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"Mallory... directed the Confederate navy department with a great deal of skill and in the Davis cabinet was second in ability only to Judah P. Benjamin.... For [his] difficult job he was better fitted than any other Southern politician, and he made policy with a laudable imagination... the author has constructed a well-proportioned biography." - Mississippi Valley Historical Review; "Mallory was willing to back naval inventions, strategy, and ideas, undeterred by newness. The successes and failures of Confederate naval innovations require a precise balancing in order to determine Mallory's place in history. To a considerable extent this has been done by Father Durkin.... [Confederate Navy Chief also] throws much light on the larger subject of the successes and failures of Jefferson Davis." - The Journal of Southern History"