Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama is a down-and-dirty guided tour through Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, the retired guardians of Alabama's Gulf Coast. For nearly 200 years, these hauntingly beautiful Third System forts have stood stubbornly between the Yellowhammer State and a sometimes hostile world beyond. Pairing stunning original photography and vibrant prose, urban explorer Thomas Kenning recounts a blow-by-blow history of Forts Morgan and Gaines. His sensitive camera work documents the grandeur and decline wrought by the passage of time, as well as the lasting damage sustained during the pitched Battle of Mobile Bay--one of the most iconic battles in U.S. naval history. Threatened by a rising sea, disintegrating under the weight of centuries, Forts Morgan and Gaines have been named "one of the nation's ten most endangered battle sites" by the American Battlefield Trust. Abandoned Coastal Defenses of Alabama offers an arresting snapshot of this waning moment in American history--documentary evidence of a rich past slipping inexorably into ruin.

"Confederate proclamation of nationhood was backed by an energetic and reasonably well equipped land defense. Not so for its coastal and sea defenses; much of its hope of tipping the balance in its contention with the Union rested on international support, trade, and naval defense. In search of a naval arm to counter Northern superiority on the seas, the South turned to foreign sources for a seaborne arm. Confederate agents in England cagily used scarce gold, promises of cotton, and British sympathy to obtain the devastating naval weapons of speedy and deadly raiders. Foremost among these was the Alabama, a screw steamer with full sail power, launched in May 1862. In only twenty-two months of action, this ship engaged nearly 300 vessels and destroyed 55 Northern merchant ships worth millions of dollars."--BOOK JACKET.

Lists and describes battlefields, forts, historic mansions, pioneer settlements, civil rights monuments, and other historic sites

"[Seize the high ground is a] narrative history of the Army's aerospace experience from the 1950s to the present. The focus is on ballistic missile defense, from the early NIKE-HERCULES missile program through the SAFEGUARD acquisition site allowed by the 1972 ABM Treaty to the more advanced 'Star Wars' concepts studies toward the end of the century. [What is] covered is not only the technological response to the threat but the organizational and tactical development of the commands and units responsible for the defense mission"--CMH website.

Thorough examination of the antebellum fortifications that formed the backbone of U.S. military defense during the National Period The system of coastal defenses built by the federal government after the War of 1812 was more than a series of forts standing guard over a watery frontier. It was an integrated and comprehensive plan of national defense developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and it represented the nation’s first peacetime defense policy. Known as the Third System since it replaced two earlier attempts, it included coastal fortifications but also denoted the values of the society that created it. The governing defense policy was one that combined permanent fortifications to defend seaports, a national militia system, and a small regular army. The Third System remained the defense paradigm in the United States from 1816 to 1861, when the onset of the Civil War changed the standard. In addition to providing the country with military security, the system also provided the context for the ongoing discussion in Congress over national defense through annual congressional debates on military funding.

Winner of the Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award Civil War Supply and Strategy stands as a sweeping examination of the decisive link between the distribution of provisions to soldiers and the strategic movement of armies during the Civil War. Award-winning historian Earl J. Hess reveals how that dynamic served as the key to success, especially for the Union army as it undertook bold offensives striking far behind Confederate lines. How generals and their subordinates organized military resources to provide food for both men and animals under their command, he argues, proved essential to Union victory. The Union army developed a powerful logistical capability that enabled it to penetrate deep into Confederate territory and exert control over select regions of the South. Logistics and supply empowered Union offensive strategy but limited it as well; heavily dependent on supply lines, road systems, preexisting railroad lines, and natural waterways, Union strategy worked far better in the more developed Upper South. Union commanders encountered unique problems in the Deep South, where needed infrastructure was more scarce. While the Mississippi River allowed Northern armies to access the region along a narrow corridor and capture key cities and towns along its banks, the dearth of rail lines nearly stymied William T. Sherman’s advance to Atlanta. In other parts of the Deep South, the Union army relied on massive strategic raids to destroy resources and propel its military might into the heart of the Confederacy. As Hess’s study shows, from the perspective of maintaining food supply and moving armies, there existed two main theaters of operation, north and south, that proved just as important as the three conventional eastern, western, and Trans-Mississippi theaters. Indeed, the conflict in the Upper South proved so different from that in the Deep South that the ability of Federal officials to negotiate the logistical complications associated with army mobility played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the war.

In A Short History of the Civil War at Sea, Spencer C. Tucker, eminent naval and military historian, provides a concise and lively overview of the blue water Civil War, or fighting on the seas and attacks directed from the sea. This volume covers the drama of significant naval battles, like the first clash of ironclads at Hampton Roads, the Union capture of New Orleans, fierce action in the Charleston Harbor, and the Battle of Mobile Bay. A Short History of the Civil War at Sea also discusses important themes, like the technological revolution in naval warfare; the Confederate use of torpedoes, submarines, and commerce raiders; and the Union's successful strategy of blockade. The struggle at sea might not have been as bloody as the fighting on land, but it was every bit as interesting and included a colorful cast of characters, like David G. Farragut, the North's highest ranking and most accomplished naval officer, and Confederate naval officer, commerce raider, and Rebel Seadog Raphael Semmes. And the advances of naval technology during the Civil War are fascinating - from the use of new Dahlgren guns to the design and redesign of the ironclads to the extensive use of mines an