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Commander George E. Buker, USN
(ret.), a professor emeritus of history at Jacksonville University and the author of: Environment, the third E:
A history of the Jacksonville District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1975-1998; Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands: Civil
War on Florida’s Gulf Coast, 1861-1865; Swamp Sailors in the Second Seminole War; The Metal Life Car: The Inventor,
the Imposter, and the Business of Lifesaving; and, The Penobscot Expedition: Commodore Saltonstall and the Massachusetts Conspiracy
of 1779. Commander George E. Buker is also the co-author of Oldest City: St.
Augustine, Saga of Survival.
According to the book description
Swamp Sailors in the Second Seminole War, “The Indian Removal Act of 1830 led to the Second
Seminole War, fought by the United States to evict the Seminoles from the Florida Territory. When the last surviving Seminoles
sought refuge in the Everglades and resorted to guerrilla-style tactics, however, the U.S. Navy found its standard strategies
of guerre de course and gunboat coastal defense useless. For the first time in its history, the American Navy was forced to operate in a non-maritime environment.
In Swamp Sailors, George Buker describes how Navy junior officers outshone their commanders, proving themselves less resistant
to change and more ready to implement novel strategies, including joint combat operations and maneuvers designed specifically
for a riverine environment.
By 1842, when the Second Seminole
War was halted, Lt. John McLaughlin’s "Mosquito Fleet" exemplified the Navy’s new expertise by making
use of canoes and flat-bottomed boats and by putting together small, specially trained joint combat teams of Army and Navy
personnel for sustained land-sea operations. Originally published in 1975 and now in paperback for the first time, Buker’s Swamp Sailors is the story of
the U.S. Navy’s coming of age, sure to be of interest to military history enthusiasts, to students of Florida history,
and to armchair sailors everywhere”
The Journal of American History said
of Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands: Civil War on Florida’s Gulf Coast, 1861-1865, “[Buker]
argues that the presence of Union sailors and their extensive contacts ashore did serious damage to home-front morale and
retarded Florida's value as a component of the rebel war machine. Since the state's long coastlines made it a ready
target for a naval cordon, its commercial life suffered beginning in 1861 and deteriorated even further as the war progressed
despite the efforts of blockade runners. Florida Unionists, antiwar natives, and runaway slaves flocked to these Federal warships
to seek protection and quickly became a source of manpower for their crews as well as for land forces." - Journal of
Southern History; "The proliferation of publications concerning the American Civil War occasionally produces one that
really contributes to our understanding of that conflict. George E. Buker's Blockaders, Refugees, and Contrabands is such
a book.”
According to the book description of
The Metal Life Car: The Inventor, the Imposter, and the Business of Lifesaving, “This title
presents the fascinating story of American ingenuity and its struggle against bureaucracy and chicanery. For centuries sailing
vessels crept along the coastline, ready to flee ashore in case of danger or trouble; this worked well until weather or poor
sailing drove these ships against an unforgiving coast. Saviors and salvors (often the same people) struggled to rescue both
humans and cargo, often with results as tragic for them as for the sailors and passengers. Joseph Francis (b. Boston, Massachusetts,
1801) was an inventor who also had the ability to organize a business to produce his inventions and the salesmanship to sell
his products. His metal lifeboats, first used in survey expeditions in Asia Minor and Central America, came into demand among
the world's merchant marine, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Revenue Service. His corrugated "life car" was the
keystone to development of the U.S. Life-Saving Service. The metal boats played an important role in the Third Seminole War
in Florida. Francis' metal pontoon army wagons served in the trans-Mississippi campaigns against the Indians. In Europe,
he was acclaimed as a genius and sold patent rights to shipyards in Liverpool and the Woolwich Arsenal in England, Le Havre
seaport in France, in the free city of Hamburg, and in the Russian Empire. But while Francis was busy in Europe, Captain Douglass
Ottinger, U.S. Revenue Marine Service, claimed to be the inventor of Francis' life car and obtained support in the U.S.
Congress and the Patent Office for his claim. Francis had to battle for decades to prove his rights, and Americans remained
generally unfamiliar with his devices, thereby condemning Civil War armies to inferior copies while Europe was using, and
acclaiming, his inventions.”
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