With the onset of the American Civil War, the Federal Government instituted a massive naval blockade of the Confederacy, dubbed "The Anaconda Plan." The northernmost extremity of the blockade, the Potomac River, was known as "the Anaconda's Tail." Herein is the untold history of the desperate struggle for control of that strategic waterway and the conflagration that ensued. The story is not only of Union and Confederate naval and military episodes in the contest for command of the river, but of blockade runners, espionage and contraband operations. It reveals the never before published accounts of Jefferson Davis's planned invasion of Southern Maryland, the Union military occupation of the state's lower counties, and the devastating depredations of seaborne rebel guerrillas. In a region where slavery was dominant, it is also a vivid account of societal upheaval and economic collapse, refugee management, emancipation, and the advent of the United States Colored Troops. It is a tale of the "Andersonville of the North," at Point Lookout, Maryland, the desperate effort to free thousands of rebel prisoners of war by combined land-sea assault, and the Confederate attack on Washington itself. Finally, it is an account of that chaos in the words of Everyman, and both the participants and leaders of both sides, played out against the backdrop of the greater war being fought across the entirety of the American landscape.

Anaconda's Tail: The Civil War on the Potomac Frontier, 1861-1865

History

SHOMETTE, DONALD G.

Americas

Donald Shomette

For many, the Chesapeake Bay has an aura of historical romance and high adventure. Like the great Atlantic Ocean of which it is an extension, the bay also has its dark and treacherous aspect. Marine archaeologist Donald Shomette shares his great interest in the tragedies and disasters that occurred in the bay and its tidewater region over a 370-year period. He lists more than 1,800 of these events between 1608 and 1978, but elaborates on a few of the more significant catastrophes and military losses. Some stand out for their effect upon the course of human events, while others are notable for their immense toll on life and property. Included are tales of incredible bravery, courage, and fortitude, and stories of cowardice, stupidity, and ineptitude. The text is liberally illustrated, and there is an extensive detailed chronology of all known disasters on the bay.

Shipwrecks on the Chesapeake: Maritime Disasters on Chesapeake Bay and its Tributaries, 1608-1978

Schiffer

Dutch and English records are used to reconstruct Evertsen's campaign that included the naval invasion of the Chesapeake Bay, the capture or destruction of hundreds of English and French vessels, and the re-conquest of N.Y., N.J., and Del.

RAID ON AMERICA: The Dutch Naval Campaign of 1672-1674

Heritage Books, Inc.

Cowinner, John Lyman Book Award in U.S. Maritime History, North American Society for Oceanic History
Nor'easters, blizzards, and hurricanes. Spanish galleons, German U-boats, and presidential yachts. Pirates and privateers. The ephemeral and deadly nature of islands, dunes, inlets, and shoals. The history of the Delmarva Peninsula's Atlantic coast is rich with tales of fantasy and adventure, heroism and tragedy, greed and charity. Claiming more than 2,300 vessels since 1632, it rivals North Carolina's Outer Banks for the infamous title "The Graveyard of the Atlantic."
Maritime historian Donald G. Shomette brings these stories to life. Featuring the accounts of twenty-five ill-starred vessels―some notorious and some forgotten until now―this anthology provides a fascinating history of a local maritime culture and charts how the catastrophic events along this shore significantly affected U.S. merchant shipping as a whole. Shomette weaves together history, folklore, and legend in accounts of the tragic loss of the 1750 Spanish treasure fleet, the British blockade of the Delaware in the American Revolution, the depredations of Confederate commerce raiders during the Civil War, the Billy Mitchell affair, the Hurricane of 1933, and the Nazi U-boat offensive of World War II. His appendix provides a complete catalog of all 2,300 recorded wrecks, including coordinates and location descriptions where available.
A vivid montage of seafaring adventures and pivotal events in American history, this volume makes an essential contribution to the library of the history buff, wreck diver, and local adventurer.

Shipwrecks, Sea Raiders, and Maritime Disasters along the Delmarva Coast, 1632–2004

Johns Hopkins University Press

With the Royal Navy’s offensives in the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812 came devastating raids that wreaked havoc on the small villages along its shores and the very economy of the region. American naval forces were incapable of wresting control of the Tidewater from the superior enemy forces. Then in 1814 Captain Joshua Barney, a rare American hero during the struggle, intrepidly led his Chesapeake Flotilla against the invaders, determined to contest their advance on the nation’s capital and drive them from the region.
Donald G. Shomette, director of the archaeological excavation of the flotilla’s flagship, substantially revises the first edition of this captivating history with new information about Barney, his crew, and the mosquito fleet of gunboats and war barges that so valiantly fought the British. He sheds new light on the efforts of the U.S. Flotilla Service to build a viable coastal defense force. Shomette details the construction and manning of the famed Chesapeake Flotilla and recounts the terrifying details of British attacks on the towns, plantations, and farms throughout the bay region. 
Doomed from its conception by sparse funds and the natural limitations of the bay’s coastline, the flotilla ultimately suffered defeat. Yet its efforts were not completely in vain. Turning back wave after wave of British attacks, the fleet earned an improbable victory at St. Leonard’s Creek and its men went on to make heroic stands at the battles of Bladensburg and Fort McHenry in 1814. 
The thoroughly updated and enlarged edition of Flotilla is the result of impressive research on a forgotten chapter in the development of the young nation’s naval and maritime tradition.

