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The Coastal War: Chesapeake Bay to Rio Grande

Peter M. Chaitin

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Oct 21, 2011 Werner rated it liked it

Shelves: history

My first real exposure to literature on the Civil War was as a kid of about nine or ten, when I realized that I knew literally nothing about the actual military history of the war, so got a one-volume childrens' history of it from the library to get a good basic overview. (That's one of many books I read as a kid that aren't on my Goodreads shelves, because I long ago forgot the author/title information.) Since then, besides treatments of the war in general American history, I've read a few book My first real exposure to literature on the Civil War was as a kid of about nine or ten, when I realized that I knew literally nothing about the actual military history of the war, so got a one-volume childrens' history of it from the library to get a good basic overview. (That's one of many books I read as a kid that aren't on my Goodreads shelves, because I long ago forgot the author/title information.) Since then, besides treatments of the war in general American history, I've read a few books or parts of books on aspects of the war, as well as some Civil War fiction (and watched Ken Burns' excellent multi-part PBS documentary, the Gettysburg miniseries based on The Killer Angels, and the movie Gods and Generals; I highly recommend all three!) and have enough interest in it to have visited some related sites here in western Virginia, but I don't consider myself an expert on it. This particular book is another one I've been reading in the bathroom at my son-in-law's house (long story), and is, as the above description indicates, one volume in a major Time-Life series that covers the whole war.

The Civil War exerts a peculiar fascination for --even haunts-- American historical memory. In terms of Americans killed, it was the bloodiest war we ever fought; most Americans have ancestors whose lives were affected by it; and it was a very real pivot point of our history (it's no accident that 1865 is the usual dividing line between semesters in American history courses.) But more than that, it left a legacy of moral and political issues whose unresolved condition still shapes our political conflicts, and belies the rosy triumphalist view of the conflict usually taught in grade school. Both the hardcore Left and the cultists of the Lost Cause hand down competing simplistic mythologies that reduce the conflict to a crusade of good vs. evil, and that energize and serve as weapons in their ongoing ideological hatreds today (and both essentially spit on any historian who disturbs their myth with unwelcome facts). And many of us who belong to neither camp continually recur to the war as a tragic mirror of the human flaws and mistakes that hung around our nation's neck since its founding, that shape our present, and that most people refuse to learn from today. Hopefully not to oversimplify the issues myself, but to put my own view concisely, two principles shape my view of the war and its prelude and ongoing aftermath: slavery and the racism that underlay it were (and are) unqualified and pernicious evils, "a curse, an unmitigated curse, for the white race as well as for the black;" AND the American constitutional compact between the states was (and legally still is) purely voluntary, and never intended to create a centralized Leviathan-State with absolute power and authoritarian aims. (Given those two assumptions, it's pretty clear that I won't be adopting an uncritical, hagiographic endorsement of either side of the
conflict, and can point plenty of accusing fingers at both of them.)

Chaitin, however, doesn't deal with analysis of the causes and results of the war in all of their messy complexity, nor stake out any brief for either side. His is strictly an objective, factual military history of the usually amphibious coastal campaigns waged from 1861-65, mostly in the Carolinas, but also covering operations in Florida, Mobile Bay, and the New Orleans area. (He mentions the duel between the Monitor and the Merrimac only in a passing one-sentence reference while discussing something else, and doesn't cover any operations on the Virginia or Texas coasts, although both Norfolk and Galveston were more militarily important than most people are aware of; but probably those campaigns are covered in other books of the series.) The author himself is a professional freelance writer who contributed two previous volumes to the series; he had the help of four consultants who actually are experts in the field, and his extensive bibliography included a substantial number of primary sources. As a result, his history is solidly authoritative and often quite detailed; and his style is lively and absorbing. In the Time-Life tradition, the book is also heavily illustrated, mainly with contemporary black-and-white photographs that are themselves primary sources (this was the first major war to be extensively photographed), but also with some color reproductions of paintings, such as those of Confederate soldier/artist Conrad Wise Chapman, who painted many scenes of the defense of Charleston from life. Since Chaitin doesn't employ footnotes (though the book has a good index), this wouldn't be classed as a "scholarly" treatment; but it's certainly a serious one, and aimed at the intelligent reader, in or out of academia, with an interest in the subject. Any such reader will find it informative (I learned a ton of facts I didn't previously know!), and a fascinating, well-written read. ...more

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