On the evening of February 2, 1864, Confederate Commander John Taylor Wood led 250 sailors in two launches and twelve boats to capture the USS Underwriter, a side-wheel steam gunboat anchored on the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina. During the ensuing fifteen-minute battle, nine Union crewmen lost their lives, twenty were wounded, and twenty-six fell into enemy hands. Six Confederates were captured and several wounded as they stripped the vessel, set it ablaze, and blew it up while under fire from Union-held Fort Anderson. The thrilling story of USS Underwriter is one of many involving the numerous shipwrecks that occupy the waters of Civil War history. Many years in the making, W. Craig Gaines's Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks is the definitive account of more than 2,000 of these American Civil War--period sunken ships. From Alabama's USS Althea, a Union steam tug lost while removing a Confederate torpedo in the Blakely River, to Wisconsin's Berlin City, a Union side-wheel steamer stranded in Oshkosh, Gaines provides detailed information about each vessel, including its final location, type, dimensions, tonnage, crew size, armament, origin, registry (Union, Confederate, United States, or other country), casualties, circumstances of loss, salvage operations, and the sources of his findings. Organized alphabetically by geographical location (state, country, or body of water), the book also includes a number of maps providing the approximate locations of many of the wrecks -- ranging from the Americas to Europe, the Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Also noted are more than forty shipwrecks whose locations are in question. Since the 1960s, the underwater access afforded by SCUBA gear has allowed divers, historians, treasure hunters, and archaeologists to discover and explore many of the American Civil War-related shipwrecks. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Gaines scoured countless sources -- from government and official records to sports diver and treasure-hunting magazines -- and cross-indexes his compilation by each vessel's various names and nicknames throughout its career. An essential reference work for Civil War scholars and buffs, archaeologists, divers, and aficionados of naval history, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks revives and preserves for posterity the little-known stories of these intriguing historical artifacts.

In 1911, the Marin Journal, forerunner of the Marin Independent Journal, published a special Golden Anniversary edition commemorating its first fifty years of publication. Sixteen pages long and printed on book-quality paper, the edition consisted entirely of a series of illustrated articles about each community in Marin County, written by a local correspondent, extolling the virtues of their towns. These give an intriguing view of how local residents viewed their communities, their progress, and their hopes for the future. The pride and their hopes glow through their words. The special edition was followed by a series of weekly articles detailing the history of Marin County. While there are inaccuracies, these articles were written when many of the founding pioneers of the county were still alive, and contain much information not available elsewhere. While there are many histories of California, this series focuses on Marin County and describes the people and events that made the county and formed its culture. Taken together, the special edition and the history articles give an intimate look at the county as seen by its founders and residents more than a century ago. Transcribed, edited, and annotated by local San Anselmo historian Brian K. Crawford.

This comprehensive volume details the complex art of wooden shipbuilding in ancient and early modern times. The text includes discussion of ancient, medieval, and post-medieval shipwrecks, which represent a cross section of technology as seen through a select group of archaeological finds.

A meticulously-researched reference guide to 300 shipping losses