"The USS Carondelet had a revolutionary design and was the most active of the Union's Civil War river ironclads. From Fort Henry through the siege of Vicksburg and the Red River campaign through the Battle of Nashville, the gunboat was prominent. This history draws on the letters of Ensign Scott Dyer Jordan and Rear Adm. Henry Walke's memoirs"--Provided by publisher.

"While biographers have made much of the influence of the Civil War on Bierce and his work, none have undertaken to write a detailed account of his war experience. Likewise, among literary critics, Bierce's status in nineteenth-century American realism has led critics to explore the relationship of his wartime experiences to his output, but they have often done so without a deep understanding of his wartime experience. This manuscript concentrates...