25 SEPTEMBER 1899

                                     THE CAPTURE OF URDANETA

The autumn of 1898 saw the end of the Spanish-American war and the ceding of the Philippine Islands from Spain to the United States.  Militant Filipinos who had been struggling against Spanish colonial rule shifted their animosities toward their new stewards.  For the next four years the US countered this insurgent uprising–the Navy’s roles including patrolling inshore waters, providing gunfire support, and landing Marines at coastal and riverine jump-off’s.  It was during one such patrol that the 70-foot gunboat USS URDANETA ran aground in the Orani River on 17 September 1899.  Naval Cadet Welborn C. Wood and his eight-man crew worked for days at freeing their boat but had their efforts interrupted on the 25^th.  Insurgents discovered the stranded URDANETA and opened fire from the densely jungled riverbank.  Wood’s men sprang to action but found defense against an unseen enemy difficult.  Wood and half his crew were killed in the fire fight.  The survivors escaped overboard but were quickly captured.  URDANETA fell to the enemy, the only naval vessel to be captured during this “Philippine Insurrection,” as it was known in America.

Elsewhere, US Marines and Army soldiers found the land campaign an unwelcome departure from our past wartime experiences.  The outmatched enemy abandoned conventional tactics in favor of guerrilla warfare.  Enemy troops blended imperceptibly into the local populace.  Marine patrols might enter a rural village to the welcoming greetings of peasants working their rice paddies–only to be ambushed further down the road by these same peasant-insurgents.  Jungle patrols encountered booby traps with spring-loaded spears or poison-tipped arrows.  More than a few Marines fell victim to pungy pits lined with sharpened bamboo spears.  Random acts of terrorism became frequent.  On one Sunday morning, an American sentry playing solitaire was approached by an innocent looking street vendor selling eggs.  Before the sentry could look up however, he was decapitated by a machete the vendor had secreted under his produce.  Reports surfaced of American captives whose bodies were found hideously mutilated.  One corpse was discovered near an anthill, buried to the neck and covered in sugar.

Employing tactics we would face again in the 1960s Vietnam war–tactics that would later be formalized by Mao Tse Tung–Philippine nationalist leader Emilio Aguinaldo waged a campaign designed to dishearten the American public.  He hoped (in vain) for a Democratic victory in the 1900 American presidential election, judging candidate William Jennings Bryan to be more supportive of Philippine independence.  But unlike Vietnam, the Philippine Insurrection failed to outlast American public support.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 SEP 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  GPO, Washington, DC, p. 421, 1981.

Karnow, Stanley.  In Our Image: America’s Empire in the Philippines.  Ballantine Books, New York, NY, pp. 177-87, 1989.

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, pp. 101-02.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  URDANETA had been captured from the Spanish Navy during our 1898 war.  She was named by the Spanish in honor of Andres de Urdaneta (1498-1568), a friar and explorer credited with the second circumnavigation of the globe (after Magellan).  “Urdaneta’s route” across the Pacific from Luzon to Central America was used by Spain’s Manila galleons.  Urdaneta City in the Pangasinan Province of Luzon, near the Lingayen Gulf, also remembers the friar.  URDANETA was recaptured in 1900 and served off and on in survey work, patrols, and as a yard tug until 1916.  Her ultimate fate after 1916 is unknown.

          Cadet Wood is remembered with the WWII veteran Clemson-class destroyer USS WELBORN C. WOOD (DD-195). WOOD was later transferred to the US Coast Guard and ultimately to Britian, with whom she served as HMS CHESTERFIELD.

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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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                           “CHARLIE’s AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE”

The Rung Sat is a 400-square mile mangrove swamp between Saigon and the Vietnamese coastline.  Four major rivers course through the otherwise impassable area, including the Long Tau shipping channel leading to Saigon.  The swamp was home to no one before the Vietnam war.  However, refugees took up residence during the 1960s on house boats or stilted huts.  The Viet Cong also frequented the area earning it the reputation as the “forest of assassins.”  Here they set shore-detonated mines and ambushed shipping traffic with recoilless rifles and rocket launchers.  So much activity plagued the area that the US Army launched Operation “Lexington” between 21 May and 9 June 1966.  In conjunction, our Navy launched Operation “Jackstay” to stop enemy riverine activity.

