Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War

Or...more on the common sailor. The University of North Carolina Press recently published Michael J. Bennett's study of Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War. Unlike Union solder's who joined the army for ideological reason, Bennett argues that sailors enlisted because of "practical circumstances formed within the realities of class ethnicity, and race." Relying on diaries and letters, as well as statisical enlistment information this book provides an interesting picture of why and who formed the bulk of the Union Navy.

This book is also the winner of the 2004 John Lyman Award for U.S. Naval History as presented by the North American Society for Oceanic History