Eastern Branch Press is pleased to announce the new paperback edition of John R. Wennersten's The Oyster Wars of Chesapeake Bay. In the decades following the Civil War, Chesapeake Bay became the scene of a life and death struggle to harvest the oyster, one of the most valuable commodi­ties on the Atlantic coast. In this book, noted historian and author John Wennersten tells the stories of wa­termen, law enforcement officers, government officials, Bay scientists, immi­grants, and oyster shuckers involved in the oyster trade.