Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914) was an American naval officer, considered one of the most important naval strategists of the nineteenth century. In 1885 he was appointed Lecturer in Naval History and Tactics at the US Naval War College, and served as President of the institution between 1886 and 1889. His series of books examining the role of sea power in history influenced the rapid growth of international navies in the period before World War I. This book, first published in 1883 and reissued here in its 1898 London edition, examines the role of the navy in the American Civil War of 1861-1865. It covers actions in the Gulf of Mexico and along the length of the Mississippi, where the Union's blockade starved the Confederate army of vital resources. Mahan himself had served on the Union side, and interviewed veterans in order to supplement the official naval records.