The U.S.N.L.P. Handbook
Recommended Reading List
All books can be ordered through the NMLHA
Ship's Library
If you are just starting your
collection of Civil War naval books, a suggested order of
purchase or reading is:
Overviews and Daily
Life
- Life in Mr. Lincoln’s Navy (best
overall source for reenacting)
- Union Jacks (another excellent source of
"daily life" information)
- Divided Waters and/or By Sea
& By River (both excellent overviews of the course of
the wat)
- Lamson of the Gettysburg
(letters home describing day-to-day experiences,
excellent reference for sailors ashore)
- Invasion & Conquest of
N. Carolina (biographical info gets in the way of the
story, but a wealth of info here)
- Damn the Torpedoes! and/or
Naval Warfare
(variety of stories and incidents; either one is worth
the cost for illustrations alone)
- Confederate Goliath
(excellent telling of the attempts of the USN to take
Fort Fisher)
- Combined Operations
(admittedly difficult to stick with, but worth the
effort; makes a case for McClellan’s attempts to
conquer by taking the "strategic offensive /
tactical defensive")
- Ironclads at War (very
interesting background on development and evolution of
iron warships)
- The United States Marine
Corps in the Civil War (four volumes)
Uniform References
(no order of preference)
- The Civil War Military
Machine
- The Fighting Men of the
Civil War
- The Navies
- The Uniforms of the United
States Navy
- Arms and Equipment of the
Civil War
Background References
- Mr. Lincoln's Navy
- Brown Water, Black Berets (different war,
same situations)
- Lobscouse and Spotted Dog
(food recipes)
- Salt as a Factor in the
Confederacy
(source of the data on this topic in the NLP Handbook;
appears quirky but is really not. The author doesn’t
try to claim this as "the one true reason the South
lost", but does detail and reference the several
battles that were fought to gain salt mines and the
effect the USN had on Southern salt production)
- Foreigners in the Union Army
and Navy (just the Navy chapter)
- Lincoln and the Emperors (excellent and largely unknown story of the plans of the
European monarchies to reassert their imperial claims in
North America – not only France and England, but
Austria and Belgium as well)
- Ships vs Shore (details
fort-by-fort the actions that ensued there between
Confederate shore batteries and the USN)
- Guns on the Western Waters
