Among London's many problems as it grew at the beginning of the nineteenth century was travel between the two banks of the river Thames, which held important ports that could accept shipping coming up the river from the channel. Bridges would interfere with that important trade, so in the years of the 19th century engineers began to examine the only other option: instead of going over, going under the river.
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.