27-28 AUGUST 1861 HATTERAS INLET Union MGEN Benjamin F. Butler, commanding Fort Monroe but not renowned for his tactical genius, nevertheless cleared Rebels from the Newport News region of Virginia during the spring of 1861. This effort was defeated at the Read More
5 AUGUST 1864 METACOMET vs. SELMA As RADM David Farragut forced Mobile Bay, the channel coursed only several hundred yards from the heavy Confederate guns of Fort Morgan. To protect his wooden warships, Farragut ordered smaller gunboats lashed to the starboard Read More
12-13 MAY 1862 ESCAPE OF PLANTER Robert Smalls was a 23-year-old slave who was contracted by his owner to Charleston, SC, tradesmen in exchange for the pay he earned. The Spring of 1862 found Smalls in the employ of C.J. Relyea, Read More
23-24 APRIL 1865 CSS WEBB’S RUN FOR THE SEA The 206-foot sidewheel steamboat William H. Webb started her career as a coastal steamer in New York in 1856. She fell into Confederate hands in 1861 and was converted to a ram Read More
24 MARCH 1865 CSS STONEWALL In the early years of the Civil War Confederate agents engaged British shipbuilding firms in laying warships for the Confederacy. One such warship, Stonewall, was designed to be an able challenger to Union blockaders. In her Read More
4-5 MARCH 1864 CHERRYSTONE RAID The strong Union presence in the Norfolk area by this date in the Civil War attracted the attention of local Rebels. In fact, Confederate Navy CDR John Taylor Wood made himself notorious by staging a series of bold Read More
4-5 FEBRUARY 1864 USS SASSACUS vs. NUTFIELD Blockade running was a complicated pursuit even for the most skilled of seamen. European goods were shipped to staging points in Bermuda, the Bahamas, or the Caribbean. Here, smaller, sleek, fast ships would load Read More
15 JANUARY 1865 USS PATAPSCO The Rebel-controlled guns of Forts Sumter, Moultrie, and Johnson straddling the entrance to Charleston harbor anchored the Confederate defenses in the late Civil War. The mouth of the harbor and the entrance channel were obstructed with Read More
14 SEPTEMBER 1861 THE FIRING OF JUDAH Had other theaters of the early Civil War not been in the limelight, the tension at Pensacola might have been keener. The Confederates held the Pensacola Navy Yard and Forts Barrancas and McRee guarding Read More