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Craig L. Symonds Gives Insight on the War on the Waters
Lincoln and His Admirals acquaints readers with the often overlooked role of the Navy in the Civil War and the men charged with conducting the war on the water.
When Abraham Lincoln took the presidential oath on March 4, 1861, the United States of America was ill prepared to wage war on either land or sea. Small groups of its 16,000-man regular army were deployed among various posts from coast to coast and border to border. Its 7,600 or so sailors served aboard a handful of ships scattered across the globe.
In Lincoln and His Admirals, Craig L. Symonds relates the difficulties Lincoln, as Commander-in-Chief, navigated in the North’s quest for control over the coastlines and rivers of the Confederacy. In many respects those difficulties mirrored the problems he encountered with his generals. Examples of inexperience, inflated egos, and jealousy appear in nearly all of the book’s twelve chapters
Another problem facing Lincoln was that as minie balls and rifled cannon were changing land battles, new technologies were also reshaping naval engagements. Steamships, mortar boats, and inronclads marked a new age in water warfare, one many veteran naval officers viewed with skepticism and reluctance. Finally, Lincoln had to wrestle with getting the leaders of his land and water forces to work together in joint operations.
The number, complexity, and sensitivity of these issues forced Lincoln to become Commander in Chief in fact as well as in name. (He actually participated in an amphibious attack near Norfolk, Virginia.) Lincoln and His Admirals shows Lincoln’s growth as a naval commander, as well as the mistakes he made.
Symonds, Professor Emeritus of the U. S. Naval Academy, spotlights the Navy’s role during the four years from Fort Sumter to Lincoln’s assassination. He mentions land campaigns to keep readers aware of what was happening on all fronts of the war, but details only those that involved (or were intended to involve) joint army and navy operations. Thus, he discusses or alludes to the contest for Vicksburg on twenty-one pages but devotes only a single paragraph and one allusion to the battle at Gettysburg.
Symonds crafts an amazingly readable narrative around a large cast of characters. Lincoln, a landlubber afflicted with seasickness, and Gideon Welles, his hardworking, outspoken Secretary of the Navy, spent four years trying to match the right men with the right vessels and the right operations. The aging Samuel Du Pont successfully blockaded the South Carolina coast but would not risk dealing with the forts in Charleston harbor to take the city. David Farragut, on the other hand, ran past the forts guarding New Orleans and Mobile to take those cities. Brash Charles Wilkes nearly plunged the United States into war with England by instigating the Trent affair. Symonds also brings the personalities and accomplishments of Welles’ assistant Gustavus Fox and USN officers David Dixon Porter, Louis Goldsborough, Andrew Foote, Charles Davis, John Worden, John Dahlgren, and Samuel Lee into focus.
Lincoln and His Admirals is well researched and documented. Symonds inclues extensive chapter notes, a bibliography, and an index.