Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo
On the morning of December 12, 1862, the Union gunboat Cairo, nosing her way up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, triggered two Confederate demijohn mines. Within minutes the 512-ton ironclad had sunk six fathoms to the muddy bottom with no loss of life — the first armored war vessel ever downed by an electronically activated mine. A whole new era of naval warfare had begun.In Hardluck Ironclad Edwin Bearss tells how he and two other Civil War historians discovered the Cairo almost a century later — still intact at the bottom of the Yazoo, her big guns loaded and ready to fire, much of the gear aboard just as it was that December morning when the crew abandoned her — and how, almost miraculously, she was later salvaged and restored.

1118938959
Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo
On the morning of December 12, 1862, the Union gunboat Cairo, nosing her way up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, triggered two Confederate demijohn mines. Within minutes the 512-ton ironclad had sunk six fathoms to the muddy bottom with no loss of life — the first armored war vessel ever downed by an electronically activated mine. A whole new era of naval warfare had begun.In Hardluck Ironclad Edwin Bearss tells how he and two other Civil War historians discovered the Cairo almost a century later — still intact at the bottom of the Yazoo, her big guns loaded and ready to fire, much of the gear aboard just as it was that December morning when the crew abandoned her — and how, almost miraculously, she was later salvaged and restored.

34.95 In Stock
Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo

Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo

by Edwin C. Bearss
Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo

Hardluck Ironclad: The Sinking and Salvage of the Cairo

by Edwin C. Bearss

Overview

On the morning of December 12, 1862, the Union gunboat Cairo, nosing her way up the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, Mississippi, triggered two Confederate demijohn mines. Within minutes the 512-ton ironclad had sunk six fathoms to the muddy bottom with no loss of life — the first armored war vessel ever downed by an electronically activated mine. A whole new era of naval warfare had begun.In Hardluck Ironclad Edwin Bearss tells how he and two other Civil War historians discovered the Cairo almost a century later — still intact at the bottom of the Yazoo, her big guns loaded and ready to fire, much of the gear aboard just as it was that December morning when the crew abandoned her — and how, almost miraculously, she was later salvaged and restored.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807106846
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Publication date: 06/01/1980
Edition description: revised edition
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Edwin C. Bearss is a research historian with the National Park Service and winner of the Harry S. Truman Award and the Nevins-Freeman Award for significant contributions to Civil War scholarship.

From the B&N Reads Blog
Page 1 of

Customer Reviews