Article on the USS Cairo, Precursor to the USS James B. Eads of Fire on Iron

Andrew Fox, author of the MonstraCity Press steampunk supernatural suspense thriller Fire on Iron has just posted a fascinating article on the real-life precursor to the book’s ironclad gunboat the USS James B. Eads — the USS Cairo (pronounced with a hard “A”). His article is chock-full of photographs of the famous ironclad, which was sunk in the Yazoo River in Mississippi in December, 1862 by a submerged Confederate mine (then called a torpedo). Slightly more than a century later, the sunken ironclad was raised in pieces from the bottom of the river by a historian from the nearby Vicksburg National Battlefield Park. If you’re at all interested in Civil War history or plan to read Fire on Iron, check it out!