A Forgotten Sea Dog of the Civil War

Originally published in hardback in 2000, Prof. Tucker’s book remains the only full-length life of Foote (1806-1863), who commanded the gunboat fleet that captured Fort Henry and supported U.S. Grant’s capture of Fort Donelson on the Tennessee River and John Pope’s operations against Island Number 10 in the Mississippi, during the winter and early spring of 1862, only to die shortly afterward and thus pass quickly from public notice.

At the time of the original publication, our reviewer noted that the book was particularly useful for its look at the training of naval officers in the first half of the nineteenth century, and it is also valuable for giving the reader a fuller picture of how naval officers raised in the waning decades of the Age of Fighting sail made the adjustment to the age of the steam powered, armored warship.

A valuable work for any student of the Civil War navies when first published, Andrew Foote, a volume in the Naval Institute Press series “Library of Naval Biography”, remains so today.