It is difficult to pin down a number, but the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association estimates that between one third and one half million people died in Atlantic hurricanes between 1492 and 1994. More than a thousand of those lives were lost on July 31st, 1715, in a tragedy more remembered for treasure than people.
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.