American Civil War Fortifications (1): Coastal brick and stone forts

Osprey Fortress #6

by Angus Konstam

The 50 years before the American Civil War saw a boom in the construction of coastal forts in the United States of America. These stone and brick forts stretched from New England to the Florida Keys, and as far as the Mississippi River. At the start of the war some were located in the secessionist states, and many fell into Confederate hands. Although a handful of key sites remained in Union hands throughout the war, the remainder had to be won back through bombardment or assault. This book examines the design, construction and operational history of those fortifications, such as Fort Sumter, Fort Morgan and Fort Pulaski, which played a crucial part in the course of the Civil War.

Genres: American Civil War, Military History, History, Civil War, Nonfiction, War

64 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 2003

About the author

Angus Konstam is a Scottish writer of popular history. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised on the Orkney Islands, he has written more than a hundred books on maritime history, naval history, historical atlases, with a special focus on the history of piracy.

Reviews

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

From technical perspective, this may be the best Osprey booklet (all categories) I've read so far. Narrative is extremly focused on the topic at hand and provides a surprisingly complete and detailed coverage. The booklet starts with the reasons for building of the fortifications, proceeds with their development and evolution, starting with early 18th century up to outbreak of Civil War. Next follows the analysis of intended use of the forts and their actual performance. This part of the booklet is also a perfect illustration of the never ending race between 'defence' and 'offense'; in this case the 'offense' came out victorious, although if one is to be fair, the fortifications discussed in the volume were never intended for the conflict in which they were used. The evaluation of their effectivness based on their performance during Civil War may therefore be a bit unfair. But, nevertheless, short narrative of the actions against forts captured by Confederacy provides the last section of this booklet.

The graphics material is where Osprey Publications often shines the brightest and in this case the artists have truly provided the goods. Drawings of 'bird eye view' overviews of several of the forts and detailed cross-section illustrations of essential parts of fortifications provide excellent visual support for the narrative which, admitedly, is mostly quite dry and technical. Period flavour is provided by contemporary litographies and drawings.

Very well done indeed, Mr. Konstam and Osprey Publishing.

[Greatredwarrior · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative if not terribly interesting. An overview of the fortresses themselves much more so than the battles which were fought there. It gives a decent glimpse at some of the strengths and weaknesses of the forts and has a lot of interesting information about artillery actually. Worth the 66 pages.

[Craig Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of coastal forts through the Third System First of post War 1812.