On the sinuous Song Dinh Ba River, LT Alex Balian watched the shore closely this day from PCF-41 as dusk approached.  The “old man” of the crew, BM2 Raleigh Godley, with his forty-ish years of experience, steadied the helm.  Above the pilothouse EN3 Charles Barham scanned the shore with binoculars beside twin .50 caliber machine guns.  It was a hot and muggy evening.

Using a common nickname for the VC, the LT warned, “Charlie’s around here somewhere,” just as a 57mm recoilless rifle round struck the fast patrol craft and the world exploded for RM2 Robert L. Keim.  The Radioman staggered to the pilothouse from the edge of the gunboat to which he had been blown.  The instrument panel and BM2 Godley at the wheel were gone.  Out of control, PCF gathered speed as Godley may have shoved the throttle forward in a dying effort to save PCF-41.  Balian reached the aft steering station as SN Ralph Powers and GMG3 Glenn Greene readied the 81mm mortar.  Then the patrol boat suddenly lurched and ran fast aground beneath the overhanging jungle canopy.  As everyone regained their feet Balian called, “We can hold them off until one of the other boats comes up here.”  But there was no help coming.  The thick jungle and sharp turns of the river shielded the sound of the attack from others.

When the Viet Cong reached PCF-41 the crew was ready.  Bullets and shells whizzed, and after emptying the ammo locker, Balian ordered everyone into the water.  The remaining crew piled into a life raft; the tide and current were in their favor.  Crocodiles, snakes, and voices of enemy guerrillas now kept their attention as they drifted.  To avoid detection the men slid into the water, holding onto the raft and enduring the stinging of jellyfish.  When they heard an engine in the distance Balian lifted his rifle into the air.  The radar shadow was sighted by a nearby PCF and the crew was rescued.

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Calaunan, Jun.  “A Navy Jury Friday Convicted Capt. Alexander Balian.”  UPI Archives, 24 February 1989.  AT: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/02/24/A-Navy-jury-Friday-convicted-Capt-Alexander-Balian-of/9782604299600/, retrieved 3 May 2025.

Schreadley, Richard L.  From the Rivers to the Sea: The U.S. Navy in Vietnam.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1992, pp. 279.

“22 May 1966 Sinking of PCF-41.” Swiftboats website.  AT: http://swiftboats.net/stories/pcf41.htm.  Retrieved 15 April 2014.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  LT Balian was awarded the Silver Star for his actions in combating the VC and in saving his crew.  He remained in the Navy, eventually rising to the rank of CAPT.  However, his career was dealt a fatal blow when he was convicted of dereliction of duty at a court martial in February 1989.  In command of USS DUBUQUE (LPD-8) in June of the previous year, en route to the Persian Gulf, Balian had failed to rescue Vietnamese refugees adrift in the South China Sea in an unseaworthy boat.  Twenty-eight refugees had already died prior to DUBUQUE’s encounter, and though Balian passed a week’s worth of food and water to the refugees, 30 more succumbed before the boat drifted 300 additional miles to the Philippines.  The 52 refugees who survived did so by resorting to cannibalism.

Godley’s body was ultimately recovered.  He is remembered today on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.

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                                            THE LOSS OF PETREL

To bolster Union naval forces patrolling the Mississippi in the Civil War, our Navy purchased a total of 63 existing sternwheel and sidewheel riverboats.  Protection was added to their upper works in the form of thick wooden bulwarks overlain with a metal skin.  They mounted heavy guns on the first deck and lighter howitzers on the upper decks.  “Tinclads” as they came to be known exercised patrol, reconnaissance, and gunboat missions along the Mississippi.  One such “tinclad,” USS PETREL, the former riverboat Duchess, operated from February to April 1864 in the Yazoo River of Mississippi.  On April 21^st, 1864, PETREL and her sister tinclad PAIRIE BIRD started upriver escorting the Army transport Freestone.  They were to retake Yazoo City, which had been abandoned by Union troops in February.  PETREL ranged ahead and came abreast of Yazoo City well in advance of the others.  Here she engaged a group of rebels firing from the hills.  As the river was insufficiently wide to turn, Acting Master Thomas McElroy ran upriver past the battery.  The following morning found PETREL against the bank with her crew ashore, collecting rails to stack against the boilers.

