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The Devil's Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War
Hardcover
Series: Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War
Civil War Period (1850-1877)General World HistoryNaval History
ISBN13: 9780807184912
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 312
Weight: 1.35
Height: 1.30 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.60
Language: English
Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Center's Lincoln Prize
IPPY Gold Medal for Southern Non-fiction
The Devil's Own Purgatory is the first complete history of the Union navy's Mississippi Squadron, a fleet that prowled the Mississippi River and its tributaries during the American Civil War. The squadron battered Confederate forts, participated in combined operations with the army, obliterated the Confederate fleet, protected Union supply lines, fought a river-based counterinsurgency war, raided plantations, and facilitated the freedom of thousands of enslaved people.
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