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, owner of the 147-foot sidewheel steamer Planter.  Smalls served as pilot, a task at which he had become quite skilled.  Planter was one of the fastest boats in Charleston Harbor, encouraging the Confederate Navy to draft her into service as the dispatch boat for BGEN Roswell S. Ripley, the Confederate Army district commander.  On a day Capt. Relyea was ashore, Smalls donned the skipper’s hat in sport.  His co-worker’s jests to the effect that Smalls looked, “jus like de cap’un,” triggered an idea.

An opportunity presented itself on the night of 12-13 May while Planter was tied to Southern Wharf outside Ripley’s headquarters.  Relyea was ashore for the night.  One by one over several hours Smalls and six fellow Negroes walked unobtrusively aboard.  Sentries posted on the dock apparently took the activity for routine and challenged no one.  Not even at 0300, when Smalls fired the boilers, were the guards alarmed.  At 0330 Smalls cast off still raising no concern among those who had grown accustomed to seeing the steamer come and go.  Smalls’ band turned first up the Cooper River and coursed a few miles to meet the steamer Etowah, upon which their wives and children had hidden.

Risking certain execution if caught, Smalls now turned toward the mouth of Charleston Harbor.  He had timed his arrival off Fort Sumter to coincide with the twilight of dawn so as to avoid having to answer a hail.  As he passed the great guns of the fort he donned Relyea’s distinctive hat and hid his face.  The corporal of Ft. Sumter’s guard received a report of the boat’s movement, but such was not unusual, as Planter had run past the fort many early mornings on errands for the General.  But this time the steamer headed straight out to sea.  Once out of range of Sumter’s guns Smalls opened the throttle, struck the Stars and Bars and hoisted a white flag.  He made for the blockading ship USS ONWARD who accepted Planter’s surrender after some initial confusion.

Planter was discovered to be carrying six heavy guns, four of which had been removed from the Stono River defenses to be emplaced in Charleston’s forts.  Smalls had assisted in the loading of the weapons and knew of the Confederate defensive deployments.  Planter was taken into the Union Navy with whom she proved herself valuable for inshore patrols, having a draft of less than four feet.  Smalls survived the War and eventually entered politics to serve as Congressman from South Carolina from 1875-87.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  17 MAY 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, pp. 324-25.

Lineberry, Kate.  “The Thrilling Tale of How Robert Smalls Seized a Confederate Ship and Sailed it to Freedom.”  Smithsonian Magazine, June 2017.  AT: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/thrilling-tale-how-robert-smalls-heroically-sailed-stolen-confederate-ship-freedom-180963689/, retrieved 25 April 2026.

“Official Robert Smalls’ Website and Information Center.”  Robert Smalls Legacy Foundation, Inc., Press Release No. 12, www.robertsmalls.org/feb12-press-release.htm, 22 April 2004.

“Thar She Blows.”  Commercial Appeal (Memphis), 22 April 2004, p. A-8.

Wilcox, Arthur M. and Warren Ripley.  The Civil War at Charleston.  Charleston, SC: The News and Courier, 1989, pp. 31-32.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Smalls, his wife Hannah and two children, and Planter’s black crewmen and their wives and children all escaped slavery in this exploit—16 total.

In the 2021 Congressionally mandated purge of Confederate names from US military bases and assets, the names of several Navy warships were identified for change.  USS CHANCELLORSVILLE (CG-62), named for a Confederate victory in the Civil War, was renamed USS ROBERT SMALLS.  The cruiser continues to remember Mr. Smalls today, despite President Donald Trump’s reversal of the renaming of US Army bases.

Robert Smalls was also a member of the South Carolina militia after the war, rising to the rank of Major General.  On 21 April 2004, the US Army launched its logistics support ship MAJ GEN ROBERT SMALLS (LSV-8) from the docks at Moss Point, Mississippi.  She is the first US Army ship named for an African American and the first to be named for a Civil War hero.

The post Escape of Planter appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                     CSS NEUSE

Union forces gained control of North Carolina’s shoreline south of the Virginia border during the first year of the Civil War.  By late 1862, Union troops were garrisoned at New Bern on the Neuse River, Washington on the Tar River, and in Plymouth on the Roanoke River.  This Union presence on key commercial waterways constantly irritated, if not outright threatened, North Carolina’s governor.  Late in 1862 contracts were let for five ironclad gunboats intended to help North Carolinians retake their rivers.  The gunboats were to be constructed at inland towns many miles upstream, with the intent to attack downriver, hopefully in conjunction with Confederate land forces.  Two of these were to be nearly identical 150-foot, 600-ton ironclad sister ships, each mounting two rifled cannon and an iron ram under the bows.  CSS ALBEMARLE was laid down at Edward’s Ferry on the Roanoke River, and CSS NEUSE was started at Whitehall (modern Seven Springs) on the Neuse River south of Goldsboro.

