Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy [Paperback]

Jack Coombe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

A new kind of war

In 1861 the Confederacy was protected on its flank by the Mississippi River. And the Mississippi was protected by a devil's gauntlet of Rebel fortresses and shore batteries, preventing the Union from sending troops and supplies up and down the river. With Grant determined to strike a land blow through Vicksburg, the Mississippi had to be won. To achieve its goal, the Union forces unleashed a deadly new breed of fighting ships, and a desperate Confederacy answered back.

For a year and a half the Mississippi and its tributaries and bayous ran with blood, as ironclads and wooden-hulled vessels clashed in a maelstrom shot through with cannon, mortar, and gunfire from the shore. A meeting of raw human courage with advancing naval technology, the battles of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico to Vicksburg, were some of the fiercest--and least known--in American naval history, yet some of the most crucial of the Civil War. Now Jack D. Coombe tells the thrilling story of the men, the vessels, and the battles that would help decide the fate of a nation.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The squat river gunboats of the Civil War may have lacked the sleek majesty of oceangoing frigates, but undoubtedly they helped hammer home the North's victory as they successfully blasted their way up and down the Mississippi River. Jack D. Coombe presents the definitive account of these ironclad and wood-hulled warriors in the young country's western waterways, including the campaigns against Fort Donelson, New Orleans, and Vicksburg. The Union essentially built an inland navy, which pounded the Confederacy's heavily fortified towns and tried to dodge its mines. (Interesting piece of trivia: the Star of the West, the merchant ship attacked by Confederate batteries as it tried to reinforce Fort Sumter in January 1861 [the first hostile shots of the war], was later captured by Texans and converted into a rebel river steamboat.) Coombe argues that Federal control of the Mississippi made the South's defeat inevitable. His case is convincing, and his book is attractive--it includes dozens of black-and-white photos, plus several maps. It's one of the best naval histories of the Civil War available. --John J. Miller

From Library Journal

Historian Coombe (Derailing the Tokyo Express, LJ 9/15/91) provides a view of naval warfare from an often overlooked angle?the battles on inland waterways. By concentrating on the use of both Union and Confederate navies on the Mississippi, Coombe demonstrates the importance of these river battles and how they brought about the demise of the Confederacy in the West. Coombe supplies background information on the development of the ironclads and how these emerging technologies became the basis for today's navy. Graphic accounts of the battles allow readers to understand conditions aboard these floating war machines, especially when under attack: "Added to this would be hits on the armor plate from enemy shots, the resounding heavy clanging would deafen ears, and in many cases would cause bleeding from them to add to the misery." Coombe's work is essential for anyone with an interest in Civil War naval operations or the war in the West. Recommended for public libraries.?Barbara A. Zaborowski, Cambria Area Community Coll., Johnstown, Pa.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553379674
• ISBN-13: 978-0553379679
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,443,036 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

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative but disappointing, March 24, 2009

By 

Mark Longstroth (Kalamazoo, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split The Confederacy (Hardcover)

This book was an easy read. I am interested in the Mississippi Squadron so I bought this book. It was written by a Navy veteran and does a good job of reviewing the history of these gunboats and this is the strength of the book. There are good accounts of many of the river Navy's engagements, some well known and others obscure. I was disappointed in the author's attempts to tie the naval war into the ground war where I thought the author made mistakes, which I thought a more through treatment would have avoided. There are only a few maps. There are a good number of photos, and period lithographs that are placed on good paper for excellent reproduction, which looks much better than reproducing them on the ordinary paper with the text. If you can overlook some minor errors this is a good book about the naval war in the western theater.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars alright, May 19, 2008

By 

A. Meyer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split The Confederacy (Hardcover)

As a basic overview of the Mississippi River battles the book achieves its goal in my opinion. I think that this book would be better used if one has a wider knowledge of the war in general because he tends to mention some land battles offhand and without comment while those happening close to the rivers in question will give a little bit of information on them. Some folks have said that there is nothing new being presented that all the other sources have noted but, hey, its cheap and its a general overview not a groundbreaking study. But having not run across much naval books on the Civil War in the bookstore this was worth sinking my teeth into and will only be the jumping board for future research.

5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Nothing new here, May 20, 2000

By 

Daniel M. Cicero - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thunder Along the Mississippi: The River Battles That Split the Confederacy (Paperback)

Most people with a decent collection of Civil War naval history will have almost every source used by Mr. Coombe.

One wonders why Mr. Coombe wrote this book. There are no new conclusions drawn, no new information brought to light. A better written account of the use of the gunboats can be found in GUNS ON WESTERN WATERS, a book published in 1949. The story of USS Cairo, which was still on the bottom of the Yazoo River when Gosnell wrote GUNS ON WESTERN WATERS, is retold here, but a much better account is found in Edwin C. Bearss' HARDLUCK IRONCLAD.

This is the most general type of history and will be of little interest to anyone with more than a passing interest in the period and no other available source.