Gunsmoke over the Atlantic

the long version

"Historian Jack D. Coombe combines research with a novelist's flair for re-creation to put us directly into the action of the Civil War on river, on shore, and at sea. In this account, we experience the terror of a bombardment, the claustrophobic confines of a still-unproven submarine, and the smoke-choked chaos of a harbor in the grips of a full-bore naval engagement between two desperate enemies. Coombe focuses on the Civil War as it was fought along the Atlantic coast, a fierce contest of blockaders and blockade-runners, ironclads, wood-hulled battleships, land cannon, submarines, and the first underwater antiship weapons."--BOOK JACKET.