ALBEMARLE slid off the ways first and proved a decisive factor in Confederate MGEN Robert F. Hoke’s successful attack on the Union garrison at Plymouth, NC, on 20 April 1864.  Hoke’s victory encouraged a similar operation a week later against New Bern on the Neuse.  MGEN George E. Pickett’s (of Gettysburg fame) force was based at Kinston, 30 miles upriver from New Bern.  CSS NEUSE had barely been completed when she was ordered from Kinston in support of Pickett’s attack.  To complicate matters the Spring rains had ended, and the level of the river was dropping daily.  NEUSE drafted eight feet, and sensing he must get underway with haste or be trapped in Kinston, LT Benjamin Loyall, CSN, decided he could await his pilot no longer.  The ironclad got underway this day.  NEUSE had two 6-foot diameter screws, but by shortsighted design, both were driven by a single shaft.  The screws could not be used to assist in steering, and predictably, at a bend in the river only 1/2 a mile downstream, NEUSE ran hard aground.

Without his ironclad support Pickett postponed his attack.  For weeks Loyall and his crew labored to refloat the ironclad but succeeded only in returning her to her berth at Kinston.  ALBEMARLE was ordered from the Roanoke as NEUSE’s replacement but was interdicted in transit.  Pickett’s opportunity at New Bern passed, and as Union troops moved into Kinston shortly thereafter, NEUSE was fired and scuttled to prevent her capture.

CSS NEUSE lay undisturbed for a century.  Then in 1961 local Kinstonians began an effort to salvage her wreck.  She was damaged considerably in the process, but her preserved hull can be seen today at a historical site off State Route 70 in Kinston.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  2 MAY 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 552.

Site visit.  CSS Neuse historical site.  Kinston, NC, 15 January 2002.

Still, William N., Jr.  Iron Afloat:  The Story of the Confederate Armorclads.  Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1985, pp. 91, 158-63.

Trotter, William R.  Ironclads and Columbiads:  The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, Pub., 1989, p. 234.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Today it is possible to wade across the Neuse River in many locations, and as such, it’s hard to imagine an ironclad gunboat operating in her upland reaches.  But in the early 19^th century our coastal rivers represented major routes of commerce, and the Army Corps of Engineers continuously dredged the Neuse, Tar, and Roanoke rivers.  At one point in the late 1800s the Neuse was navigable as far inland as Smithfield, NC, 75 miles upstream.  In the 1920s however, the development of efficient railroads obviated the need for river transport, and dredging in the Neuse above New Bern was abandoned.

          The other three ironclads contracted in 1862 were all laid on the Cape Fear River at Wilmington; CSS RALEIGH, CSS WILMINGTON, and CSS NORTH CAROLINA.  WILMINGTON was not completed before the war’s end.  NORTH CAROLINA and RALEIGH both reached the mouth of the Cape Fear River, where RALEIGH made an impotent, 6 May 1864 sortie against Union blockaders offshore.  It was the only combat any Wilmington ironclad saw other than service as a floating artillery battery. 

The post CSS NEUSE appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                    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 a year later.  Lacking plate iron to protect her boilers, her outfitters “armored” her nevertheless with layers of cotton bales stacked around her mechanical spaces.  Her bow-mounted 130-pounder Rodman gun and two 12-pounder howitzers, along with a spar torpedo on a long pole from her bows, suited her for operations against Union gunboats on the Mississippi.  But after the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863 the Union Navy completely controlled the Mississippi.  CSS WEBB found herself trapped in Louisiana’s Red River by Union gunboats waiting at its confluence with the Mississippi.

The Confederacy was in its waning months by the time LT Charles W. Read, CSN, volunteered himself to President Jefferson Davis.   Impressed with WEBB’s phenomenal 22 knots speed, Read arrived in early April in Alexandria, Louisiana, and labored for three weeks to muster a crew and provision the vessel for duty.  He became increasingly frustrated over news of the surrender of Lee at Appomattox and wrote to President Jefferson Davis of his plan tomake a last-ditch dash to the open sea.  On this afternoon of 23 April his preparations were complete.

Read’s departure from Alexandria was timed to arrive at the Mississippi after sunset, and at 2030 WEBB charged into the “Father of Waters” under a full head of steam.  The sudden arrival of the white-painted sidewheeler took the three blockading Union gunboats by surprise.  The confusion was deepened as Read displayed a Union ensign, correctly flown at half-mast out of respect for President Lincoln’s recent death.  By the time the Federals discerned the situation, WEBB had a considerable downstream lead.  Read charged down the Mississippi at frightful speed in a chase that followed, estimated by some at up to 25 knots.  He stopped only once to cut telegraph wires along the bank and outdistanced the Union ironclads USS TENNESSEE and MANHATTAN and the gunboats SELMA and QUAKER CITY that were overtaken by surprise.  He reached New Orleans in three hours, running this city at midnight against the fire of Union gunboats that had been forewarned.  The unshaken Read now broke the Confederate ensign and plunged onward.

