According to Smith, while the Merrimack and Monitor are the most famous of the Civil War ironclads, the Confederacy had another ship in its flotilla that carried high hopes on a metal hull.
The subject of the book is the makeshift CSS Arkansas, completed by Lt. Isaac Newton Brown and manned by a mixed crew of volunteers, and according to the book, it gave the South a surge of confidence when it was launched at Memphis in April 1862.
“Spirited to safety up the Yazoo River near Vicksburg, she burst back out onto the Mississippi River in mid-July, right into the midst of two surprised Yankee fleets,” said Smith. “For the next 28 days of that hot summer, the ship engaged in five battles with Union warships, falling victim in the end only to her own primitive engines, which failed her off Baton Rouge.”
The CSS Arkansas represented the last significant Confederate naval activity in the war’s Western theater.
The foreword for the 360-page work was written by noted nautical engineer and Civil War buff George E. Wright, Jr., while charts and diagrams were provided by historian and naval architect David Meagher. The cover art was provided by commercial Civil War nautical artist Daniel Dowdey.
Smith’s latest volume is the fifth in a series of related works from the same publisher.
The first was “Le Roy Fitch: The Civil War Career of a Union River Boat Commander.” It was published in 2007 by McFarland & Company, which is located in Jefferson, N.C., and publishes more than 400 books a year on all subjects.
The second volume in the series was Smith’s 2008 “The Timberclads in the Civil War: The Lexington, Conestoga and Tyler on the Western Waters.” It was followed in 2010 by two additional works, “Tinclads in the Civil War: Union Light-Draught Gunboat Operations on Western Waters, 1862-1865” and “The USS Carondelet: A Civil War Ironclad on Western Waters.”
A sixth volume, tentatively titled “Civil War on Western Waters: The Fight for the Yazoo, 1862-1864,” is anticipated to be published next year.
Smith’s latest work is dedicated to his wife, Dennie. The two will have been married 30 years in January.
The price for “CSS Arkansas: A Confederate Ironclad on the Western Waters” is $45. It can be ordered from McFarland & Company, Inc., Box 611, Jefferson, N.C. 28640. It also is available at the Tusculum College bookstore and on Amazon.com.