On completion, she was renamed the C.S.S Virginia, but is still known to history as the Merrimack. The Confederates salvaged her hull and engines, topping her with iron plating and 10 big guns. The Merrimack was a steam-powered wooden warship partially destroyed in the early days of the war. But the story laid down in Reign of Iron is one of those stranger-than-fiction adventures, which makes it even more compelling. I’ve read a couple of his pirate mysteries, so I was well aware he could tell a good tale. Nelson, a historian who is also a fine fictioneer. Nothing grabs me like the first battle of the ironclads. In the years since I’ve looked at the war from different angles and gained an appreciation for other battles and other personalities, but one thing remains the same. When I was the a kid, the most fascinating aspect of the Civil War (aside from the post-war adventures of Johnny Yuma, the Rebel) was the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimack.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |