Dwight S. Hughes

**Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The USS Monitor and the Battle of Hampton Roads**

The USS Monitor was an ingenious but hurried response to both the imminent threat of the Confederate ironclad, CSS Virginia (ex USS Merrimack), and to the growing prospect of international intervention backed by powerful British or French seagoing ironclads... >READ MORE

The Sailor and The Soldier at Vicksburg: Unprecedented Joint Operations

Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter, commander of the Union Mississippi River Squadron, formed an underappreciated partnership with General Ulysses S. Grant to conquer the Confederate bastion at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The U.S. Navy had never undertaken extensive operations on inland waterways... >READ MORE

Rebel Odyssey: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah

The Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah carried the Civil War to the ends of the earth through every extreme of sea and storm pursuing a perilous mission in which they succeeded spectacularly after it no longer mattered. This thirteen-month, global cruise (October 1864-November 1865) was... >READ MORE

Unvexed Waters: Mississippi River Squadron

History offers few examples other than the American Civil War and the conflict in Vietnam of extensive military operations on inland waterways requiring specialized classes of war vessels commanded and manned by naval personnel. The contest for the Mississippi River and its tributaries—the spine of America—was one of the longest and most challenging... >READ MORE

Burnside’s Sand March: The Forgotten North Carolina Expedition

Poor General Ambrose Burnside. He gets no respect. Bumbling his way across Burnside Bridge at Antietam, through the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg and the Mud March. But before all that, Burnside’s innovative planning and effective leadership brought significant victory in a series of engagements... >READ MORE

**From Shenandoah to Seeadler: The Legacy of Civil War Commerce Raiders in WWI**

Rebel raiders Alabama, Florida,Shenandoah, and their sisters wreaked havoc on powerful Union shipping and whaling industries. Confederates applied new industrial technologies to advance ancient concepts of commerce warfare and to develop innovative cruiser warships while the U.S. Navy struggled to... >READ MORE

Rebels Down Under: A Surprise Confederate Visitor Makes Mayhem in Melbourne

January 1865: Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah invades the bustling port of Melbourne—the most remote and most British imperial outpost with intriguing parallels to dynamic U.S. frontier cities. The citizenry (including a sizeable American expatriate community) split into... >READ MORE

Rebels and Aliens: Confederates on the Far Side of the World

owering verdant peaks sprouted from aquamarine seas as the commerce raider CSS Shenandoah approached the Island of Pohnpei on April fool’s day, 1865. While the country they served lay dying, this microcosm of the Confederacy carried the conflict to the remotest Pacific. There they encountered a... >READ MORE

The Naval Civil War in Theaters Near and Far

The naval Civil War encompassed distinct zones of conflict—Wide Oceans, Offshore Blockade, Peripheral Coasts and Harbors, and Heartland Rivers—each demonstrating unique challenges. This presentation overviews naval theaters with their diverse strategic, tactical, technological, and command characteristics, along with their impact on land campaigns. >READ MORE

“They really enjoyed your presentation, were blown away by your expert use of graphics, and learned a lot about the CSS Shenandoah and the men who sailed in her.”

– Richmond Civil War Roundtable

“Your research was thorough and impressive, and your videography was beautifully and informatively presented. A fascinating story, and well done by you.”

– Hampton Roads Civil War Roundtable

ABOUT DWIGHT

Dwight Hughes is a public historian, author, and speaker in Civil War naval history and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1967 with a major in History and Government. He served twenty years as a Navy surface warfare officer on most of the world’s oceans in ships ranging from destroyer to aircraft carrier and with river forces in Vietnam (Bronze Star for Meritorious Service, Purple Heart). Lieutenant Commander Hughes taught Naval ROTC at the University of Rochester, earning an MA in Political Science. He later earned an MS in Information Systems Management from USC.

Dwight S. Hughes

New!

A compilation of navy tales and obscure narratives by distinguished public historians of the Emerging Civil War in celebration of the organization’s tenth anniversary.

SELECT A PRESENTATION, 50 Minutes with Slides