• Acknowledgements


• Introduction


• 1861: GETTING UNDER WAY


• 1. "What Have I Done Wrong?" Lincoln and the Fort Sumter Crisis


• 2. "A Competent Force" Lincoln and the Blockade


• 3. "No Affront to the British Flag" Lincoln and the Trent Affair


• 1862: CHARTING A COURSE


• 4. "I Wont Leave Off Until It Fairly Rains Bombs" Lincoln and the River War


• 5. "It Strikes Me There's Something In It" Lincoln and the Monitor


• 6. "We Cannot Escape History" Lincoln and the Contraband


• 1863: TROUBLED WATERS


• 7. "The Peninsula All Over Again" Lincoln, Charleston, and Vicksburg


• 8. "I Shall Have to Cut This Knot" Lincoln as Adjudicator


• 9. "Peace Does Not Appear So Distant as it Did" Lincoln and Wartime Politics


• 1864: FULL SPEED AHEAD


• 10. "It Becomes Immensely Important to Us to Get the Cotton" Lincoln and the Red River Campaign


• 11. "A Vote of Thanks" Lincoln and the Politics of Promotion


• 12. "I Must Refer You to General Grant" Lincoln and the Fort Fisher Expedition


• 1865: FINAL HARBOR


• Epilogue: "Thank God I Have Lived to See This"


• Abbreviations Used in Notes


• Notes


• Bibliography


• Index

Craig L. Symonds is Professor Emeritus at the U.S. Naval Academy and the author of ten previous books, including Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History, which won the Theodore and Franklin D. Roosevelt Prize in 2006.

Abraham Lincoln began his presidency admitting that he knew "but little of ships," but he quickly came to preside over the largest national armada to that time, not eclipsed until World War I. Written by naval historian Craig L. Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals unveils an aspect of Lincoln's presidency unexamined by historians until now, revealing how he managed the men who ran the naval side of the Civil War, and how the activities of the Union Navy ultimately affected the course of history.