Overview

Chief Engineer James Hamilton Tomb (1839-1929) devoted almost 12 years of his early life to wartime naval service - first in the Confederate States' Navy during the American Civil War and then in the Marinha do Brasil during the War of the Triple Alliances. A steam engineer by profession and a torpedo expert by circumstance, Tomb was in the forefront of naval weapons technology of the period. Tomb quickly amassed not only the knowledge required of a steam engineer, but also the courage and capacity to assume important positions of command. Within days of his commissioning, he was on his way to his first assignment - first class engineer on the CSS Jackson at New Orleans, Louisiana, a point of great strategic importance. Here, amid a tightening blockade and a growing fear of Federal attack from the Gulf, Tomb's memoirs begin...Tomb's first-person narration is interspersed with explanatory comments from the editor; the editor also fills in Tomb's life at the memoir's beginning and end. Three appendices include documents by Tomb: Submarines and Torpedo Boats, C.S.N. , written in 1914 for the Confederate Veteran Magazine, a private manuscript Tomb wrote for his family describing in detail his experiences with the torpedo boat David and submarine H.L. Hunley, and Reminiscences of Torpedo Service in Charleston Harbor , published in 1877 in the Southern Historical Society Papers. A bibliography and a wealth of rare photographs complete the work.

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9780786449262

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one of the most important Confederate naval memoirs to come out of the Civil War...insightful and revealing...admirable job...McFarland has done the field of Civil War history a service by making this manuscript available to a wide audience --Sea History; noteworthy...distinct contribution...extremely well edited...well worth the reader's time and money --The Civil War News.

one of the most important Confederate naval memoirs to come out of the Civil War...insightful and revealing...admirable job...McFarland has done the field of Civil War history a service by making this manuscript available to a wide audience --<i>Sea History</i>; noteworthy...distinct contribution...extremely well edited...well worth the reader's time and money --<i>The Civil War News.</i>

Author Information

The late Chief Engineer James H. Tomb (1839-1929) devoted almost 12 years of his early life to wartime naval service. Writer, editor and historian R. Thomas Campbell is a retired health systems consultant who lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania and Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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