25 DECEMBER 1863 CHRISTMAS DAY ATTACK! Our first warship named MARBLEHEAD was one of 23 Unadilla-class wooden gunboats built in the first year of the Civil War. Looking outwardly like a two-masted sailing brig, a single stack amidships revealed her steam Read More
TODAY IN NAVAL HISTORY 4 SEPTEMBER 1887 RADM GEORGE BROWN On the moonless night of 14-15 February 1863, 27-year-old LCDR George Brown of the Union Navy’s Mississippi River Squadron took the sidewheel ironclad gunboat USS INDIANOLA south toward Vicksburg. His Read More
28 JULY 1861 CONFEDERATE PRIVATEER PETREL When South Carolina seceded from the Union on 20 December 1860, the State’s officials seized Federal property including the US Revenue Cutter Service schooner WILLIAM AIKEN, 2, who had operated out of Charleston since 1855. Read More
28-29 JUNE 1861 ST. NICHOLAS HIGHJACKING At 1600 on Friday, June 28th, the civilian steam packet St. Nicholas left Baltimore on her regular run to three stops in the District of Columbia. She carried her usual fare of freight as well Read More
16 APRIL 1856 THE END OF PRIVATEERING Against the powerful and threatening Spanish Navy of the 1580s, Queen Elizabeth I of England commissioned civilian sea captains to arm their vessels and raid Spanish shipping. Such notables as Francis Drake, John Hawkyns, Read More
26-29 JANUARY 1862 RECONNAISSANCE-IN-FORCE By January 1862, Union MGEN Thomas W. Sherman was ready to attempt to close the Savannah River, isolating the city of Savannah lying 15 miles upstream. But the mouth of that river was guarded by masonry Fort Read More
15 JANUARY 1865 FIGHTING FATHER AND SON CAPT Benjamin Franklin Sands, USN, came from a military family, having 11 relatives and descendants with military service. His combat tours during the Mexican War were bracketed by duty of a more scientific nature. Read More