But 25 miles further Read reached his bitter end.  Running upon the powerful guns of the Union screw frigate USS RICHMOND and leading a flock of pursuing gunboats, Read set WEBB ablaze and ran her aground.  He and his crew were quickly rounded up before sunrise, ending this last significant action of the Confederate Navy in home waters.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  28 APR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Clark, Charles E.  My Fifty Years in the Navy.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1984, p. 65.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. V-92.

Luraghi, Raimondo.  A History of the Confederate Navy.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1996, pp. 339-40.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 231.

Trudeau, Noah Andre.  Out of the Storm:  The End of the Civil War, April-June 1865.  Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 1994, 336-38.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  WEBB was hit only three times in this five-hour chase.  Her only noteworthy damage was to the rigging of her spar torpedo, which had to be jettisoned.  This loss of the spar torpedo may have influenced Read’s decision to scuttle the steamer rather than tackle USS RICHMOND.

Contemporary Union accounts of this episode downplay the surprise they experienced and concentrate rather on the speed of WEBB.  Ironically, despite accounts to the contrary, WEBB’s appearance had probably surprised RICHMOND as well, the latter being unprepared to offer resistance.

Charles William “Savez” Read graduated last in his US Naval Academy class of 1860.  A Mississippi native, he joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter.  His class rank at the Academy belies his conduct as a Naval officer.  His daring raids and surprising successes earned him the nickname “Seawolf of the Confederacy.”

Lee surrendered at Appomattox on 9 April, and by this date the Civil War was all but over.  Read’s men were captured and subjected to public display in New Orleans before being paroled to return to their homes.  Two days later, on 26 April, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the last Confederate force of consequence, the Army of Tennessee, in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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                                                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 bow was an 11-inch rifle that fired a massive 300# shell, and two 70# cannon pierced an aft turret.  She was overlain with 4-inches of iron plating and mounted a heavily plated ram beneath her cutwater.  Powered by both sails and steam, she was capable of open ocean cruising.  Union and rebel planners alike envisioned her breaking the blockade, disrupting commercial shipping, and even bombarding New England towns.  The Union Navy anticipated great problems countering her, such that rumors of the formidable Stonewall paralyzed war planners.  But the fortunes of the South changed after the battle of Gettysburg, and spurred by a Lincoln administration protest, the British government canceled the partially completed Stonewall.  Confederate agents arranged for the ironclad to be completed in France, but again Lincoln protested.  French emperor Napoleon III was colonizing Mexico at the time and wished not to provoke the ire of the US.  He sold the nearly finished ironclad to the Danish for use in their war with Prussia.  That war ended abruptly however, and Confederate agents secretly negotiated a re-purchase of the ironclad from Denmark. 

But as CAPT Thomas J. Page, CSN, sailed STONEWALL from Copenhagen early in the new year of 1865, a violent storm forced him into Ferrol, Spain.  Union Navy CAPT Thomas T. Craven was dispatched in the wooden screw steamers USS NIAGARA and SACRAMENTO to Coruna, nine miles up the Spanish coast, with orders to intercept her.  Learning of the nearby Union presence, Page steamed out this day in a bold challenge.  Craven was wary of STONEWALL’s thick armor and powerful guns and chose to keep the ram under observation from afar.  STONEWALL reached Bermuda unmolested on 6 May 1865 only to learn there of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.

Craven was greeted on his return with a court martial.  Though his assessment of the relative strength of STONEWALL was probably quite correct, his apparent timidity in dealing with the enemy became the topic of the day.  Presiding at his court martial was the unflinching VADM David Farragut.  CAPT John A. Winslow, who had boldly defeated the dreaded CSS ALABAMA in a ship-to-ship duel off France in 1864, was a panel member.  Neither was Craven’s case aided by a letter from Confederate agent in Europe James D. Bulloch expressing incredulity that two heavily armed warships showed any fear of STONEWALL.  Craven was convicted and suspended from the active duty roster for two years, though shortly thereafter he was restored to duty by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  30-31 MAR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. V-65, VI-304.

Love, Robert W.  History of the US Navy, Vol 1  1775-1941.  Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 268-69.

Munson, Robert W.  “Stonewall: The Confederate that Went to Japan.”  Sea Classics, Vol 50 (2), February 2017, pp. 38-41, 52-53.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 200-01.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, p. 90.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Welles restoration of Craven was not exactly for magnanimous reasons.  Craven had been sentenced to a two-year suspension from duty on leave pay.  But the ever-pragmatic Welles was unable to stomach a convicted coward receiving what he termed a “paid vacation” at government expense.  The conviction apparently did not hinder Craven’s career.  Following restoration to active duty he was appointed to command the Navy Yard at Mare Island, near San Francisco.  He was promoted to RADM in 1866 and retired from the Navy in 1868.

