Civil War, Gunboats, Land Ops

Capture of Roanoke Island

                                             7-8 FEBRUARY 1862                                   CAPTURE OF ROANOKE ISLAND Fortress Monroe, situated at the entrance to Hampton Roads, was one of three forts south of the Mason-Dixon Line that remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War.  Confederate lines of communication were thus Read More

Auxiliaries, Civil War

Trouble at Lockwood Folly Inlet

                                               11 JANUARY 1863                            TROUBLE AT LOCKWOOD FOLLY INLET Lockwood Folly Inlet is a two-mile-wide break in the North Carolina coast south of Cape Fear.  It provides access to the Intercoastal Waterway and the Lockwood Folly River.  Its sand bars shift, making Read More

Civil War, Recent 40 years

The Purge

                                             28 DECEMBER 2020                                                     THE PURGE In the first decades of the 21st century, a series of untoward events involving minority citizens led to the assertion that racism is systemic in American society.  With the tragic death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Read More

Civil War, Surface Navy

Blockade Running

                                             21 DECEMBER 1863                                            BLOCKADE RUNNING The effect of Lincoln’s naval blockade of the Confederacy was starting to tell by the end of 1861, as cotton and tobacco began piling up on southern wharves.  Unable to move their major exports, the agrarian Read More

Civil War, Land Ops, Marines

John Brown’s Raid

                                            16-18 OCTOBER 1859                                             JOHN BROWN’S RAID From the 1830s, the American public became increasingly polarized over the issue of slavery.  Violence erupted for the first time in Alton, Illinois, in November 1837, when an angry mob raided the home of Elijah Read More

Civil War, Guns & Gunnery

Intercepting the Mega-Guns

                                                26 AUGUST 1863                                  INTERCEPTING THE MEGA-GUNS When South Carolinians fired on Fort Sumter to start the Civil War, all but one of the foundries in the United States were in the North.  Only the Tredeger Iron Works in Richmond could bore Read More

Age of Sail, Civil War, Cruisers, Humanitarian

USS DOLPHIN vs. Echo

                                                21 AUGUST 1858                                           USS DOLPHIN vs. ECHO Despite human slavery being a way of life in the antebellum American south, official US policy forbade trafficking in slaves as early as 1807.  On 3 March 1819 Congress granted President James Monroe the Read More

Civil War, Sailors, Surface Navy

The Passing of Farragut

                                                14 AUGUST 1870                                      THE PASSING OF FARRAGUT It is hard to overstate the reverence our Navy holds for David Glasgow Farragut.  He entered our Navy at age 9 through the influence of his adoptive father, CAPT David Porter, in 1810.  He Read More

Civil War, Gunboats

Queen’s Creek Raid

                                                    5 MAY 1863                                            QUEEN’S CREEK RAID Evasion by a Confederate blockade runner was no small embarrassment to the Union ships whose job it was to isolate the South.  And when a small cutter was observed running goods up the Piankatank River Read More

Civil War

The Plot to Capture MONITOR

                                                  11 APRIL 1862                                  THE PLOT TO CAPTURE MONITOR The historic battle of Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862 between CSS VIRGINIA (the ex-USS MERRIMACK) and USS MONITOR ended in a draw.  Plate iron had proven its value.  In fact, MONITOR had Read More