James Hamilton Tomb, CSN-- Part 2: Service in Charleston Harbor

James Tomb was at the forefront of naval weapon technology of the period.  he quickly amassed  not only the knowledge required of a steam engineer, but also the courage and capacity to assume important positions of command.

Within days of his commissioning, he was on his way to his first assignment-- first class engineer on the CSS Jackson at New Orleans, Louisiana, a point of great strategic importance.

This is where he began his memoirs  "Engineer in Gray."

The memoirs are a first-person narrative.  The editor intersperses that with explanatory comments.  The editor also fills in the life of Tomb before and after his Confederate service.  Three appendices also include documents by Tomb "Submarines and Torpedo Boats, C.S.N.,"  written in 1914 for the Confederate Veteran  Magazine, a private manuscript Tomb wrote for his family describing in detail his experience with the torpedo boat  David and submarine H.L. Hunley, and "Reminiscences of Torpedo Service in Charleston Harbor," published in 1877 in the Southern Historical Society Papers.

There is also a bibliography and many rare photographs.

Sounds Like a Book I'd Like to Have.  --Old Torp-Runner