The Civil War is often considered a "soldiers war" but Life in Jefferson Davis's Navy acknowledges the legacy of courage endurance and the ability of the officers and men of the Confederate States Navy.

In this full length study Tomblin addresses every aspect of a Confederate sailor's life: shipboard routine the Sabbath liberty entertainment diet health medical care discipline imprisonment desertion and combat experience. To man a burgeoning fleet the Confederate Navy Department established rendezvous to recruit seamen or relied on foreign seamen shipped in foreign ports or enticed by commerce raider captains to enlist. Drawing on diaries letters newspaper accounts and published works Tomblin offers a fresh look at the wartime experience of officers and men in the Confederate Navy who served on gunboats on western rivers ironclads and ships along the coast and at Mobile bay as well as on the high seas aboard the Confederate raiders Sumter Alabama Florida and Shenandoah. This narrative describes as well the work of Confederate Navy surgeons and surgeon's stewards who provided medical care for naval personnel who suffered from a variety of illnesses such malaria dysentery smallpox and yellow fever as well as injuries caused by accidents or during combat.

The author also explores the daily life deprivations and suffering of those who were captured and spent time in Union prisoner of war camps at Point Lookout Elmira Johnson's Island and Fort Delaware. Confederate prisoners' journals and letters give an intimate account of their struggle to survive the boredom poor rations and living conditions of imprisonment with little opportunity to escape or be granted prisoner exchange. Tomblin does not overlook the important contribution of the Torpedo Service and various experimental craft such as Squib and the Hunley all designed to destroy Union blockaders. Life in Jefferson Davis' Navy concludes with the final months of the war afloat on the James River and with navy men manning gun batteries at Fort Fisher and Drewry's Bluff or fighting the Yankees as naval infantry with the "Aye Ayes" of the Semmes brigade.