Suddenly the gunboat came under fire from a force of enemy infantry with two 12-pounder Parrott rifles.  “Minnie” balls and shot screamed through the air, some piercing completely through PETREL.  McElroy beat his crew to quarters, but found that the position of his boat against the bank prevented his heavy guns from being brought to bear.  The Yankees defended with muskets while McElroy attempted to back down into the stream.  But an enemy shot cut the tinclad’s steam lines; followed by another that struck the magazine and cut off the legs of Gunner’s Mate Charles Seitz.  Enemy sharpshooters began picking off the Union crewmen through the gun ports.  Several of the officers “behaved badly,” falling back out of fear.  Disabled and unable to counter-fire, McElroy decided to burn his vessel.  But just as Asst. Engineer Arthur M. Phillips was setting the gunboat ablaze, another rebel shot raked the stern and burst the boilers, bathing the ship in steam.  The steam doused the fires, and many of McElroy’s officers and crew jumped ashore and ran.  Only the pilot, Kimball Ware, and an enlisted sailor, Quartermaster John H. Nibbe, stayed to assist McElroy in defending PETREL’s flag.  Nibbe helped get the wounded ashore, then all three re-fired the gunboat by spreading coals from the boiler across the deck.

The Confederates surrounded and captured the three brave sailors.  The fires were again extinguished long enough for the rebels to strip every gun and salvageable store.  PETREL was then burned to prevent her re-capture.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  29 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. IV-46.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 5 “N-Q”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1979, p. 276.

McElroy, Thomas.  Report of loss of Petrel.  IN: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. Series I-Volume 26:  Naval Forces on Western Waters (March 1, 1864-December 21, 1864).  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 248-49.

Porter, David D.  The Naval History of the Civil War.  Mineola, NY: Dover Pub., 1886, pp. 560-61.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 165, 176.

United States Congress.  United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations.  Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, p. 859.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  PETREL was taken with her flag still flying.  Quartermaster John H. Nibbe was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions this day (officers were not eligible at the time).  RADM David Dixon Porter berated PETREL’s remaining officers and crew for their apparent cowardice.

Union “tinclads” also had an enclosed pilothouse constructed on the upper-most deck.  This feature easily identifies such craft in period photographs that survive today.  Our modern system of hull numbering was not adopted until the 1920s, however each of the 63 tinclads had a number painted boldly on the outside of her pilot house.  PETREL was tinclad number 5, and PRAIRIE BIRD was number 11.

The rank of “Master” has an interesting history as well.  Early in the 1800s our Navy had four commissioned officer ranks–Sailing Master, Lieutenant, Master Commandant and Captain.  The Master Commandant rank was changed to “Commander” in 1837, the same year the lowest rank was shortened simply to “Master.”  During the Civil War, to accommodate an expanded force structure, on 16 July 1862 the new ranks of RADM and Commodore were created as Flag ranks above Captain; LCDR was inserted below Commander; and Ensign was inserted below Master.  In 1883 “Masters” became “Lieutenants Junior Grade,” which they remain today!

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                               EASTPORT BEFORE FORT DE RUSSY

The year 1863 had seen a turn in the Civil War in favor of the Union.  A Confederate foray into the north had been reversed at Gettysburg and the last Rebel stronghold on the Mississippi River at Vicksburg had fallen.  With the Mississippi now in Union hands attention turned to Confederate activities west of the river in Louisiana and Arkansas.  Here the Red River provided the main thoroughfare for cotton and other supplies shipping eastward.  As the spring rains swelled the Red River in 1864, combined Union Naval and ground forces planned an assault.

Their first obstacle was Fort de Russy, named for its builder, Confederate Army engineer COL Lewis G. de Russy.  This fort lay 45 miles up the river from the mouth at the Mississippi, a course over which the Red River forms a northward-projecting loop into northeastern Louisiana.  Fort de Russy lay on the western leg of that loop.  Union troops under BGENs Andrew Jackson Smith and Joseph Mower would land on the eastern leg of the loop at Simmesport and march the 28 miles across the bottom of the loop along what is modern Louisiana State Route 1.  They would envelope the rear of the fort while the ironclad warships of RADM David Dixon Porter would proceed up the Red River to support the assault.  On the morning of March 13^th Porter’s transports began disembarking 10,000 Union troops at Simmesport while the ironclad USS EASTPORT under LCDR Seth L. Phelps, along with NEOSHO, LAFAYETTE, CHOCTAW, OSAGE, OZARK, FORT HINDMAN and CRICKET were sent upriver.  Ahead of the main gunboat force, they were to remove obstructions eight miles below the fort.  Their progress was slowed by LAFAYETTE and CHOCTAW, whose long keels plagued negotiation of the channel.

