"Known as one of the world's most accomplished engineers in all history, [James Buchanan Eads] made a fortune at an early age inventing a diving bell to salvage steamboat wrecks from the bottom of the Mississippi River. The knowledge he gained about the river prompted the United States Government to contract him to build an inland navy fleet of ironclad gunboats during the Civil War ... After the war, his reputation as an unschooled civil engineer continued to blossom, after he built the first bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis ... Not long after this, he further quieted the skeptics when he opened up the South Pass at New Orleans, Louisiana, to gulf shipping trade, by creating jetties that forced his Mississippi to scour out its own channel. Before his death in 1887, and before the construction of the Panama Canal, he planned a railway to move great ships overland from one ocean to the other to shorten the Pacific shipping route to the Mississippi by thousands of miles"--Page 4 of cover.

At the start of the American Civil War, neither side had warships on the Mississippi River and in the first few months both sides scrambled to gather a flotilla, converting existing riverboats for naval use. These ships were transformed into powerful naval weapons despite a lack of resources, trained manpower and suitable vessels. The creation of a river fleet was a miracle of ingenuity, improvisation and logistics, particularly for the South. This title describes their design, development and operation throughout the American Civil War.

A Scottish immigrant to Illinois, Joseph Brown made his pre-Civil War fortune as a miller and steamboat captain who dabbled in riverboat design and the politics of small towns. When war erupted, he used his connections (including a friendship with Abraham Lincoln) to obtain contracts to build three ironclad gunboats for the U.S. War Department--the Chillicothe, Indianola and Tuscumbia. Often described as failures, these vessels were active in some of the most fer"documents the life and career of Joseph Brown, a miller and steamboat captain who built three ironclad gunboats for the US War Department"ocious river fighting of the 1863 Vicksburg campaign. After the war, "Captain Joe" became a railroad executive and was elected mayor of St. Louis. This book covers his life and career, as well as the construction and operational histories of his controversial trio of warships.