Three US Navy warships have borne the name CRAVEN (TB-10, DD-70 and DD-382).  However, these all remember Thomas Craven’s brother, CDR Tunis Augustus Craven, who died commanding the monitor Tecumseh at the battle of Mobile Bay.

Despite her portentous reputation, Stonewall never fired a shot in anger.  After learning of Lee’s surrender, Page shaped a course for Cuba, where he sold his warship to pay off her crew.  Cuba later returned STONEWALL to the US government, who sold her to the Japanese in 1871.  She served their navy for decades under the name AZUMA until being broken up for scrap in 1908.

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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 raids against Union activities in the Chesapeake basin.  Even after Wood was ordered further south in 1863, the remaining Tidewater Confederates continued their harassment.

Late on the evening of March 4^th CAPT Thaddeus Fitzhugh, the commander of Company F, 5^th Virginia Cavalry, “Lomax’s Brigade,” rounded up 13 of his men who were then on furlough, and in company with two Confederate Navy Acting Masters named Maxwell and Burley, pushed off from the Piankatank River in several open boats.  Through the night they rowed east across the Chesapeake Bay to Virginia’s Eastern Shore, their target being the Union telegraph station at Cherrystone Inlet.  They landed at 0400 this morning and overpowered Corporal Ozmon and the 6-man guardshack.  They found the commissary stocked with 600 barrels of pork and bacon, as well as flour, rice, molasses, beans, sugar, coffee, and bread.  This they destroyed, along with uniforms and cook stoves.  The Union telegraph operator, a Mr. Dunn, alerted by the commotion, burned his messages and threw his equipment into the bay before being captured.  Around dawn the Army tug AEOLA, who had been laying submarine cable nearby, unsuspectingly chugged up to Cherrystone Wharf.  The Rebels pounced upon her, quickly changing clothes into the dress of her crew, then disabling her machinery and setting her ablaze.  A second Army tug, Titan, likewise appeared and was similarly taken.  Having burned stores, wrecked the telegraph station, cut the submarine cable, requisitioned $2000 in cash, scuttled a schooner they found tied to the wharf, and killed all the horses in the station, Fitzhugh and his men chugged back across the Bay in TITAN.

Alarm spread through Union defenders in the area.  When word of the raid reached the commander of the Union’s Potomac Flotilla, CDR Foxhall A. Parker, he led a 5-gunboat detachment up the Piankatank River, where Titan was rumored to have fled.  On March 7^th, USS COMMODORE READ along with CURRITUCK, JACOB BELL, FUCHSIA and FREEBORN cruised 22 miles up the river as far as navigable to the town of Freeport.  Here they found the smoldering hulk of TITAN, burned to the waterline.  After lobbing a few shot through her machinery to insure her demise and recovering several open boats believed to have been used in the raid, Parker and his squadron returned.  None of the perpetrators were ever brought to justice.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 MAR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. IV-29.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 454.

“Report of Acting Rear-Admiral Lee, U.S. Navy, transmitting additional information.” dtd. 7 March 1864.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 5, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 527-28.

“Report of Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Hooker, U.S. Navy, Commanding First Division Potomac Flotilla, regarding chase of suspicious steamer.” dtd. 5 March 1864.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 5, Operations on the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers from December 7, 1861, to July 31, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1897, pp. 398-99.

“Report of CAPT Robert E. Duvall, Purnell Legion Maryland Cavalry,” dtd. 7 March 1864.  IN: The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol XXXIII.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1891, p. 231.

“Report of CAPT Thaddeus Fitzhugh, Fifth Virginia Cavalry,” dtd. 5 March 1864.  IN: The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Vol XXXIII.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1891, p. 232.

“Report of Commander Parker, U.S. Navy, commanding Potomac Flotilla, regarding expedition into Piankatank River and destruction of tug Titan.” dtd. 7 March 1864.  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 5, Operations on the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers from December 7, 1861, to July 31, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1897, pp. 401-02.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 74.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Even in modern times, official Navy records mistakenly attribute this raid directly to CDR John Taylor Wood–so nefarious was his reputation in the Chesapeake area at the time.  But Wood’s biographer, Royce Gordon Singleton, has established that at the time of this raid Wood was in North Carolina, where he had attacked and destroyed the Union gunboat UNDERWRITER only a month before.

Cherrystone Inlet is on the bay side of the Eastern Shore, just west of the modern town of Cheriton, Virginia.

