At the outbreak of the Civil War, North and South quickly saw the need to develop the latest technology in naval warfare, the ironclad ship. After a year-long scramble to finish first, in a race filled with intrigue and second guessing, blundering and genius, the two ships, the Monitor and the Merrimack after a four-hour battle, ended the three-thousand-year tradition of wooden men-of-war and ushered in "the reign of iron."
In the first major work on the subject in thirty-five years, novelist, historian, and tall-ship sailor James L. Nelson, acclaimed author of the Brethren of the Coast trilogy, brilliantly recounts the story of these magnificent ships, the men who built and fought them, and the extraordinary battle that made them legend.
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The Monitor-Merrimack showdown may be one of the Civil War's most overhyped chestnuts: the two ships were by no means the first ironclads, and their long awaited confrontation proved an anticlimactic draw, their cannon fire clanging harmlessly off each other's hulls. Still, the author of this lively history manages to bring out the story's dramatic elements. Nelson, author of the Revolution at Sea series of age-of-sail adventure novels, knows how to narrate a naval crisis. He gives a harrowing account of the Merrimack's initial onslaught, in which it destroyed two wooden Union warships in a bloody and chaotic battle the day before the Monitor arrived, and of the Monitor's nightmarish final hours as it foundered in a storm at sea.
Equally arresting is his retelling of the feverish race between North and South to beat the other side to the punch with their respective wonder ships. He delves into every aspect of the ships' innovative design and construction, and draws vivid portraits of the colorful characters who crafted them, especially the brilliant naval architect John Ericsson, one of that epic breed of engineer-entrepreneurs who defined the 19th century. The resulting blend of skillful storytelling and historical detail will please Civil War and naval engineering buffs alike
James L. Nelson
was born in Lewiston, Maine his interest in ships and the sea began early.
A 1980 graduate of Lewiston High School, he attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, later transferring to UCLA Film School graduating in 1986. He worked in the television industry for two years and then in 1988 he joined the crew of the Golden Hinde, a replica of Sir Francis Drake's vessel of 1577. There he met his wife Lisa Page. He also served aboard the brig Lady Washington and the 'HMS' Rose.
In 1993, he left the sea and married Lisa Page.
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The following year he finished his first book and has been a full-time writer since.
He has fourteen books either published or in the process of being published. The books have sold in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain. His 2003 "Glory in the Name" was selected as the winner of the American Library Association's W.Y. Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction.
Recently, his writing has expanded to include non-fiction. His first work of non-fiction was "Reign of Iron", a detailed look at the ironclads Monitor and Merrimack. His "Benedict Arnold's Navy" about the Revolutionary war naval battle that took place on Lake Champlain. and his book "George Washington's Secret Navy" won the Naval Order's Samuel Eliot Morison award in 2010.
He and Lisa now live in Harpswell, Maine with our their children.
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