The obstructions proved formidable.  Arriving on this day Phelps found a row of pilings driven into the river bottom across the channel, braced against a second tier of shorter pilings.  Ties and iron plates bridged each piling creating an impassable, anchored “wall.”  Sunken logs blocked access to the downstream side, and from above, trees had been cut and floated down the river to jam up the pilings.  Phelps’ sailors attached tow lines to the pilings, axes swung, and several of the gunboats repeatedly rammed the obstruction.  For several hours they labored, finally breaking a passage open around 1600.  OSAGE, FORT HINDMAN and CRICKET followed EASTPORT the final miles to Fort de Russy.  Here they found Union troops already engaged.

The battle proved one-sided.  The Confederate defender, MGEN John G. Walker, had marched 5000 rebels out to stall the advancing Federals, and most of these escaped to fight another day.  The 300 garrisoned in the fort surrendered after only a brief engagement.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  19 MAR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-31-32.

Porter, David D.  The Naval History of the Civil War.  Mineola, NY: Dover Pub., 1886, pp. 495-97.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy, regarding combined movement up the river and capture of Fort de Russy by forces under Brigadier-General Smith, U.S. Army, March 14, 1864.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 26, Naval Forces on Western Waters from March 1 to December 31, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 24-27.

“Report of Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of Lieutenant Commander Phelps, U.S. Navy, regarding removal of obstructions and capture of Fort De Russy.”  IN: Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 26, Naval Forces on Western Waters from March 1 to December 31, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1914, pp. 29-31.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Among the guns captured at Fort de Russy were three Naval guns, two 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores formerly in service on USS NDIANOLA and USS HARRIET LANE (both lost earlier in the war) and a 32-pounder cast in the 1820s.

EASTPORT was originally a rebel ironclad, started by the Confederates in the upper Tennessee River in 1862, but captured on the ways by Union forces.

John George Walker, above, was a seasoned and able combat commander.  He had served with the US Army before the Civil War in the Mexican and Apache Wars.  During the Rebellion he saw action in the Peninsular Campaign, at Antietam, and at Vicksburg before commanding in the Trans-Mississippi.  He fled to Mexico after the war but eventually returned to the United States, serving as consul to Bogota in the post-war years.  His narrative history of the Confederacy west of the Mississippi is still in print today.

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                                           “THE SAND PEBBLES”

Factional turmoil in 1920s China surrounding the emergence of the Nationalist Chinese movement led multiple western nations to protect their citizens and commercial shipping on China’s rivers with naval forces.  Richard McKenna’s novel The Sand Pebbles, as well as the 1966 Academy Award nominated film, depicts the trials of an enlisted sailor aboard a US Navy Yangtze River gunboat during this civil unrest.  Though McKenna’s story is fictional, his gunboat, “San Pablo,” is modeled after our contemporary Guam-class Yangtze gunboats.  McKenna’s plot draws from the exploits of a real gunboat, USS VILLALOBOS (PG-42).

VILLALOBOS entered the US Navy in the Philippines.  The former Spanish Navy steam-powered screw sloop was captured in the Spanish-American War and commissioned into our Navy on this date.  Her retained Spanish Navy name remembers the explorer Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, who in the 1540s, charted and named the Philippine Islands for King Philip II.  She patrolled that territory for several years before being transferred to China Station.  There, in June of 1903, under orders from Asiatic Fleet commander RADM Robley D. Evans, VILLALOBOS cruised up the Kan River, a tributary to the Yangtze, to check on the status of American traders and missionaries in Nanchang.  Low river levels blocked her passage to Nanchang, and VILLALOBOS sent a whaleboat ahead.  Having learned that all was well, the gunboat returned to Hankow, unaware that her mission had stirred international turmoil.  Local Chinese authorities protested her visit as overstepping treaty provisions.  RADM Evans countered with the bold statement that, “Our gunboats will continue to navigate…inland waters of China, wherever Americans may be,” and further stated that “severe and lasting” punishment would be dealt to anyone not showing “proper respect” to American citizens.  The American minister in Peking chastised Evans’ statement, but Secretary of State John Hay overruled, endorsing the Asiatic Fleet commander as “proper and correct.”  (In fact, VILLALOBOS’ foray into shallow waters had unknowingly violated a treaty between England and China, though the US was not a signatory to that treaty).

