The Devil’s Own Purgatory: The United States Mississippi River Squadron in the Civil War by Robert H. Gudmestad

Finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Center's Lincoln Prize
IPPY Gold Medal for Southern Non-fiction

The Devil’s Own Purgatory is the first complete history of the Union navy’s Mississippi Squadron, a fleet that prowled the Mississippi River and its tributaries during the American Civil War. The squadron battered Confederate forts, participated in combined operations with the army, obliterated the Confederate fleet, protected Union supply lines, fought a river-based counterinsurgency war, raided plantations, and facilitated the freedom of thousands of enslaved people.

About the Editor
Robert Gudmestad is professor of history at Colorado State University. He is the author of A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade and Steamboats and the Rise of the Cotton Kingdom.

Product Specifications

Published by LSU Press, Hardcover, 2025. 312 pages.