Flotilla: The Patuxent Naval Campaign in the War of 1812 (Johns Hopkins Books on the War of 1812)

Tells the stories of ships that have sunk because of war or bad weather in the Chesapeake Bay, and the efforts to recover them

Shipwrecks on the Chesapeake: Maritime Disasters on Chesapeake Bay and Its Tributaries, 1608-1978

Tidewater Pub

Here is a dazzling array of swashbuckling pirates, picaroons, and sea rovers pitted oftentimes against the feckless representatives of an outpost governmental authority in the Chesapeake Bay region. It is an exciting, dramatic 200-year-old history which begins grimly with the "starving time" in the Virginia colony in 1609 and ends, mercifully enough, with the peaceful resolution of the Othello affair with the French in 1807. But, in between these two very different events lies a full panoply of grisly and bizarre buccaneering incidents one is hard pressed to imagine from the vantage point of the late twentieth century. For example, twice in the 1600's large Dutch fleets sailed boldly into the Chesapeake attacking and burning. Then there was the French pirate chief Lewis Guittar who crossed swords with a Virginia colonial governor, a duel which ended in a climactic sea battle in Lynnhaven Bay.Having completed impressive research in the archives of the Netherlands, England, and United States, Shomette skillfully reconstructs these episodes and many others, including the intensive anti-pirate cruises to capture - dead or alive - the notorious Blackbeard. The anti-pirate cruises led to the roundup of dozens of pirates and some showy executions but did little to curb the continued terrorist activities of bandits like Roger Makeele, Stede Bonnet, and Joseph Wheland.Mr. Shomette is a staff member of the Library of Congress, a lecturer, and an acclaimed underwater archeologist. Author of 'Shipwrecks on the Chesapeake', 'Flotilla: Battle for the Patuxent', 'London Town: A Brief History', and 'Shipwrecks of the Civil War', he has also writtten numerous articles on the Chesapeake and its history.

Pirates on the Chesapeake: Being a True History of Pirates, Picaroons, and Raiders on Chesapeake Bay, 1610-1807

Years ago, few people understood the value of the submerged cultural resources beneath the waters of the Chesapeake region. Recently, the search for the region's underwater heritage has been validated and initiated an intensified attempt to study and preserve the priceless resources in the waters of the bay and its tributaries. Tidewater Time Capsule presents a fascinating account of one underwater archaeological endeavor in which Donald G. Shomette was intimately involved: the underwater survey of the Patuxent River, and, in particular, the search for Commodore Joshua Barney's Chesapeake Flotilla, which was lost beneath the river's waters following a battle with the British during the War of 1812. The author skillfully sets the historical scene, and then proceeds to a first-person, on-the-site narrative of the investigative events as they happened. The Patuxent Project was the first underwater archaeological survey of an entire river system. In this multiphase investigation, archaeologists sought such diverse resources as inundated aboriginal and historic sites, harbor facilities, military establishments, battle sites, shipwrecks, and, in particular, the final resting place of Joshua Barney's famed Chesapeake Flotilla from the War of 1812.

Tidewater Time Capsule: History Beneath the Patuxent

Schiffer Pub. Ltd

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson issued a national call to arms against Imperial Germany. What followed in the United States was a frenzied effort to build hundreds of merchant ships to replace those being destroyed in Germany’s campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare. The newly created U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation embarked on a course that, in the span of a few pivotal years in American history, came to exhibit mankind’s genius, ignorance, avarice, drive—and folly—for the largest portion of that fleet came to rest on the muddy floor of Mallows Bay. In Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay and Other Tales of the Lost Chesapeake, Donald G. Shomette recounts three fascinating tales of the wonders that lie beneath the bay. An accomplished underwater archaeologist, Shomette describes the cutting-edge technology used in the excavation of the steamship New Jersey, the underwater hunt for the earliest English colony in Maryland, and the story of the great fleet that now rests in eternal slumber beneath the waters of Mallows Bay.

Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay and Other Tales of the Lost Chesapeake

In the years between 1668 and 1751, the government of Maryland envisioned an urban development program unrivaled in scope by any other colony except Virginia. Unwilling to allow development to occur naturally, both the Lord Proprietor and the legislature tried to create towns, ignoring the social, economic, and topographic realities that would doom most of them to short lives. The background of Maryland’s attempt at urbanization is complex and perplexing. It is a history laced with proclamations and laws, acts and supplementary acts, all of which flowed against the grain of rural plantation society, as time and experience eventually proved. Of the 130 sites designated in the tidewater section of the state, less than a score exist today as cities or towns of any note. The others, the majority, shared a common end—they disappeared into oblivion, destroyed by the sequence of tumultuous events that shaped Maryland’s past. This is the story of ten lost towns, chosen to represent a cross section of all. Each was unique in the manner in which it was given birth, flickered into existence against all odds, matured, and finally expired. The story of Maryland’s lost towns is not a simple tale of buildings and wharves, but a history of the people, both freemen and slaves, who created them, lived and worked in them, defended them, and died with them.

Lost Towns of Tidewater Maryland

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