RADM Charles Henry Davis
15 APRIL 1862
RADM CHARLES HENRY DAVIS
Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Civil War Western Gunboat Flotilla supporting US Army operations in the upper Mississippi River, was in poor health. He had been struck in this foot with shrapnel in February at the battle of Fort Donelson—a wound which festered and was now giving him considerable pain. Of late, he was developing episodes of fever and prostration that were hampering his ability to command. In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles dated this day, he recommended CAPT Charles H. Davis as his successor should his health warrant his relief. Foote left the squadron on 9 May to recuperate back east, appointing Davis as temporary commodore of the flotilla. The next day, the flotilla suffered an embarrassing defeat at Plum Point Bend off Fort Pillow, Tennessee, at the hands of Confederate gunboat/rams.
Charles Henry Davis was a respected senior officer in his day. Though not a combat veteran, his work in mathematics, navigation, marine science, and astronomy had earned him acclaim. As flotilla commander he quickly rebounded from Plum Point Bend, staging a one-sided victory over the same Confederate gunboat/rams at Memphis on June 6th. He next moved his 12-ship ironclad/timberclad flotilla to Milliken’s Bend just north of Vicksburg. While awaiting LTGEN Ulysses S. Grant’s actions, Davis conducted reconnaissance forays in the White River of Arkansas and Mississippi’s Yazoo River on 5-8 August and 16-27 August respectively.
But as the summer of 1862 wore on, an outbreak of malaria gripped the Vicksburg area. To protect his crews from the “bad air,” Davis moved the flotilla 150 miles north to Helena, Arkansas. Back in Washington, Union leaders cared little about malaria and saw Davis’ action as timidity. Welles already thought Davis more a scholar than an aggressive, fighting commander. Davis was relieved on 12 October and appointed, instead, as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. He was promoted to RADM a few months later, on 7 February 1863.
Back in Washington, Davis’ remarkable scientific work continued. After the war he became the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory and served with the Lighthouse Board. Off duty, Davis was an original founder of our present-day National Academy of Sciences. Davis continues to be honorably remembered by our Navy with USS DAVIS (TB-12, DD-65, DD-295) and the oceanographic research vessel CHARLES H. DAVIS (AGOR-5). As well, a sea anemone native to the Canadian Maritimes, Rhodactis davisii, is named to honor his contributions to Marine Science.
Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History 22 APR 25
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Cogar, William B. Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 41-43.
Davis, Charles Henry, Jr. The Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral, 1807-1877. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1899.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 244-45.
Stewart, Charles W. Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862. Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 63.
Stewart, Charles wW Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862. Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, pp, 85-86.
Stewart, Charles W. Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862. Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 395.
ADDITIONAL NTOES: Charles Davis was largely self-taught. He had studied mathematics at Harvard College from 1821-23, but left before finishing after his appointment to the Naval Academy. Harvard recognized Davis with an honorary Bachelor of Arts degree in 1841 and an honorary Legum Doctor degree (LL.D.) in 1868. Davis died on Active Duty on 18 February 1877 and is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 70 years old.
Davis was replaced in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla by RADM David Dixon Porter. The Western Gunbpat Flotilla shortly transferred to the US Navy as the Mississippi Squadron.
Andrew Foote’s medical issue may well have been chronic osteomyelitis with periodic breakouts of sepsis. He would live only into the next year, succumbing to one such episode in 1863.
USS CHARLES H. DAVIS operated with the US Navy from 1962-70, when she was loaned to the New Zealand Navy. She served there until 1998 while still being carried on our books as T-AGOR-5. She was stricken from our NVR in 1998 and sunk as an artificial reef off New Zealand the following year.
