notes, the Southern navy had innovation on its side: underwater mines (called "torpedoes") sank or damaged 33 Union vessels. But it was handicapped, too, by a debilitating command structure that crippled its ability to wage war on the seas. Elements of the Confederate navy outlasted Lee's surrender at Appomattox, but, as Coombe shows, Farragut and his Union sailors had delivered a death-blow long before then. --John J. Miller

From Publishers Weekly

A brief survey of Union and Confederate naval activities in the Gulf of Mexico, Coombe's latest (following Thunder Along the Mississippi) joins a growing list of books reexamining naval warfare during the Civil War. From Admiral David Farragut's masterful attack on New Orleans (April 1862) to the Battle of Mobile Bay (August 1864), Coombe covers the major operations that shut down Southern blockade running and established Union mastery along the coast from Texas to Florida. While Coombe's main focus is on the Union's capture of New Orleans and Mobile, he puts those events in context by detailing Union naval failures in Texas at Galveston and Sabine Pass, the saving of Pensacola for the Union in 1861 and the operations of Southern commerce raiders and blockade runners. Coombe touches upon the problems of naval warfare in an age when wooden sailing vessels were giving way to armored ships; he also writes about the material lives of sailors in the 1860s. Most of the book, however, consists of blow-by-blow re-creations of battle, and of the cool decision-making of Farragut and lesser-known figures. Coombe's clear, often vivid narrative will please buffs and noninitiates alike. Maps and illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; 1St Edition edition (August 17, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553107313
• ISBN-13: 978-0553107319
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,235,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A native of Minnesota, I am a seasoned performer in vaudeville, stage, radio & TV. Also former omedy writer for CBS, NBC and AFRN. Presently I produce and host two cable TV shows. Am author of eight books including first 3-volume naval history of Civil War. Currently I'm busy writing western novels.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bad editing, or poor research?, March 27, 2000

By 

Stephen A. Skubinna - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War (Hardcover)

I was delighted when I discovered this book - the naval side of the Civil War has been often ignored or treated as a sideshow, when a compelling case could be made that the blockade plus the gradual reduction of the Confederacy's seaports was decisive. One could even argue that barring total catastrophe on the ground or massive foreign intervention on behalf of the Confederacy, the Union dominance of the seas made eventual victory inevitable.

This book falls far short, sadly. It is spoiled by glaring inconsistencies and sheer wrong information. Ship tonnages and dimensions are reported inconsistently - I suspect that the author is unaware of the different definitions of tonnage, and mixes up displacement and measurement figure. Various drafts and depths are reported - and in the coastal and riverine environment of the naval war in the Gulf, ships' drafts were perhaps the single most important factor in operations. Numbers and calibers of ships' armaments are wrongly reported - the author appears to have no understanding of the differences between shell and shot, rifles and smoothbores, broadside and pivot mountings (CSS Sumter did not carry a "1 inch rifle," and such a ludicrous remark should never had made it past the intital proofs). Personalities' ranks are given inconsistently, often we encounter a character early on identified by the rank he held later in the war.

Minor technical details? Most such details determined the tactics used and operations planned. Further, such sloppiness casts doubt on the integrity of the author's research and his editor's attention to his job.

There are problems other than the technical ones noted above. The author claims that the US Navy destroyed the maxim that wooden ships could not successfully engage shore fortifications. The British and French had already demonstrated the falsity of that belief during the Crimean War, in both the Baltic and the Black Seas. The author claims that Porter's mortar fleet was a major factor in the assault on New Orleans, when in fact they were irrelevant to the Union success.

All in all, a very disappointing performance in writing history. This book does little to advance its stated intent.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars So wrong in so many ways it is almost fun!, March 11, 2000

By 

Steven Zoraster (Austin, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War (Hardcover)

This has got to be one of the worst, ostensibly "serious" history books I have ever read. Like the previous reviewer, I noticed that the author had misplaced Port Hudson. And like the previous reviewer I read on. In my case it was to find out what else was wrong. Why? Because there was so much wrong, in so many ways, that for awhile it was enjoyable to simply note the mistakes. Consider the proof reading. On page 54, the minimum number of Union troops required to take and hold New Orleans is listed as 2,000 men in one paragraph, and 20,000 in the next. And on the same page, the minimum acceptable draft of ships in the plan for the attack on New Orleans is listed at 18 inches! (Common sense and descriptions of the Union ships that actually took part make clear that this number must have been 18 feet.)

Consider also, dead ends in the narrative. On page 39 we are informed that the Confederate submarine "Henley" "was tested twice, both times ending in disaster for the vessel and her crew." The author then describes one of these disasters, and leaves it completely up to the reader to guess what the other disaster might have been. On page 47 on which we are informed that the Confederate warship under the command of Raphael Semmes burned a particular Union merchant ship, "setting off bitter repercussions for him." What these repercussions were, the author never reveals.

Consider also, consistency. Or more correctly, lack of consistency. On page 60 the author reports that the danger posed by the planned Union attack on New Orleans "was clear to most [citizens of the city]." But on page 86 he tells us that the forts guarding the approach to the city were thought "impregnable by confident New Orleans citizens and military men."

So, what do I recommend? Well, a good history of the successful Union attack on New Orleans is "The Night the War was Lost" by Charles L. Dufour. As for the other famous and successful naval attack by the Union navy on a Southern seaport on the Gulf of Mexico, the attack on Mobile, I would suggest trying "Damn the Torpedoes: The Story of America's First Admiral, David Glasgow Farragut," by Christopher Martin. Still, if you are the kind of person who occasionally enjoys really bad books, you might check "Gunfire Around the Gulf" out of the library some day. Just for fun that is.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sad commentary on the lack of geography education, February 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War (Hardcover)

I started to read this book, but the uneasiness about the author's geography was to culminate with the reading of this statement on page 11. "Earlier in May the strong Confederate fort at Port Hudson had ... located at a hairpin turn in the Mississippi, on a series of high bluffs 25 miles north of Vicksburg." In fact Port Hudson is 140 miles south in Louisiana. What else besides geography has he got wrong? I read on , ... but. I could recommend many other books but not this. Get a good editor.