The post Cherrystone Raid appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                      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 for the dash into Southern ports.  Runners would skirt Union blockaders as best they could, then run close inshore where their shallow draft proved an advantage.  Only the luckiest threaded the thin line between uncharted shoals and dogged blockaders.  The paddle-wheel steamer Wild Dayrell for example, ran aground the night of 31 January 1864 at New Topsail Inlet, North Carolina, where she was discovered the following day by LCDR Francis A. Roe in USS SASSACUS.  Roe worked in vain until the 3^rd trying to free the steamer but ultimately had to burn her.

By 0700 this day SASSACUS had returned to her station on the Bermuda Line when she sighted another suspicious vessel about 12 miles to the northwest.  Roe fired his boilers and set his 205-foot, double-ender sidewheel gunboat in hot pursuit.  Through the morning, SASSACUS sustained 12.5-13 knots, enough to steadily gain on the blockade runner.  This was obviously noted aboard the pursued vessel, for through his spyglass Roe observed cargo being thrown overboard to lighten ship.  Around noon SASSACUS had closed within range of her forward 100-pounder.  Union shells began splashing around the still fleeing runner.  Tellingly, she turned sharply toward shore to duck into shallower water.

Perhaps accidently, perhaps not, the mystery ship ran aground at New Inlet, North Carolina.  Her crew set her aflame and fled to the lifeboats, leaving her engines running.  As SASSACUS pulled to within musket range one of the lifeboats capsized, spilling rebel crewmen.  Roe lowered a boat but was only able to save the blockade runner’s purser.  From him he learned the vessel was the brand-new iron-hulled steamer Nutfield, making her first run from Bermuda.  She measured 750 tons burden and carried munitions, Enfield rifles, a battery of eight Whitworth rifled cannon, quinine, assorted merchandise and a quantity of pig lead to be recast into musket balls.  The cannon and the lead had been the cargo Roe observed being thrown overboard.

Recognizing Nutfield to be one of the newest and best steamers off the Thames ways, Roe worked through the night to free the runner.  But alas she was too fast to be re-floated.  Roe off-loaded the Enfield rifles, the quinine, and several compasses, then set her afire.  USS FLORIDA shortly arrived, and together they pummeled the stranded runner with gunfire.  Finally, convinced the steamer was completely wrecked, SASSACUS departed about 1900 the evening of the 5^th.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  9 FEB 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-12, IV-15.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 350.

“Report of Commander Crosby, U.S. Navy, Commanding U.S.S. Florida.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 460-61.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Roe, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Sassacus.”  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 9, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from May 5, 1863, to May 4, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 459-60.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  SASSACUS survived the war, seeing subsequent duty in North Carolina’s sounds against the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle.  She participated in the siege of Fort Fisher and patrolled the Chesapeake in April 1865 in search of conspirators in the Lincoln assassination.  She was sold in 1868.  Sassacus remembers a great sachem of the Pequot tribe of Massachusetts in the early 1600s.  He endured the rebellion of the Mohegans, a subjugated tribe, who eventually defeated Sassacus with the help of the English and Narragansett Indian allies in what is known today as the Pequot War.  Sassacus fled to Iroquois lands near present-day Long Island, New York, but there was betrayed and killed by the Mohawk of the Iroquois Confederation.

The wreck of Wild Dayrell was surveyed in 2006 by Tidewater Atlantic Research, Inc., as a North Carolina cultural resource.  She lies in Rich Inlet, about 20 miles north of Fort Fisher.  The wreck of Nutfield has not been surveyed to this writer’s knowledge.

Pig lead is lead in ingot form.  Molten lead is smelted from lead ore, galena.  A channel conducts the molten lead from the smelting furnace and into multiple side channels coming off perpendicularly, all in the same direction.   As such, the side channels resemble piglets suckling from a sow.

The post USS SASSACUS vs. Nutfield appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                 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 log booms, pilings, and “torpedoes” (underwater mines).  The Civil War saw the first effective use of fixed underwater mines, and Union warships off Charleston had learned a healthy respect for torpedoes.  Working parties in rowboats regularly dragged the approaches to Charleston with grappling hooks to find and remove these “infernal devices.”  Because these parties worked within range of Confederates on Morris and Sullivan’s Islands, a Union gunboat was usually detailed to provide cover.  Such was the ironclad monitor PATAPSCO’s duty after sunset this evening.

