cover image Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War

Gunfire Around the Gulf: The Last Major Naval Campaigns of the Civil War

Jack Coombe. Bantam Books, $23.95 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-553-10731-9

A brief survey of Union and Confederate naval activities in the Gulf of Mexico, Coombe's latest (following Thunder Along the Mississippi) joins a growing list of books reexamining naval warfare during the Civil War. From Admiral David Farragut's masterful attack on New Orleans (April 1862) to the Battle of Mobile Bay (August 1864), Coombe covers the major operations that shut down Southern blockade running and established Union mastery along the coast from Texas to Florida. While Coombe's main focus is on the Union's capture of New Orleans and Mobile, he puts those events in context by detailing Union naval failures in Texas at Galveston and Sabine Pass, the saving of Pensacola for the Union in 1861 and the operations of Southern commerce raiders and blockade runners. Coombe touches upon the problems of naval warfare in an age when wooden sailing vessels were giving way to armored ships; he also writes about the material lives of sailors in the 1860s. Most of the book, however, consists of blow-by-blow re-creations of battle, and of the cool decision-making of Farragut and lesser-known figures. Coombe's clear, often vivid narrative will please buffs and noninitiates alike. Maps and illustrations not seen by PW. (Aug.)