In Success Is All That Was Expected, historian Robert Browning, the world's leading scholar of Union naval blockades during the American Civil War, gives a blow-by-blow account of the naval operations that helped to strangle the Confederacy.

Created in 1863 and charged with halting Confederate maritime commerce and closing ports on the Southern Atlantic coast from South Carolina to Florida, the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron was one of four Union coastal blockading squadrons. The squadron's numerous actions including harrowing engagements between ships and forts, daring amphibious assaults, battles between ironclad vessels, the harassment of Confederate blockade runners, and combating the incredible evolution of underwater warfare in the form of the CSS Hunley. But the blockade's success was constantly hampered by indecisive leaders in Washington who failed to express their strategic vision as well as by reputation-conscious naval commanders who were reluctant to press the fight when the specter of failure loomed. Despite lost opportunities, unfulfilled expectations, and failures along the way, the bravery, sacrifice, and vigilance of these fighting men played an important role in the Union's ultimate victory.

Success Is All That Was Expected joins Robert Browning's previous award-winning volume on the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron to create the benchmark for Civil War naval history. Together they tell the definitive story of Union naval operations off the Atlantic coast.