The Navy Strikes at Belmont

With Leonidas Polk's Confederate army straddling the Mississippi in the autumn of 1861, local Union commander Brig. General U.S. Grant p...

A Most Unlikely Naval Base: Mound City, Illinois

Before the Civil War, Mound City, IL was an unremarkable port town on th e Ohio River. It certainly benefited from river traffic, but never...

"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...

Introducing the Timberclads

To confirm the veracity of the old idiom that "necessity is the mother of invention," one need look no further than the Union...

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...