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Summary and Reviews of That Anvil of Our Souls by David Poyer

That Anvil of Our Souls by David Poyer

That Anvil of Our Souls

A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack

by David Poyer
  • Critics' Consensus (2):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 28, 2005, 438 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jul 2006, 432 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

In the third volume of David Poyer's monumental Civil War at Sea cycle, North meets South in the momentous first battle between ironclads.

In the third volume of David Poyer's monumental Civil War at Sea cycle, North meets South in the momentous first battle between ironclads.

We first met Elisha Eaker, Theodorus Hubbard, Araminta Van Velsor, Dr. Alphaeus Steele, Calpurnius Hanks, and Ker and Catherine Claiborne in Fire on the Waters, witnessing their unwilling but inescapable choosing of sides as America split into two nations. Then, in A Country of Our Own, Ker took the war to the North, as captain of the fastest, most heavily armed Confederate commerce raider ever to put to sea.

Now, That Anvil of Our Souls takes us into the turrets and casemates of the most decisive sea engagement of the Civil War. In New York, Theo is the engineer for a revolutionary new "fighting machine" called the Monitor, and eager to become a man of means...so eager, a bribe compromises his integrity. In Norfolk, Catherine faces her husband's impending hanging for piracy, the death of their baby daughter, and the bitter realities of enemy occupation.

In Richmond, Lt. Lomax Minter is ordered to find a spy who threatens the South's ultimate weapon: a tremendous ironclad named Virginia, rebuilt from a sunken wreck in a race against time. While the aging Dr. Steele witnesses the horrors that are the aftermath of glory; and gun-captain Hanks, escaped slave, struggles with the demons of his past and the twin snakes of "freedom."

Poyer's vivid characters join with meticulously researched historic figures to re-create the bloodiest conflict in American history -- one whose reverberations will endure as long as freedom, equality, and home have different meanings in proud human hearts.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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Power is the author of at least 25 novels and is often described as the most popular living author of American sea fiction. In addition to being a novelist, he's also a public policy analyst and a retired naval office. He has written a couple of stand-alone novels but the rest of his books fall into four series - those starring ex-SEAL Tiller Galloway, the Dan Lenson novels set in the modern navy, the Hemlock County novels (his only landlocked series set in the area of Pennsylvania where he grew up), and his Civil War series...continued

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Beyond the Book



The USS Merrimack (scuttled by the Union forces when they abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard at Portsmouth, VA, and renamed the Virginia by the Confederate forces who subsequently raised her) and the Monitor (built in about 90 days by John Ericsson) fought the first engagement between ironclad ships, in March 1862. If you can't remember the outcome I'm not going to tell you here as it would be a bit of a plot spoiler!

However, I will tell you that the Monitor sank in heavy ...

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Read-Alikes

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