By 1926, VILLALOBOS was a tired and rusting venerable.  Yet with the emergence of the Nationalist Chinese movement VILLALOBOS was sent upriver to Changsha, again to protect American interests.  Low river levels stranded her in Changsha over the Winter of 1926-27 while Nationalist attacks began focusing on foreign “intruders.”  When Spring brought rioting to Hankow VILLALOBOS’ guns oversaw the evacuation of Americans, under orders to “…return and silence fire with suitable battery.”  Elements of these incidents were woven by McKenna into the plot for his novel.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26 FEB 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cole, Bernard D.  “The Real Sand Pebbles.” Naval History, Vol 14 (1), February 2000, pp. 16-23.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 521-24.

McKenna, Richard.  The Sand Pebbles.  New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1962.

Tolley, Kemp.  Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1984, pp. 58, 125-30, 220.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  McKenna himself was a 22-year Navy veteran with pre-WWII service on China Station.  He retired in 1953 as a Chief Machinist’s Mate

Even in Spanish Navy service VILLALOBOS was under-powered and under-gunned and drafted deeply enough to complicate the patrol of inland waterways.  In 1928, after 33 years of service in two navies, VILLALOBOS was decommissioned, towed out to sea, and expended for target practice.  By then the need for purpose-built gunboats for Yangtze operations had been addressed with the development of the six Guam-class river patrol boats.  Several of these including GUAM (PG-43), PANAY (PG-45), LUZON (PG-47) and MINDANAO (PG-48) would earn fame at the opening of World War II.  Unlike McKenna’s depiction of “San Pablo” these gunboats were diesel powered.

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                                          THE LOSS OF MONITOR

Our Navy first entertained the new technology of armor plating in 1842 when Congress authorized inventor Robert L. Stevens to construct an ironclad steamship for coastal defense.  However, delays in construction, funding, and the death of Mr. Stevens squelched the project.  It was left to the Europeans to develop the first workable ironclads.  During the Crimean War, in 1855, the French deployed three iron-plated floating batteries, LAVE, TONNANT, and DEVASTATION.  Standing only 800 yards off Russian Fort Kilburn, these batteries impressively withstood over 200 hits while reducing the fort to rubble.  The French launched GLOIRE in 1860, a wooden steamer plated over with iron.  Shortly the English followed with WARRIOR, an armored, iron-hulled steamer.

In response to rumors of Confederate plans in 1861, the Union Navy seriously revisited the ironclad concept.  Indeed, John Ericsson’s MONITOR’s successful operational debut against CSS VIRGINIA in Hampton Roads in March 1862 engendered a Navy-wide obsession with these craft.  Inflated perceptions of MONITOR’s invincibility led to calls for her use in recapturing Charleston, the symbolic birthplace of the Rebellion.  Accordingly, in December 1862, MONITOR was ordered from Hampton Roads to Beaufort, SC, the embarkation point for the planned assault on Charleston.  Had the skipper of the side-wheeler USS RHODE ISLAND had the benefit of weather forecasts, he might not have taken MONITOR under tow that December day.  Top heavy, with minimal freeboard, MONITOR was clearly built only for calmer inshore waters.

By the evening of December 29^th, mounting seas off Cape Hatteras began overwashing MONITOR’s deck.  Oakum packing around the turret loosened.  Conditions worsened through the next day.  By the evening of the 30^th, MONITOR was crashing through heavy seas that admitted water down her blower pipes.  And with each broach, more seams loosened.  Her bilge pumps strained.  Unable to find a good riding position, skipper J. L. Bankhead in MONITOR began to fear capsizing.  At 2230 he ordered her abandoned.

Careful to stay clear of MONITOR’s pitching, iron-plated hull, RHODE ISLAND lowered two boats.  But halfway through the rescue MONITOR lost all power and fell into the trough.  Bankhead loosed the anchor, which brought the craft to a more stable position into the seas.  In spite of this some of the remaining sailors, fearful of being washed off the deck, refused all pleadings to leave.  After midnight Bankhead, himself, departed only minutes before MONITOR disappeared, taking sixteen with her.

She remained lost until 1973 when scientists on the research ship Eastward located MONITOR’s 111 year grave off Cape Hatteras.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  4 JAM 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Davis, William C.  Duel Between the First Ironclads.  Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1975, pp. 156-64, 169-70.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 415.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 91.

Fowler, William M., Jr.  Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War.  New York, NY: Avon Books, 1990, pp. 92-93.

