The Best Station of Them All is the story of the Confederate navy’s Savannah Squadron, its relationship with the people of Savannah, Georgia, and its role in the city’s economy.

 

In this well-written and extensively researched narrative, Maurice Melton charts the history of the unit, the sailors (both white and black), the officers, their families, and their activities aboard ship and in port.

 

The Savannah Squadron worked, patrolled, and fought in the rivers and sounds along the Georgia coast. Though they saw little activity at sea, the unit did engage in naval assault, boarding, capture, and ironclad combat. The sailors finished the war as an infantry unit in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, fighting at Sayler’s Creek on the road to Appomattox.

 

Melton concentrates on navy life and the squadron’s place in wartime Savannah. The book reveals who the Confederate sailors were and what their material, social, and working lives were like.

 

The Best Station of Them All is an essential piece of historical literature for anyone interested in the Civil War, its navies, or Savannah.

Maurice Melton is an associate professor of history at Albany State University. He is the author of The Confederate Ironclads and of numerous articles on the Civil War navies.

“The subject of this book is very important and has never been fully researched or presented in print. It makes an important contribution to Civil War historiography.”—Robert M. Browning Jr, author of From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War