Illustrated, maps, notes, bibliography, index, paperback edition, 282 pp., 2010. Schiffer, www.schifferbooks.com, $29.99, softcover.

The naval career of John Y. Beall, originally from Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, demonstrates the nature of the irregular Civil War conflicts on the Chesapeake Bay .

Yates joined the Confederate Navy as a “quasi-privateer” on the bay. Richmond officials supplied him with boats and equipment, but he had to recruit his own crew. The men were paid from the loot recovered from captured prize ships. Beall and his men were little more than pirates from the Union point of view.

On one remarkable four-day expedition in September 1863, Beall’s crew of less than 20 boarded and captured seven Union vessels in the Chesapeake. The largest, the schooner Alliance, hailed from Philadelphia, and was headed for Port Royal, S.C., with a valuable cargo of sutlers' stores for Union troops.

Federal authorities were so outraged by Ball’s depredations that they assembled a joint navy/army amphibious task force to hunt him down at his base in Mathews County, Va. No fewer than 11 Union gunboats blocked egress from Mobjack Bay while several cavalry and infantry regiments disembarked and moved inland to search for their prey.

Although the invasion apprehended several of Beall’s men, the bulk of the raiders, including Beall himself, and his two distinctive cutters eluded capture. Indeed, this Gray Ghost of the Chesapeake was back seizing another Union ship on the bay within a few weeks.

This entertaining and original book, a paperback reprint of the hardcover 1996 volume, is a startling reminder that the Chesapeake Bay was one of the two major geographic features that shaped the course of the war’s Eastern Theater (the other being the Shenandoah Valley).

Mills concentrates much of his story on shore batteries, gunboats, smugglers and partisan rangers. However, he manages to discuss many of the major issues than hinged in one way or another on the vital Chesapeake Bay.

These include: the Baltimore riot of April 1861 that threatened to cut off Washington’s land access to the Northeast, the Confederate seizure of the Norfolk Navy Yard that threatened to enable the Rebels to break the naval blockade and control access to the Chesapeake Bay;

And, the breaking of Washington’s land isolation early in the war through the use of troops transported up the Chesapeake Bay and landed in Annapolis, and the rampant smuggling of critical war materials to Richmond through the city of Baltimore, a nonpartisan type of profiteering that made some merchants rich.

Also included are the frequent seizures of Union vessels in the Chesapeake by official and unofficial Confederate privateers, a situation that kept residents of the area in constant turmoil throughout the war; the Union’s bloodless invasion of Virginia’s Eastern Shore, and the naval battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (Merrimack), which again helped to determine control of the all-important Chesapeake.

This book enlightens us on aspects of the Chesapeake Theater that were under-reported in the past. For those who like their history in an easy-to-digest format, this amply-illustrated book is a smooth and agreeable read.

Reviewer: Walt Albro

Walt Albro is a magazine editor and writer based in Rockville, Md. His history articles have appeared in such publications as MHQ (Military History Quarterly), Military History and The Civil War Times.