Keeler, William F. and Robert W. Daly.  Aboard the USS MONITOR: 1862.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1964, pp. 252-60.

Lyons, Justin.  “Raising the Turret.”  Naval History, Vol 16 (6), December 2002, pp. 20-26.

Stick, David.  Graveyard of the Atlantic:  Shipwrecks of the North Carolina Coast.  Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1952, pp. 52-57.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Years on the sea floor (and pilfering by sport divers) deteriorated the wreck of MONITOR substantially over the decades since its discovery, inspiring a joint effort by NOAA, the Newport News Mariner’s Museum and the US Navy’s Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 to salvage the historic wreck.  In 5 August 2002 the MONITOR Expedition 2002 succeeded in raising significant portions of the wreck, notably MONITOR’s revolving turret.  It is currently preserved at the Mariner’s Museum above.

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                        CYANE AT GUYAMAS

On this afternoon of the Mexican War, CDR Samuel F. Du Pont brought the 20-gun sloop USS Cyane into the seaside harbor of Guyamas on the Sonoran mainland of western Mexico.  His and other US Navy ships patrolled these villages enforcing a blockade of Mexico, indeed, the Sonoran region and California Sur (modern Baja) were primary targets of that blockade.  Only five vessels lay in the harbor, a Peruvian and an Ecuadorian neutrals, and three Mexican-flagged ships–the commercial brig Condor, and two former gunboats, Anahuac and Sonorense, both aground in stages of disassembly.  Du Pont was surprised to discover 500 militia troops ashore, armed with half-dozen field pieces and cannon landed from the gunboats–a force disproportionate to the importance of the town.  It seems a Mexican captain Du Pont had chased from La Paz weeks before had reached Guyamas warning of Du Pont’s approach.

 The following morning, Du Pont sent word to the local commandante that the Mexican vessels and any munitions of war were to be surrendered.  He refused, prompting a threat from Du Pont to bombard the town at 1000 October 7^th, allowing time for women, children, and personal property to be removed to safety.  That morning a deputation of local merchants approached Cyane in a small boat stating the time had been insufficient to clear the village.  Du Pont agreed only to an hour’s extension, not wishing to give the commandante more time to prepare.  As the boatload of locals returned to shore the Mexican flag was seen rising over the derelict gunboats, who soon erupted in flames.  The Mexicans were performing an act Du Pont had intended to do himself!

But Condor remained at anchor very near the dock, within a pistol shot of the militia position.  By 1130 no response had been forthcoming, and Cyane opened, concentrating her fire on the militia position.  Simultaneously two cutters from Cyane carried 45 men led by LT George W. Harrison, LT Higgins, Midshipmen Crabbe and Lewis, and boatswain Collins.  These closed the Mexican brig while shot and shell screamed alow and aloft in both directions.  A steel cable and anchor were cut, and the brig was set ablaze.  Harrison’s party then towed the burning brig away from the town, through a hail of whistling bullets.  Miraculously no one was hit!  Du Pont kept up a vigorous cannonade until the brig had been towed to a distant cove where she burned to the waterline.  Du Pont lingered in Guyamas despite Mexican reinforcements in the form of 400 troops from nearby Hermosilia and 300 mounted Yucca Indians.  No further fighting ensued, and Du Pont departed October 9^th having enforced the blockade and cemented a personal reputation for bold and forceful action.

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Du Pont, Samuel F.  Extracts from Private Journal-Letters of Captain S.F. Du Pont of the Cyane during the War with Mexico, 1846-48 (reprint).  Wilmington, DE: Ferris Brothers, 1885, pp. 61-70.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 47.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  By the outbreak of the Civil War Samuel F. Du Pont was an experienced and respected senior US Naval officer.  He commanded the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from September 1861 to July 1863.  He was in the original group of officers promoted to RADM when that rank was authorized in 1862.  Du Pont Circle in Washington, DC, is named in his honor as are the former warships USS Du Pont (TB-7, DD-152, DD-941).

