Jamie Malanowski has been a writer and editor for 30 years. Currently Senior Speechwriter in the Office of Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, he has been an editor at Spy, Esquire; Time; and Playboy. He also served as the Lead Writer for the award-winning Disunion series in The New York Times. He is the author of And the War Came, an account of the six months that led up to the attack on Fort Sumter, and Commander Will Cushing, Daredevil Hero of the Civil War, as well as two novels. He lives in Briarcliff, New York.
Cushing summary
October 1864: The confederate ironclad Albemarle had sunk two federal warships and battered seven others, taking control of the Roanoke River in North Carolina and threatening the Union blockade. Twenty-one-year-old Navy lieutenant Will Cushing hatched a daring plan: to attack the fearsome warship with a few dozen men in two small wooden boats.
What followed, the close-range torpedoing of the Albemarle and Cushing’s harrowing escape from rebel posses, is one of the most dramatic individual exploits in American military history, and the capstone of a career full of adventures.
In Commander Will Cushing, Daredevil Hero of the Civil War, Jamie Malanowski brings to life a compelling and unheralded figure on the 150th anniversary of his greatest feat. Theodore Roosevelt said “(Cushing)comes next to Farragut on the hero roll of American naval history,” but few have ever heard of him today. Tossed out of the Naval Academy for “buffoonery,” frequently cautioned for headstrong and impetuous behavior, Cushing proved himself a prodigy in behind-the-lines warfare.
“Like many war stories, the tale of the young and rebellious Commander Will Cushing was tucked away into the dusty archives of history. Jamie Malanowski skillfully resurrects Cushing’s courageous adventures on the high seas during the Civil War in this action-packed page-turner. Beginning with Cushing’s youthful pranks at the U.S. Naval Academy and culminating with his triumphant sinking of the Confederate CSS Albermarle, Commander Will Cushing is a must-read about a daring young soldier whose extraordinary achievements have earned him a place alongside America’s most celebrated naval heroes.” -- Senator John McCain.
