Books about Ironclad from Amazon.com

The Ironclad was a revolutionary weapon of war. Although iron was used for protection in the Far East during the 16th century, it was the 19th century and the American Civil War that heralded the first modern armored self-propelled warships. With the parallel pressures of civil war and the industrial revolution, technology advanced at a breakneck speed. It was the South who first utilized ironclads as they attempted to protect their ports from the Northern blockade. Impressed with their superior resistance to fire and their ability to ram vulnerable wooden ships, the North began to develop its own rival fleet of ironclads. Eventually these two products of this first modern arms race dueled at the battle of Hampton Roads in a clash that would change the face of naval warfare.

Fully illustrated with cutting-edge digital artwork, rare photographs and first-person perspective gun sight views, this book allows the reader to discover the revolutionary and radically different designs of the two rival Ironclads - the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor - through an analysis of each ship's weaponry, ammunition and steerage. Compare the contrasting training of the crews and re-live the horrors of the battle at sea in a war which split a nation, communities and even families.

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Price: $10.87 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Award-winning historian Eric J. Wittenberg has written a comprehensive sudy of the critical actions on Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field, fought on July 2 and 3, 1863. In these actions, Union Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg's Second Cavalry Division fought two protracted and important actions along the Union right flank. The fight for Brinkerhoff's Ridge, although relatively small in numbers, prevented the legendary Stonewall Brigade from participating in the Confederate assaults on Culp's Hill, perhaps tipping the balance in the struggle for the hill. Wittenberg presents a new and controversial theory for why Maj. Gen. JEB Stuart's Confederate cavalry appeared on Cress Ridge on East Cavalry Field on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. After a long and bloody dismounted fight, Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade helped to repulse a massed mounted charge by three brigades of Southern horsemen, securing the Union right flank, and helping to clinch the Northern victory at Gettysburg. Wittenberg weaves the stories of soldiers together with a keen understanding of the terrain and presents a compelling story that features six fine maps by John C. Heiser and forty illustrations. The book also includes a driving tour guide of the Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field battlefields that includes an additional twenty photographs of modern-day views of these sites. This book is a must for all Gettysburg and cavalry buffs. Volume One of the Discovering Civil War America series..
Price: $8.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

On March 9, 1862, the world's first battle between two ironclad warships took place in the confined waters of Hampton Roads, Virginia The previous day the Confederate ironclad CSS Merrimack - officially the CSS Virginia - impervious to her enemy's guns, had sunk two Union warships. When she re-emerged from Norfolk to complete the destruction of the Union blockading squadron, the USS Monitor steamed out to meet her. The four-hour duel that ensued was a stalemate, but crucially the Virginia had failed to break the Northern blockade of the Southern ports. In a single battle these two ironclads rendered wooden warships obsolete and transformed the face of naval warfare forever.

This full-color comic book includes further reading, essential information on the background, aftermath and key players of the conflict, illustrating one of the most revolutionary naval battles in world history and transports the reader to the cramped and dangerous conditions that the sailors faced for the first time.

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Price: $1.86 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The fight that split the United States begins! Chester the Crab traces the way Southern states seceded from the Union, shows the attack on Fort Sumter that began the fighting, witnesses Stonewall Jackson's victory at the First Battle of Manassas and steers through the Battle of the Ironclads in Virginia and the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. This colorful graphic novel will excite reluctant readers, prepare students for standardized tests in history and help homeschooling parents!.
Price: $4.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

More than 175 archive and museum photographs, illustrations and diagrams bring to life the history, construction, appearance and function of these amazing fighting vessels. An illustrated history of the origins and evolution of early battleships..
Price: $10.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The creation of a Confederate ironclad fleet was a miracle of ingenuity, improvisation and logistics Surrounded by a superior enemy fleet, Confederate designers adapted existing vessels or created new ones from the keel up with the sole purpose of breaking the naval stranglehold on the nascent country. Her ironclads were build in remote cornfields, on small inland rivers or in naval yards within sight of the enemy. The result was an unorthodox but remarkable collection of vessels, which were able to contest the rivers and coastal waters of the South for five years. This title explains how these vessels worked, how they were constructed, how they were manned and how they fought..
Price: $4.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The true story of the Civil War ironclad that saved the Union Navy only to sink in a storm--and its remarkable salvage 140 years later

Ironclad tells the saga of the warship USS Monitor and its salvage, one of the most complex and dangerous in history. The Monitor is followed through its maiden voyage from New York to Hampton Roads, its battle with the Merrimack, and its loss off Cape Hatteras. At the same time, author Paul Clancy takes readers behind the scenes of an improbable collaboration between navy divers and cautious archaeologists working 240 feet deep.

Clancy creates a memorable, fascinating read, including fresh insights into the sinking of the Union ship and giving the answer to an intriguing forensic mystery: the identities of the two sailors whose bones were found in the Monitor's recovered turret.

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Price: $3.03 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A look at the famous Civil War battle between the ironclads Monitor and Virginia (Merrimack) that began a new age for warfare at sea..
Price: $8.05 [Notify me when price goes down.]

To the victorious Confederates, it was the Battle of Leesburg. The badly beaten Federals named it for the imposing fortress-like rocky precipice on the northern side of the Potomac near Washington DC - Ball's Bluff. Fought three months to the day after First Manassas (Bull Run) and another in a long line of Federal defeats during the first year of the war - the battle was, as author James Morgan puts it, "a reconnaissance mission gone bad." Federal commander Gen. Charles P. Stone had planned a raid on a suspected Rebel camp, precipitating a skirmish between elements of his troops and those of Confederate Gen. Nathan "Shanks" Evans. As a series of skirmishes developed into a full-scale brawl involving some 1700 soldiers on each side, careless and costly decisions by one of Stone's commanders, Col. Edward D. Baker, led to Baker's death and a catastrophic finish, as hundreds of Union soldiers fell or threw themselves off the cliff. In the ensuing political uproar in the North, Stone became the convenient Federal scapegoat and his career was destroyed. A charter member of the volunteer Ball's Bluff guide group, Morgan, a former Marine, began to realize that the conventional battle narrative he and others were telling to visitors "just did not feel right." Further reading and more intensive study of the battlefield led him to delve deeply into primary materials to correct misconceptions and find the factual interpretation of events of this little and relatively unstudied battlefield. With the requisite keen understanding of the battlefield's terrain, Morgan has woven together a site-driven narrative in graceful style that is appropriately highlighted with participant's quotes. Featuring previously unused primary manuscript sources and a variety of first-hand accounts, this second volume in Ironclad's landmark Discovering Civil War America Series is highlighted by fine maps and numerous contemporary illustrations. A signature element of the series is the driving/walking tour of the sites, including the Ball's Bluff National Cemetery. This book is a must for all Civil War buffs, especially those interested in early clashes of the war and lesser-known battlefields..
Price: $12.92 [Notify me when price goes down.]

At the start of the American Civil War, neither side had warships on the Mississippi River, which was a vital strategic artery. In what would prove the vital naval campaign of the war, both sides fought for control of the river. While the Confederates relied on field fortifications and small gunboats, the Union built a series of revolutionary river ironclads. First commissioned in January 1862, these ironclads spent the next two years battling for control of the Mississippi, fighting in a string of decisive engagements that altered the entire course of the war. This book explains how these vessels worked, how they were constructed, how they were manned and how they were fought..
Price: $10.69 [Notify me when price goes down.]