As the rowboats worked 100-200 yards off her beams, PATAPSCO occupied the channel, drifting seaward with the ebbing tide, then steaming back up to the Lehigh buoy.  Her commanding officer, LCDR Stephen P. Quackenbush, and about 40 sailors were out on the monitor’s deck, directing the boats sweeping for torpedoes.  The XO, LT William T. Sampson, conned the monitor from atop the rotating turret.  This night there was no pestering fire from the shore and three times, PATAPSCO drifted lazily down the channel with the tide.  Three times she turned and steamed back up.  But as she made her third return about 2010 hours, a sudden, sharp explosion rocked her port bow.  The cloud of steam and a geyser of seawater immediately alerted Sampson that he had struck a torpedo.  He had no time to react.  Within 15 seconds the forward deck flooded, and in another 30 seconds the monitor rested on the bottom of the 50-foot-deep channel.  Curiously, Sampson only got his feet wet, for when all motion stopped the top of the turret was only ankle-deep.  He simply stepped into the rescuing launch.  Quackenbush and 42 sailors on deck were fished from the water, but the crewmen below decks were not so lucky.  Civil War monitors did not have escape hatches.  To protect against boarders, such ships were built with only one or two hatches leading below deck.  As a result, only two sailors from below were able to scramble to safety.  Sixty-four men, including the Assistant Surgeon Samuel H. Peltz, the surgeon’s steward; the sick nurse; most of the engineers, firemen, and coal heavers; the paymaster; and all the cooks were trapped and died.

Visitors to modern Fort Moultrie National Historical Park on Sullivan’s Island will notice an obelisk commemorating the Union sailors lost with PATAPSCO.  In fact, the monitor still lies today where she sank on this date, having since been partially salvaged, then blasted flat to clear the channel.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 JAN 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. V-16.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Quackenbush, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 175-76.

“Report of Lieutenant Sampson, U.S. Navy, executive officer of the U.S.S. PATAPSCO” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 176-78.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy,” dtd. 16 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 171-75.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Dahlgren, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of proceedings of a court of enquiry,” dtd. 29 January 1865.  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion, Series I, Vol 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 1, 1864, to August 8, 1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1903, pp. 178-80.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 81.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This sinking marked the fourth loss of a monitor during the war, the second to torpedoes.  It prompted both tactical and strategic changes to the Union’s campaign against Charleston.  From this date, only tugboats and launches were used to protect sweepers clearing Charleston’s channels, and the strategy for the joint Army/Navy assault on Charleston was altered.  The point of attack was shifted northward, away from Charleston Harbor, to the less protected waters of Bull’s Bay about 10 miles up the coast.

PATAPSCO’s executive officer, William T. Sampson, is of course better remembered for his action as the senior in command of US Navy forces off Santiago, Cuba, three decades later in the Spanish-American War.  He is one of several Navy veterans of the Civil War who remained on Active Duty to fight in that latter conflict.

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                                           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 the harbor, but a Union garrison had secured Fort Pickens on the Santa Rosa barrier island at the outbreak of fighting.  Pickens was the strongest position in the Pensacola area.  Her guns could reach all of the other installations, and from atop Pickens’ walls Union soldiers and sailors regularly monitored the goings-on across the bay.  In fact, when a large floating drydock was moved into the bay, Pickens’ guns bombarded and sank it, lest it be used as an artillery platform.

In September 1861. the Federals observed more activity at the Navy Yard.  The schooner William H. Judah had been moved to the yard and was apparently being fitted out and armed for privateering.  CAPT William Mervine, responsible for the Union blockade of that portion of the Florida coast, decided on a daring raid that would prevent Judah from ever getting underway.  He landed 100 sailors and Marines from USS COLORADO at Fort Pickens, who on this moonless night shoved off to cross the bay.  LT John H. Russell led the four longboats, detaching one to the dock to quiet the guard and spike a 10-inch Columbiad mounted there.  The other three boats slid up to Judah completely unnoticed.  The men swarmed across and quickly overpowered the only two rebels aboard the schooner.  Meanwhile, the men of the single boat ably dispatched the guard on the dock and disabled the gun with an iron spike driven down the firing hole.  In a short 15 minutes Judah was ablaze and the attackers were pulling away.  But the activity roused other Confederates who reached the dock in time to open fire on the departing Federals.  Three Union sailors slumped over in their boats, 13 were wounded.  Judah drifted into the bay where she burned and sank.

Local Confederate commander MGEN Braxton Bragg was furious over the affair and on 8 October launched a retaliatory strike on the Federals.  At 2200 that night 1000 Confederate volunteers boarded three steamers and several barges and crossed the bay to Santa Rosa Island.  They landed east of Fort Pickens and sneaked upon the 6^th Regiment of New York Zouaves, bivouacked outside the walls at Camp Brown.  In a classic example of “the boy who cried wolf,” 6^th Regiment pickets had been in the habit of shooting game while on duty, so the fire at the advancing Johnny Rebs did not raise an alarm with the Yankees.  The Zouaves were overrun, and only after troops inside Fort Pickens rallied to their aid did the Federals turn back the attack.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  20 SEP 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 144.

Ogden, David P.  The Fort Barrancas Story.  Pensacola, FL: Eastern National, 1998, p. 19.

Parks, Virginia, Alan Rick and Norman Simons.  Pensacola in the Civil War.  Pensacola, FL: Pensacola Historical Society,  1978, pp. 16-18.

