Uss New Ironsides in the Civil War: William H. Roberts Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Despite being an excellent source on the construction and operations of this unique ship, this book is also a comment on what could have been had more of this superior design been built, or the orginal not accidentally destroyed. The book does a good job of addressing the "Monitor Fever" of the time that caused many monitors to be built despite the flaws of the design. Monitors appeared in variety from one to three turrets, while only two seagoing broadside ironclads saw service. Designed for ship to ship combat, Monitors did not have the large battery's necisary to tackle forts, the broadside ironclads did. Since forts were common, but CSN ironclads were few and far between and were broadside ships to begin with, the puzzle is why the US did not explore this design further. The answer, the author proves, was politics.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Uss New Ironsides in the Civil War: William H. Roberts

This is the first modern scholarly look at thelittle-known yet remarkable USS New Ironsides--America's firstseagoing ironclad and the only one to see combat in the American CivilWar.It describes the design, construction, and wartime career of thearmored frigate, which included sixteen months of combat offCharleston, South Carolina, where she fired more shots than all ofRear Adm. John Dahlgren's monitors put together and caused theConfederates to offer $100,000 for her destruction. The 1865 assaultagainst Fort Fisher led Adm. David Dixon Porter, a hard man toimpress, to call the ship the best in the fleet for offensiveoperations.Here, a former surface warfare commander chronicles NewIronsides's entire story, from inception as the Navy's insurancepolicy in 1861 through the straining urgency of construction andblockade service in the stormy early months of 1863 to the hard-foughtengagements at Charleston Harbor and Fort Fisher. He places the shipin a broader context of warship design during a period of rapidtechnological change. He also reexamines the circumstances of 1861 todebunk the myth that the ironclad was a regressive design created bymossbacked naval traditionalists. This complete assessment of theship's career shows both her operational and technical superiority. Italso explains why, despite the success demonstrated by NewIronsides, the monitors dominated the Union ironclad program.