High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt (Studies in Maritime History) - Hardcover

Shingleton, Royce

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0872499863 ISBN 13: 9780872499867

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr, 1994

Synopsis

The Civil War adventures of a swashbuckling sea captain that won the Clarendon Award (see "About the Author" under "See all Editorial Reviews below")

Contains an original map designed by the author that plots the cruise of the C.S.S. Florida, together with a complete list of the vessels captured, which was used by the Press as front and back endpapers; also contains an original color sketch of the blockade runner Owl commissioned by the author

About this title

From the Author:

This is my third book, and unlike my situation with the first two, I was awarded a contract to write it by the University of South Carolina Press.  This resulted from the recommendation of William N. Still, Jr., who was the General Editor of the Press' Studies in Maritime History Series in which the book appears.  I came to know and work with Dr. Still, and believe that he was a reader of the Wood manuscript and recommended it to the University of Georgia Press, where I had shopped the manuscript (such readers are not usually revealed).  Having a book contract is positive in that it negates shopping for a publisher after the manuscript is completed, but has drawbacks in that, at least in my case, the contract created a deadline and limited the number of words.

The Maffitt book is somewhat like my first, the Wood book, in that both were Confederate naval officers who attacked Union interests, but different in that Maffitt was a high seas raider, while Wood was a coastal raider.  All three books are set in the mid-nineteenth century, especially during the period of the War Between the States, yet the Peters book is quite different in that the subject was a civilian who engaged in business activities.

From the Back Cover:

Civil War History, Maritime History
                          
                                                                               HIGH SEAS CONFEDERATE
                                                                    The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt

"Lively and interesting....Adds much depth and human drama to the activities of blockade runners."--Frank L. Owsley, Jr., author of the C.S.S. Florida:  Her Building and  Operations

"High Seas Confederate takes readers aboard Confederate blockade-runners and raiding vessels to meet one of the Civil War's most successful and colorful naval officers--John Newland Maffitt.  In the first modern biography of the swashbuckling captain who penetrated Federal blockades and swept Northern commercial ships from the Atlantic, Royce Shingleton demonstrates that Maffitt was a significant--if previously unheralded--figure in the Confederate navy.  
Using the John Newland Maffitt papers from the Southern Historical Collection, Shingleton traces Maffitt's climb in rank and reputation among the Confederate officers, beginning with his command of the gunboat C.S.S. Savannah at the onset of the war and ending with his command of the blockade runner Owl in 1864-65.  During the war Mafffitt commanded several other ships including the famous C.S.S. Florida, captured twenty-three merchant vessels, and completed extraordinary runs into the ports of Wilmington, Mobile, and Galveston.  Shingleton praises the courage, quick thinking, seamanship, and navigational skill that made Maffitt effective in battling a much larger and better-equipped foe.  Maffitt's exploits reveal his value to the Confederacy and the adventure of life on the high seas during the Civil War."

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Pr
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0872499863
• ISBN 13: 9780872499867
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160