I do my Civil War naval gaming with 1:600 scale ships (Thoroughbred and Peter Pig) and mostly with junior high and high school students. It is typical for the players to know little or nothing about Civil War naval history, beyond what I tell them in the course of a game. Often they do not even know what their ship looks like.

I try to provide each player, therefore, with a "captain's log" containing not just the data they need to play the game, but also with some historical context, and with pictures of their ship.

Robert MacBride's book is an excellent source of drawings and plans for many Civil War ships. It contains one or more views of each of the following:

the French GLOIRE	HMS WARRIOR	USS MONITOR
USS PASSAIC class	USS CANONICUS class	USS DICTATOR
USS ONANDAGA	USS MIANTONOMOH	USS ROANOKE
USS CASCO class	USS CAIRO class	USS BENTON
USS ESSEX	USS CHOCTAW	USS OSAGE
USS WINNEBAGO	USS OZARK	USS NEW IRONSIDES
USS KEOKUK	USS GALENA	USS DUNDERBERG
CSS VIRGINIA	CSS ALBEMARLE	CSS PALMETTO STATE
CSS DAVID class	CSS ATLANTA	CSS BALTIC
CSS TENNESSEE	CSS NASHVILLE	CSS MANASSAS
CSS LOUISIANA	HMS SCORPION	CSS STONEWALL

Tony Gibbons' excellent WARSHIPS AND NAVAL BATTLES OF THE CIVIL WAR presents much of this same information -- and more -- in full color, but black and white line drawings have their uses, and MacBride's book is a fine source for them.

In addition to discussions of the design and performance of the various ship types, MacBride includes a useful group of analytical reports by Civil War commanders. These include a letter by Rear Admiral DuPont on the qualities of the monitors for blockading duty off Charleston, June 1863; Rear Admiral Goldsborough's opinion of ironclads, February 1864; and Rear Admiral Dahlgren's opinion of monitors, January 1864. All of these are fascinating analyses, and Dahlgren's in particular contrasts the relative strengths and weaknesses of monitors and of ironclad frigates such as the NEW IRONSIDES.

MacBride's summary judgment of Confederate ironclads is worth repeating:

Although the record does not especially reflect it, the fact remains that the Confederate ironclads were rather good ships. The Union Navy captured three of them in the course of the war and was quite happy to make use of them against their former owners. While it is doubtful that any of these ships could have stood up to a PASSAIC class monitor at close range, most of them should have been able to defeat, or, what was almost as effective, to drive away any other type of Union warship. It is true the Confederate ironclads generally were slow, but they were also good sea boats, judging from reports of the ATLANTA and the TENNESSEE after they were taken into Federal service. When armed with Brooke rifles, they were capable of long-range action, and their rams, of course, spelled doom to any class of ships to which they got close.

However, they could not be effective when the Confederate Government appeared to have no ideas about how to use them, or when the Confederate Army would not give their builders any priorities on use of the railroads, or iron plating, or trained seamen conscripted into the army. Nor could they be effective when their commanders were either foolhardy or hesitant, or ran them aground, or when their crews couldn't shoot.

MacBride goes on to delineate what was, in his view, the real difference between the Union and Confederate navies:

The story of these ships is a pathetic one of opportunities missed, ignorance -- particularly on the part of the Confederate cabinet and the army -- and, with some notable exceptions, of plain incompetence. (REVIEWER'S NOTE: this contrasts sharply with Raimondo Luraghi's judgment in his HISTORY OF THE CONFEDERATE NAVY; see the review of that work.) The most wonderful thing which runs through the entire story is an almost lunatic optimism and confidence on the part of all the Confederates, from the Secretary of the Navy to the landsmen at the guns. Regularly, and without fail, they expected the Yankees to make every mistake possible in the given situation and to make no mistakes themselves. And more often than not, they expected the Yankees to be faint-hearted and cowardly.

Now with all due respect, this assumption might have had some validity in relation to the Union Army, which, after all, was filled with amateurs on all levels, and which had been known to execute some colossal blunders, to say the least. The Union Navy was quite another story. There were no rear admirals and commodores of volunteers, nor aldermen turned captains or commanders, or even lieutenant commanders, in the Union Navy. They were professionals to a man, and . . . they were almost never stupid, and never cowards. As far as their being lethargic and faint-hearted, in this matter the Union Navy Department was completely ruthless. The merest suspicion of such behavior meant professional ruin for officers of any rank or position.

On the other hand, the Union Navy rarely underestimated the Confederates. Although success followed success as far as attacking and destroying Confederate ironclads were concerned, each new one was treated as a dangerous enemy. The progress of their constructions was followed assiduously, their probable employment was anticipated, and usually they were expected to put in an appearance sooner rather than later. They were conceded all possible efficiency, and their commanders always were expected to be courageous and competent. (p.128)

MacBride's comment on this point of Southern versus Northern psychology is at the very least thought-provoking, though one would have to read a great many reports and letters from the Official Records to confirm or refute it. If he is correct, this difference in attitude was probably as important to the outcome of the naval war as the North's huge industrial advantage.

This point also demonstrates the limitations of our games as genuine simulations. It is easy enough to portray the relationships between cannons and armor numerically, but how does one recreate such psychologies in a game? How, that is, short of having each of the Union ships commanded by middle-aged grognards, and each of the Confederate ships commanded by seventh graders playing their first wargame and who have been assured that their ships are unbeatable? I could actually arrange that, but I think I won't.

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