Our Favorite Books: Neil Chatelain’s Top 5 Books

Unsurprisingly, my favorite books related to the US Civil War focus on the naval suspects of the conflict. Some of my picks are there because of their utility, while others have sentimental value in helping me get introduced to the field of study. Here they are, listed from oldest to most recently published:

William Morrison Robinson Jr., The Confederate Privateers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1928)

This book is on my list because I always seem to use it. My copy has more sticky notes and bookmarks in it than any other book in my collection, and because it is always off the shelf, on the desk, and packed with my own notes, my wife Brittany continuously makes fun of me and the book. Despite being just under 100 years old (and its prose makes that age obvious), it is the only full-length study of Confederate privateering activity out there. It covers everything from standard early wartime privateers to more experimental craft, and even includes surveys of legal proceedings related to privateering activity. Despite the title, it even includes chapters on US consideration of their own use of privateers. It is a must read for anyone interested in better understanding wartime privateering.

D.P. Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1975)

This was the first book that demonstrated the complexities of the war’s international aspects of the war to me. There are larger and more modern treatments on international diplomacy of the war, but Crook’s book really does it right. It includes chapters on the blockade, the Trent affair, and the question of French and British mediation. But there is much more as well, including French intervention in Mexico, the Polish push for independence from Russia, the Laird rams, and a host of other case studies that warrant examination. You could say that Crook’s book opened my eyes to just how other nations were impacted by our civil war, and how foreign activity impacted the war as well.

Raimondo Luraghi, The Confederate Navy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), Translated by Paolo E. Coletta

Luraghi’s work has served as the single best volume of the Confederate Navy I have ever read. He scoured virtually every archive with pertinent material and compiled everything so succinctly that it has become both an informative and easy read. This was one of the first books to get me interested in the naval side of the war and helped me understand that people globally are interested in the war; Luraghi is from and teaches in Italy. I continue using it often, both for its vast bibliography, and for its ability to help you understand how such a small organization as the CSN (5,000 sailors at its peak) impacted the conflict far beyond its numbers.

W. Craig Gaines, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 2008)

There are three published works any naval historian of the war needs to have to understand the many ships involved in the conflict. The first is the government-published multi-volume Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, which provides a brief introduction on all US (and CS) ships from all of US naval history. The second is the multi-volume Army-Navy Series of books, which explores military vessels under army jurisdiction in wartime. The final, and most Civil War specific, is the Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks. Gaines’s book on shipwrecks seeks to document the location of all wartime shipwrecks, including warships, blockade-runners, privateers, and civilian vessels. It is organized by region and state. The ship descriptions are short, analogous to the before-mentioned Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, but the included footnotes are excellent and extensive. It is an invaluable addition to anyone trying to learn more about the coastal war, fighting on the rivers, commerce raiding, or the blockade.

C.L. Webster III, Entrepôt: Government Imports into the Confederate States (Roseville, MN: Edinborough Press, 2009)

Entrepôt is a book not many have heard of. It is also not really a book for reading. This is a full-length examination of supplies brought into the Confederacy via blockade-runners. Much of the work are listings of those blockade-runners and itemized lists of what supplies are brought into each port on each individual trip. Webster’s work has been part of the baseline research of most of my own work, especially presentations tied to the Confederacy’s coastal cities. It has helped me gain a greater understanding of which of those cities proved real havens for blockade-runners, and exactly how much supplies were brought into those respective ports. Many think these runners brought in luxuries to be sold at massive profits, but Webster also demonstrates that hosts of invaluable warlike material also made the journey past the blockade. Anyone studying the blockade, the Confederacy’s coastal cities, logistics, or the international aspects of the war must have a copy of Entrepôt.

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