Mr. Lincoln's High-Tech War: How the North Used the Telegraph, Railroads, Surveillance Balloons, Ironclads, High-Powered Weapons, and More to Win the Civil War

Thomas B. Allen¿s expertise in military history and strategy is combined with Roger MacBride Allen¿s knowledge of technology to reveal a lesser known yet fascinating side of the sixteenth president of the United States. Their authoritative narrative reveals Lincoln as our nation¿s first hands-on commander-in-chief, whose appreciation for the power of technology plays a critical role in the North¿s Civil War victory over the less developed South.

We meet Lincoln as he exchanges vital telegraph messages with his generals in the field; we witness his inspection of new ship models at the navy yard; we view the president target shooting with the designer of a new kind of rifle; and we follow Lincoln, the man of action, as he leads a daring raid to recapture Norfolk, Virginia. The book¿s historic sweep also sets Abraham Lincoln in the context of his military era: we learn about the North¿s Anaconda Plan and the South¿s counter strategies and how the concept of total war replaced the old Napoleonic way of fighting.

Readers will come away with a rich sense of a leader who lived through one of the most exciting ages of technological and social change in America. Mr. Lincoln¿s High-Tech War brings alive a time when the railroad brought soldiers to and from the battlefields, when hot-air balloons were used for surveillance, and when ironclad warships revolutionized naval warfare.

A Blackstone Audio production.