That Anvil of Our Souls: A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack

I enjoyed the technical detail of the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor, as well as the somewhat similar and yet very different personalities associated with each. One reviewer stated he thought Poyer had a bias toward one side or the other - I don't think so. I think the book is mostly agnostic and presents the well known arguments for and against both sides as part of the story, without being preachy in either case. It is really more a book about naval technology, strategy, and how the best laid plans can go awry. Poyer is a naval adventure writer who produces literature and not just pulp. He creates the sights, sounds, and smells of the battle. the only thing I did not like about this book was that it was a bit constrained by the conceit of showing the same event from the perspective of perhaps a few too many people. But each of the key characters is well-developed and engaging, even when they might be repulsive or admirable.

David Poyer is a naval writer of some distinction. Some years ago, I read one of his books and wasn't impressed with it. I returned to him to try again when I bought Fire on the Water, and then its two sequels, A Country of Our Own and the current book, The Anvil of Our Souls. Frankly, I think I'm glad I gave him another try, and I'm considering going back and trying his other stuff again. The three books mentioned above are part of a series of novels that deal with the American Civil War, focusing on the naval aspects of the campaign. The first book recounts the experiences of the crew of a United States warship, most of the officers of which are Southerners. The second book follows the executive officer of that ship as he becomes a Confederate raider on the high seas. This third book instead focuses on most of the rest of the characters from the first book, following the black escaped slave who was a gunner, the doctor (a Southerner), an engineer who understands steam engines, and so forth. One of the main characters of this third volume is the ardent Southerner from the second book, Minter, who's portrayed rather negatively in spite of the fact he's a rebel. The central portion of the plot of this book surrounds the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac. The author is obviously a sailor himself, and he's apparently done a prodigious amount of research, so everything is very authentic, right down to Worden's Elmer-Fudd-like accent and the method of pointing the guns in the Monitor's turret away from the enemy when reloading. The battle is recounted in considerable detail, and occupies what must be the middle 200 pages of the book. Even though you know how things come out, it's still suspenseful and interesting. I enjoyed this book a great deal, and I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.

Don't miss this book. Once more Poyer weaves his tale masterfully, but this time he's telling a story about an internationally famous and widely studied event. Many pitfalls no matter how he presents it. So he has taken us inside the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, and shows us how it was to those on the scene. They have no clue to the outcome, and they know how many times in the battle a close call could go either way. Tragedy or victory, ending the war, seems within fingertips througout the epoch shaking confrontation. Technology makes a difference and individual personalities makes a difference, but no one could have predicted the end result of a standoff, the most tenuous of all possibilities. Rarely has historical fiction portrayed so well the context surrounding a famous event, showing that "nothing had to happen the way it happened when it happened", as David McCullough reminds us.