Birth of the Brown Water Navy

One-hundred and fifty years ago this week, an important component to the Federal efforts in the Western Theater came to the fore - the Missi...

Carondelet: Then and Now

As explained in earlier posts, James Eads was awarded many of the major naval building contracts in the western theater. He divvied up the w...

"Drive On": The Genius of James Buchanan Eads

Building a naval fleet is not the work of a military organization alone. In the Civil War as now, the Navy depended upon businesses and ind...

Arming Western Waters

In the spring of 1861, Winfield Scott's plan to bisect the Confederacy was but a dream. The U.S. Navy was solely a saltwater institutio...

Spotlight on Civil Engineers during the Civil War

Charles Ellet, Jr. Charles Ellet, Jr. gained early fame as a civil engineer and designer of suspension bridges in West Virginia and Pennsy...