Lincoln and His Admirals.
Title:
Lincoln and His Admirals.
Author:
Symonds, Craig L.
ISBN:
9780199718719
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (343 pages)
Contents:
Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1861 Getting Under Way -- 1 "What Have I Done Wrong?": Lincoln and the Fort Sumter Crisis -- 2 "A Competent Force" Lincoln and the Blockade -- 3 "No Affront to the British Flag" Lincoln and the Trent Affair -- 1862 charting a course -- 4 "Rain the Rebels Out" Lincoln and the River War -- 5 "It Strikes Me There's Something in It" Lincoln and the Monitor -- 6 "We Cannot Escape History" Lincoln and the Contrabands -- 1863 Troubled Waters -- 7 "The Peninsula All Over Again" Lincoln, Charleston, and Vicksburg -- 8 "I Shall Have to Cut This Knot" Lincoln as Adjudicator -- 9 "Peace Does Not Appear So Distant as It Did" Lincoln and Wartime Politics -- 1864 Full Speed Ahead -- 10 "A Worthy Object" Lincoln and the Red River Campaign -- 11 "A Vote of Thanks" Lincoln and the Politics of Promotion -- 12 "I Must Refer You to General Grant" Lincoln Relinquishes the Conn -- 1865 Final Harbor -- Epilogue "Thank God That I Have Lived to See This" Lincoln and the End of the War -- Abbreviations Used in Notes -- Notes -- Index -- Footnotes -- ch01fn -- ch02fn -- ch03fn -- ch04fn -- ch05fn -- ch06fn -- ch07fn -- ch08fn -- ch09fn -- ch10fn -- ch11fn -- ch12fn -- epifn.
Abstract:
In 1952, T. Harry Williams wrote the classic study, Lincoln and His Generals. Half a century later, Craig Symonds will write its necessary follow-up, Lincoln and His Admirals - a much-needed history of the Union navy during the Civil War. Given the wealth of books on the military history of the Civil War, surprisingly little has been written about the role of the navy. As Symonds shows, Abraham Lincoln began his presidency as well as the war with virtually no knowledge of naval affairs, lacking both exposure and interest given his upbringing in the Midwest. Despite his inexperience, he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada of the century, not eclipsed until the World War I. This was a remarkable feat given the poor shape, at least by European standards, of the Union navy in 1861. As Symonds argues, Americans had previously viewed the U.S. navy with some skepticism, regarding navies as essentially aristocratic bodies, or, worse, tools of empire.Symonds's book outlines the four factors that explain Lincoln's success in building a strong Union navy - his pragmatism, his willingness to judge men based on performance rather than politics, his command of new technology, and his deft hand at diplomacy.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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