Book Review: The Confederate Steam Navy 1861 t0 1965; by Donald Canney; Schiffer Publications, 2015

[robert952]

 

Donald Canney specialized in the transition period of sail to steam power and wood to steel construction of the US Navy.  He worked with the US Coast Guard as registrar for that service’s national artifact program from 1991 until his retirement in 2006. 

 

While the world’s navies of 1861 to 1865 were making this transition of sail to steam and wood to iron, the American Civil War provided the impetus to speed up that evolution on both sides of the conflict. The Confederate Steam Navy details the ships of the Confederate Navy from 1861 to 1965. The author focuses on ships with steam power and those converted to steam power. The text provides a lot of insight into all aspects of the transition covering technology, politics and logistics of building each boat. He also outlines the careers of each ship during the conflict.

 

The first six chapters cover the ironclads from the early beginnings of the conflict. He devotes a chapter to each year of the war when discussing ironclad battleships.  The author covers every ironclad ship involved in the Confederate Navy.  I use the term ‘involved’ loosely as Canney includes ships that were under construction but never completed.  Most of these were destroyed due to the eminent capture of the shipyards by Union forces.  Some ships he discusses were under construction in Europe (particularly England) and were confiscated due to the political stances of England with regards to the war in America. He outlines the final disposition of these ships, too. 

 

For the ships discussed he explains the hull construction, the engines; and other aspects of ship propulsion; and the ships'

armament. His descriptions tell about the material used for the hulls including dimensions along with the types of wood and iron employed.  He provides details on the steam engines based on their classification of pressure, size of cylinders and stroke length. He details how the engines were installed and the propellers for the ships. He describes the deck arrangement and sizes of the various guns used on each ship. While covering these details, Canney points out issues of internal conflicts between the Confederate Army and Navy.  He points out the Confederacy's lack of industrial base for supplying the necessary materials (plate iron specifically) to all who needed or wanted the material. 

 

(As a side bar, Canney includes a 2-page appendix titled “Notes on 19^th century shipbuilding and steam engine technology.”  I suggest readers start with this appendix as the author explains the terminology particular to how measurements were made during that time in history and terminology pertaining to steam engine technology. These notes explain the shift in terminology from one ship to another in his descriptions of these aspects.)

 

After covering the ironclads, Canney devotes chapters to many other steam powered ships and boats including blockade runners, commerce raiders, gunboats, and floating batteries.  Some of these chapters select a few which were representative of the literally hundreds of such boats brought into the Confederate Navy.  

 

Canney bases his observations and conclusions using source documents from those who served on board, were spies who collected information for the Union, after-action reports and descriptions of the ships after they captured. He points out discrepancies he found between the various information sources. 

 

While the book has many black and white drawings, photographs and paintings of ships and their components, for the modeler they may not be extremely useful.  The illustrations are small and lose detail due to the reduction on the image to fit in the book.  However, the author includes the source of the illustration so that a serious researcher has a starting point for further investigation. 

 

While the book is not for casual reading per se, I enjoyed reading the details on ship names I recognized from board games (Ironclads - Yaquinto Games; Shot and Shell”- 3W Games).  Along with my gaming experience, the bibliography and and notes leads me to believe that Donald Canney provides a comprehensive listing of the steam powered vessels involved in the Confederate Navy. He provides good representatives for the non-battle ships of the times.  The book provides details not normally found in other book on thehistory of the battles involving these historic ships. I'd recommend this book for serious students of ironclad and steam powered vessels from this period of nautical history.  

 

BOOK DETAILS

 

Title: The Confederate Steam Navy 1861 -1865

Author: Donald L Canney

Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 2015

Hardback (9-1/8 wide X 8-3.8 tall); 192 pages (includes end notes, bibliography, and index)

Twelve chapters each dedicated to different classes of steam powered ships of the Confederate Navy

Black and white images: photos, drawings and paintings

Cover price: $39.99 

Available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites

ISBN:  978-0-7643-4824-2

[Frank Burroughs]

This book falls into the ships that interest me to build.  Just have to have it.

[robert952]

12 hours ago, Frank Burroughs said:

This book falls into the ships that interest me to build.  Just have to have it.

I guess you found the review useful. 

The book will definitely give you some insight to the ships, their specs and how they performed.  (Spoiler alert, most were under powered either because of design 'flaws' or engines not performing as spec'd.) 

Thanks for reading.