This Jolly Little Gunboat (Paperback)

This short but unique diary aptly describes life on a gunboat steaming the Mississippi River during the twenty-one months between December 1861 and August 1863. The duty was often pure drudgery and misery spotted with those fleeting moments of sheer terror during combat. The Winona steamed between New Orleans and Vicksburg, stopping at many of the towns and plantations along the way. She often crossed paths with vessels well known to Civil War enthusiasts, as well as personalities known to all. The volume is a fascinating story and will provide the reader with an excellent idea of what it was like to be an ordinary seaman in the Western Theater of the war, as well as the operations of a Mississippi River gunboat.