Abstract
In the century and a half since the end of the Civil War, the fighting on land has held centre stage in the vast majority of histories of the conflict. A steady flow of biographies of generals, campaigns and battles, and unit histories has fed the continued public appetite for books on the war. The focus on the land war has only begun to change during the last decade or so, but even today few Americans know anything about the Civil War at sea, apart from perhaps having heard of the clash in Hampton Roads between the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia or the fate of the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley off Charleston, South Carolina. Most know nothing of the U.S. Navy’s naval blockade of the Confederacy’s coasts that played such an important part in the Union victory in the war by denying the South key industrial products essential for its war economy. Nor do they know or of the Union navy’s riverine operations in the Western Theater that made it possible to split the Confederacy in two. The result has been a decidedly unbalanced treatment of the war and the belief that the naval effort counted for little. Yet by war’s end, the U.S. Navy, with more than 51,000 men (some 118,000 served throughout the course of the war) and 671 ships, was the second largest in the world, behind only that of Great Britain. Challenged by the manpower requirements for its field armies, the Confederate Navy was quite small. Only some 5000 men served in it during the war.
In recent years, there have been new overviews of the naval war, studies of the command relationships between President Abraham Lincoln and his senior naval officers, biographies of leading figures in the naval war (North as well as South), social histories of naval personnel, and studies of ships and the role played by naval technology. In addition, edited diaries and recollections by participants in the war have also appeared.
Here Ronald Coddington continues his ‘faces of the Civil War’ series in what is a fine addition to studies of the naval Civil War. Faces of the Civil War Navies: An Album of Union and Confederate Sailors is his fourth book of this type, the others being those treating Union soldiers, Confederate soldiers, and African Americans during the war. This work has images of 77 sailors and officers. Eschewing the admirals and senior captains, Coddington has chosen to concentrate on the seamen, ships’ boys, and junior officers during the war. Coddington’s work is well documented. There are 785 endnotes, 10 pages of references, and an acknowledgments section.
The images are those of the small (four-inch by two-and-a-half inch) calling cards, known as Cartes de Visites. In 1860s North America, photography was relatively new and many of those who served in the war had their photographs taken in uniform to be presented in this small format to families, loved ones, and friends as a reminder or token before the individual went off to war. Most of the images in this book have never before been published. Coddington secured them through a variety of sources, including online auctions on eBay. Accompanying each image is a several page discussion of the role played by that individual in the war.
In sharp contrast to those who served in the Union and Confederate armies, there were few farmers among them. The vast majority of the seamen came from seaboard or river communities, and a large number were immigrants (especially Irish). Most had no prior nautical experience.
Faces of the Civil War Navies: An Album of Union and Confederate Sailors is a most welcome addition to the growing collection of works on the naval Civil War.