Pearce, George F.  Pensacola During the Civil War:  A Thorn in the Side of the Confederacy.  Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2000, pp. 111-13.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Western Florida remained a quiet theater throughout the Civil War, in fact the above action anywhere else would likely have been labeled only a skirmish.  In the battle of Santa Rosa Island, Bragg suffered 18 killed, 39 wounded and 30 captured.  Fourteen Zouaves lost their lives, 29 were wounded and 24 were taken prisoner.  The engagement was characterized by ineptitude on both sides.  Part of the reason the Confederates were so easily reversed was that discipline broke down when rebels began looting the tents they had overrun in Camp Brown.

CAPT Mervine is best remembered for his earlier actions in California during the Mexican War.  By 1861 he had been on active duty for 52 years, indeed ill health forced his retirement on 16 July the following year.  He was subsequently promoted to RADM on the retired list.  His name has graced two Navy destroyers, DD-322 and DD-489.  John Henry Russell also reached the rank of RADM before retiring from active duty 27 August 1886.  For this and other actions he is remembered with the pre-WWII Sims-class destroyer RUSSELL (DD-414).  Braxton Bragg is of course the namesake of the US Army’s Fort Bragg in North Carolina (“Bragg” restored in 2025 from “Fort Liberty”).

Spiking was a means of permanently disabling a muzzle-loading cannon.  An iron spike was driven into the tiny touch hole in the breech of the gun.  This blocked the hole from being used to ignite the powder charge.  The action often cracked or weakened the breech, and at the very least left a large hole that vented the firing pressure.  Once spiked, the only way to “repair” the gun was to melt it down for re-casting.

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                                   NOT ABOVE MAKING A BUCK!

Blockade running during our Civil War was a profitable enterprise for those who were successful.  The running of war materials brought a handsome price, but even higher profit margins accompanied “luxury” items, such as silks, lace, fine liquors, and porcelains.  Southern sea captains, like the fictional Rhett Butler, were of course involved in running.  But foreign nationals, lured by the advent of windfall profits, engaged in blockade running purely as a business venture.  Galveston, Texas, was one of several American ports at which the Confederation of Switzerland maintained a diplomatic legation.  The Galveston consul was Dr. Jacob C. Kuhn, originally of St. Gall, Switzerland.  Kuhn had lived for 20 years prior to the Civil War in Galveston and was well acquainted with the local business community.  When the blockade running schooner Wave reached Galveston in the summer of 1863, Dr. Kuhn saw an opportunity.  He purchased Wave and set about collecting cargo for an outbound run.

By this day, 80 bales of cotton had been shipped aboard Wave.  A captain, four crewmen, and three paying passengers comprised the souls embarked.  And in this morning’s pre-dawn, the schooner slipped out of San Luis Pass and turned south.  She hoped to reach Vera Cruz, Mexico, where her cotton would fetch a profit sufficient to recoup Dr. Kuhn’s entire investment on this single run.

Cruising offshore was the Union Navy’s 5-gun Unadilla-class gunboat USS CAYUGA.  She was a hybrid of that day, built and rigged as a two-masted schooner, but with twin steam engines amidships yoked to a single screw.  She and her skipper, LCDR William H. Dana, were veteran blockaders by this date, having already captured or assisted in the capture of the schooners Jesse J. Cox, Tampico, and J.T. Davis and the sloops Blue Bell and Active.  Dana apparently had little trouble overhauling the southbound schooner bearing a Swiss flag, as Dana’s report mentions nothing of a chase.  The Yankee easily saw past the false Swiss colors and sent Wave to New Orleans under a prize crew.

Though Dr. Kuhn’s profit-minded enterprise failed, in nearby Mobile Bay another profit scheme was hatching–privateering.  Rumors broke this day that Alabama businessmen had purchased the stout tugboat Boston.  She was to be armed and outfitted for cruising against Union commerce.  Privateers were private citizens who operated in the interests of their sponsoring government.  Any vessel and cargo taken could be sold for the profit of the privateer owners, officers, and crew.  But fortune frowned on Boston as well.  The opportunity never arose for Boston’s run to sea, and early in 1864 her crew was conscripted instead into the Confederate Army.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  27 AUG 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Associated Press.  “Dispatches to the Associated Press, the Late Naval Repulse at Fort Sumter.”  New York Times, 14 September 1863.  AT: http://www.nytimes.com/1863/09/14/news/dispatches-to-the-associated-press-the-late-naval-repulse-at-fort-sumter.html, retrieved 11 August 2017.

Cooney, David M.  A Chronology of the U.S. Navy:  1775-1965.  New York, NY: Franklin Watts, Inc., 1965.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. III-132.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, p. 59.

“Report of Captain Marchand, U.S. Navy, forwarding information obtained from deserters sent from Mississippi Sound.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 21; West Gulf Blockading Squadron from January 1 to December 31, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1906, p. 106.

