In our effort to provide the best in historical literature, we went outside our customary stable of contributors for a change. History enthusiasts should recognize several names in this issue.
We begin with television personality and winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Biography, David McCullough. He talks about what naval history means to him—and what it should mean to all Americans.
Next, the winner of the Fletcher Platt award for Landscape Turned Red—his book on the Battle of Antietam—Civil War historian Stephen W. Sears retraces the final weeks of the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia and what happened to her after her encounter with the USS Monitor at Hampton Roads.
Added to our list of well-known historians is Dr. Jurgen Rohwer, an old friend of the U.S. Naval Institute, who graces our pages with the story of his experiences on board a German “mine destructor vessel,” which busied herself keeping German shipping lanes free of Allied mines in World War II.