Historian & Author to Discuss Daredevil Hero of the Civil War

Our American History

A FREE program series - open to the Public

 

Commander Will Cushing

Daredevil Hero of the Civil War

with Historian and Author

Jamie Malanowski

 

Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 10:00 am

 

In October 1864, the confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle had just sunk two federal warships and damaged seven others, taking control of the Roanoke River and threatening the entire Union blockade. But twenty-one-year-old navy lieutenant William Barker Cushing hatched a daring plan: to attack the fearsome warship with a few dozen men in two small wooden boats. What followed, the close-range torpedoing of the Albemarle and Cushing’s harrowing two-day escape downriver from vengeful Rebel posses, is one of the most dramatic individual exploits in American military history.

Tossed out of the Naval Academy for “buffoonery,” Cushing proved himself a prodigy in behind-the-lines warfare. Given command of a small union ship, he performed daring, near-suicidal raids, “cutting out” confederate ships and thwarting blockade runners. With higher commands and larger ships, Cushing’s exploits grew bolder, culminating in the sinking of the Albemarle.

In telling Cushing’s story, Malanowski paints a vivid, memorable portrait of the army officials, engineers, and politicians scrambling to win the war. But he also goes deeper into the psychology of the daredevil soldier - and what this heroic and tragic figure, who died before his time, can tell us about the ways we remember the glories of war.

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The Putnam Valley Historical Society

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Putnam Valley, NY 10579

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