Guns on the Western Waters

H. Allen Gosnell's Guns on the Western Waters present a full, accurate treatment of the important gunboat operations in the western theater of the Civil War or naval history. Gosnell provides descriptions of the major types of Union and Confederate gunboats with a brief but authoritative essay on the strategy and tactics of river warfare. He shows that the extremely heavy guns mounted on the shallow-draft vessels proved to be both terrible and effective weapons in certain aspects of the war. The guns played major roles, for example, in the Red River campaign, the Vicksburg campaign, and the attacks on Forts Henry and Donelson. Employing a concise, graphic style, Grosnell also draws on firsthand accounts to describe many of the dramatic episodes in which the boats figured. The book contains photographs of the principal gunboats and the soldiers who fought on them, and maps illustrating the important river and bayou operations in the West.-Print ed.