“Report of Lieutenant-Commander Dana, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Cayuga, regarding the capture of the schooner Wave.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 20, West Gulf Blockading Squadron from March 15 to December 31, 1863.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1905, pp. 475-76.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  In 1856, the Paris Declaration Respecting Maritime Law banned the practice of privateering (which too often devolved into frank piracy), though the Confederacy did not join the agreement.  Lincoln’s administration adhered to the principles of the treaty but never signed it.  As such, in February 2025, Congressmen Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Mark Messmer (R-IN) introduced a bill to the US House authorizing President Trump to commission privateers against drug cartels.  It did not pass.

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                                     CRUISE OF CSS TALLAHASSEE

One of the more successful efforts of the Confederacy during the Civil War was their campaign against Union commercial shipping.  CSS TALLAHASSEE was one such raider, a sleek and fast cruiser built in England as the cross-channel steamer Atalanta and transferred to Wilmington, North Carolina, in the summer of 1864.  Her five guns included an 84-pounder stern pivot that was mounted high enough to be identifiable in her silhouette.  Similarly, her two closely mounted stacks amidships made her readily recognizable.  Jefferson Davis’ nephew, CDR John Taylor Wood, CSN, was named her captain, and after several attempts to negotiate sand bars at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, Wood set to sea on 6 August 1864.

He coursed northward, where ship traffic near New York and New England would be heavy.  His success was remarkable from the start.  On August 11^th, 80 miles off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, he captured the brigs A. Richards and Carrie Estella, the schooners Sarah A. Boyce and Carrol, the bark Bay State, and the pilot boats James Funk and William Bell.  All except Carrol were rifled for medicines, food, instruments, charts, and other items of value, then burned.  Carrol was bonded as a cartel ship to carry the captured crews to New York.  On the 12^th, Wood captured five more, burning three.  On the 13^th he took the brig Lamont DuPont and the schooner Glenavon.

The same day, news of TALLAHASSEE’s raiding reached CAPT Hiram Paulding, commander of the New York Navy Yard.  He sent three ships in immediate pursuit.  These were quickly supplemented by Union Navy warships out of Hampton Roads and Boston.  Regardless, from 14-17 August Wood took 15 more defenseless freighters bound to or from New York.  Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was furious as insurance rates for trans-Atlantic shippers began to rise.

Now with nearly a dozen Union warships on her tail, by 18 August, TALLAHASSEE was running short on coal.  CDR Wood shaped a course for Halifax where the American Consul, Mortimer M. Jackson, protested to Lieutenant Governor Richard G. MacDonnell the sale of any coal to the Confederate.  As a neutral port, Halifax was not thus constrained, although local authorities agreed to sell Wood only enough coal to make his homeport of Wilmington–60 tons.  Jackson also notified Welles, who dispatched LCDR George A. Stevens in USS PANTOOSUC from Eastport, Maine.  Stevens reached Halifax at 0600 on the 20^th to learn he had missed the raider by only seven hours.  He turned north anticipating Wood would next harass the fishing fleet in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

But Wood had turned south.  His coal still short, he ran the blockade into Wilmington on the 25^th.  In a fortnight’s cruising he had taken 31 freighters in a remarkably effective sortie.

Watch or more “Today in Naval History”  22 AUG 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-103, IV-104, IV-105, IV-106, IV-108.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 350.

Hearn, Chester G.  Gray Raiders of the Sea:  How Eight Confederate Warships Destroyed the Union’s High Seas Commerce.  Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1992, pp. 129-39.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, p. 215.

Shingleton, Royce Gordon.  John Taylor Wood:  Sea Ghost of the Confederacy.  Athens, GA: Univ of Georgia Press, 1979, pp. 116-44.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3^rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 78.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Despite Consul Jackson’s efforts, Wood actually purchased 120 tons of coal in Halifax–more than agreed, but still not enough to sustain further cruising.

Wood’s cruise indirectly led to the capture of seven subsequent blockade runners.  TALLAHASSEE had commandeered all the hard coal available in Wilmington before her cruise, leaving only softer bituminous coal for other runners, which produces half the speed and twice the smoke.

TALLAHASSEE was to escape the Wilmington blockade twice more for guerre de course raids, in October 1864 under the name CSS OLUSTEE and two months later in December 1864 as CSS CHAMELEON.

Both Hiram Paulding and John Taylor Wood survived the war.  In Paulding’s case he rose to the rank of RADM, which he held at his death in 1878.  Wood escaped the South at the end of the war believing he would be executed as a pirate and traitor.  He reached Halifax, where he became a prominent businessman for decades until this death after the turn of the century.

A “cartel ship” is used in time of war to exchange prisoners or carry messages between belligerents.  Under maritime law, the ship must not carry cargo, ammunition, or weapons, except a single gun for signaling.

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