The Confederacy's only national naval academy was anchored in Virginia's James River aboard the CSS Patrick Henry. While their Union counterparts at the U.S. Naval Academy studied at a safe distance from the war, the midshipmen of the Confederate States Naval Academy were sent on active duty to defend the South's waterways. Using original Confederate documents and many previously unpublished letters and diaries, James Lee Conrad has compiled a fresh and scholarly study of a neglected subject.