PDF British Ships in the Confederate Navy by Joseph Mckenna in History

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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Confederate NavyBy CustomerGood account of each ship bought by Captain James Bulloch; CSN in Liverpool. Yes; the Confederacy had a Navy.With British ships its Navy with about 6;000 officers and enlisted at its peak shut down the New England whaling industry. The 'Save the Whales' project 150 years ago.Ross Glover1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. BRITISH SHIPS IN THE CONFEDERATE NAVYBy Robert A. LynnBRITISH SHIPS IN THE CONFEDERATE NAVYJOSEPH MCKENNAMCFARLAND PUBLISHING; 2010QUALITY SOFTCOVER; $35.00; 292 PAGES; PHOTOGRAPHS; ILLUSTRATIONS; NOTES; APPENDIX; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEXAt its inception; the Confederate Navy had virtually no ships of any kind; ironclad or otherwise; and; as the Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory indicated; the purchase or construction of these was clearly of the utmost priority. Although approximately twenty ironclads were constructed and launched in the South during the war; these were for coastal and river defense; they weren't oceangoing vessels. These; it was very quickly realized; would have to be obtained abroad; and in May; 1861; James D. Bullock was sent to England as a purchasing agent for the Confederate Department of the Navy. His mission was threefold: to initiate the construction of ironclads; to buy or have built cruisers or commerce raiders to prey on Union merchantmen; and to purchase weapons and equipment for both the Confederate States Navy and Marine Corps.The Confederacy began to strike back at the Union merchant shipping from the earliest days of the war. The 450-ton bark-rigged steamer Halbana of the McConnell line was bought in New Orleans in April; 1861 for conversion to a commerce raider. Re-named the CSS Sumter; she took 18 prizes in a career that began with a narrow escape from two powerful ships of the U.S. Navy; USS Brooklyn and USS Powhattan. She eventually put into Cadiz; Spain; and was sold to become a blockade runner in Gibraltar.Four 1;500-ton fast corvettes being built in Bordeaux for the Confederacy were blocked by Union pressure on the French government and the builder had to sell them to other clients. But several smaller; lightly armed raiders were finished in Great Britain and spirited to sea by the Confederates before the British government or Union officials could stop them. The CSS Florida; Alabama; Georgia; and Shenandoah inflicted very serious damage on the Union merchant marine fleet and caused a protracted legal dispute between Washington; D.C. and London after the war. It wasn't the 69 prizes she took that made a raider like the famous CSS Alabama so dangerous: the longer she continued to ply the world's oceans capturing Union merchant shipping; the fewer cargoes were entrusted to U.S. shipping companies. Merchant ships were sold to foreign companies; so although the volume of trans-Atlantic trade increased steadily throughout the war; the size of the U.S. merchant fleet declined drastically. It never recovered for the rest of the 19th Century.BRITISH SHIPS IN THE CONFEDERATE NAVY is a fresh; objective; and scholarly account on a topic that doesn't get enough publicity today-the British assistance to the Confederate Navy in not only ships but also the British seamen who manned those warships and blockade runners. Included in this book is a list of ships constructed in Great Britain for the Confederacy. This book should be in the personal library of any serious student of The War Between The States.Lt. Colonel Robert A. Lynn; Florida GuardOrlando; Florida