In February, 1863 the Union Navy suffered a stunning setback that threatened to change the course of the war. In response, the Union deployed an entirely new class of vessel, the massive and intimidating Black Terror. Flying the skull and crossbones, the cruise of the mighty Black Terror is another example of history stranger than fiction.
In August of 1918, as the armies of Europe neared exhaustion, American troops of the 28th “Keystone” division were thrown into a nearly forgotten battle that fully represented the horrors of the War to End All Wars.
Of the vaunted ironclad warships of the US Civil War perhaps the mightiest and most terrifying was the confederate ram Tennessee. On August 5, 1864, she would be put to the test in the largest naval engagement of the war, an engagement that defined the divided loyalties of the War of the Rebellion.