The unsung heroes of the naval war in the Western theater weren’t the city class casemate ironclads, but a much larger and more active fleet of more than seventy, much smaller, lightly armored vessels. The “Tinclads” of the US Civil War deserve to be remembered.
On October 7, 1864 a battle between a Confederate commerce raider and a US sloop of war brought the nation to the brink of a foreign war.