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“TERROR OF THE CHESAPEAKE”

John Yates Beall was born New Year’s Day, 1839, on a farm in Walnut Grove, Virginia (now West Virginia).  His dreams of studying law seemed to come true when he was admitted to the University of Virginia, however the death of his father in 1856 necessitated his return to the family farm.  Decades of political and social strife before the Civil War engendered in him a passion for the southern cause.  This led him, at the outbreak of fighting, to join Bott’s Grays–Company G of the 2^nd Virginia Volunteer Infantry.  But a chest wound he received in a skirmish in the Shenandoah Valley left him unfit for further service.  An undaunted Beall turned to the Confederate Navy, to whom he proposed a brazen plan to harass Union shipping on the Great Lakes.  Wary of angering England, however, Confederate authorities balked.  But they did appoint Beall as an Acting Master, CSN.  Beall then relocated to Mathews County, Virginia, on the western Chesapeake shore with 20-odd men and two oared sail launches, one black and one white, Raven and Swan.

Beall used these boats on the night of 18-19 September to ferry 18 men across the Chesapeake to Virginia’s Eastern Shore.  They coursed around Cape Charles and up the Atlantic coast to a point near present-day Wachapreague Inlet.  Here they discovered the anchored civilian schooner Alliance.  Under the cover of darkness and a heavy squall this morning, they swept aboard and overpowered the few shocked crewmen.  Armed with revolvers, they similarly took the schooners J.J. Houseman, Samuel Pearsall, and Alexandria over the next two days.  When the latter three were found to be “in ballast,” their sails were set, their helms lashed, and they were headed, crewless, in the direction of the open sea.  They took Alliance underway to return to Milford Haven, Mathews County, in an attempt to land her cargo of sutler’s goods valued in today’s equivalent at $200,000.  But upon reaching the bar at Milford Haven, Alliance was spotted by the Union gunboat USS THOMAS FREEBORN.  A few shots spurred Beall to ground the freighter, fire her, and destroy all of her cargo.  The capture of Beall’s second-in-command, Acting Master Edward McGuire, resulted in the escapade’s full revelation.

Now known as the “Terror of the Chesapeake,” Beall was captured on 15 November and held in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, until being exchanged in May 1864.  He immediately returned to vexation, traveling to Lake Erie with plans to free Confederate POWs held on Johnsons Island near Sandusky, Ohio.  This plot failed and led to Beall’s re-capture (in civilian clothes).  He was tried at Fort Columbus, Governor’s Island, New York, and hanged as a spy on 24 February 1865, six weeks before the surrender at Appomattox.

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Baker, W.W.  Memoirs of Service with John Yates Beall, CSN (reprint of 1910 release).  Staunton, VA: Clarion Pub., 2013, pp. 3-34.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. III 140-41.

Report of Acting Rear-Admiral Lee, U.S. Navy, dtd. 30 Sep 1863.  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, 1862 to May 5, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, p. 206.

Report of Captain Gansevoort, U.S. Navy, dtd. 28 Sep 1863.  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, 1862 to May 5, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 203-04.

Report of Lieutenant-Commander Gillis, U.S. Navy, dtd. 27 Sep 1863.  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, 1862 to May 5, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1899, pp. 204-05.

Robinson, William Morrison, Jr.  The Confederate Privateers.  Reprint of 1928 publication, Columbia, SC:  Univ of South Carolina Press, 1994, pp. 221-25.

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. 73.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Milford Haven was an active shipbuilding center for a century before the Civil War.  Milford Haven today is but a map-dot, forgotten except as the location of a US Coast Guard station.

“Master” was not a standard officer grade in that day, rather a title in both civilian and Naval usage to denote someone with the training and experience to conn a ship.  Beall’s full Navy title was Master-Not-in-Line-of-Promotion, a rank that banned him from command of a commissioned vessel and withheld prize money from any captures.  He could, however, draw government stores, recruit sailors not otherwise subject to conscription, and procure ships at his own expense to operate under official auspices.  He was, effectively, a privateer.

The gear Beall salvaged from Alliance included the ship’s charts and nautical instruments–items in short supply and highly coveted in the south.  Of the three schooners cast adrift, crewless, from Wachapreague Inlet, history records the fate of only one.  Samuel Pearsall was corralled on the open sea by the civilian schooner F.F. Randolph and returned to port.

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                                     THE YAZOO CITY SHIPYARD

After the failure of the Yazoo Pass expedition before Confederate Fort Pemberton in March 1863, MGEN Ulysses Grant adopted a new strategy against Vicksburg, the last and most menacing Rebel city preventing Union control of the Mississippi River.  Grant would move his 30,000 troops south on the Louisiana shore, cross the river to the south at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, and move toward Jackson, cutting Vicksburg’s supply line via the Yazoo River.  Union gunboats, necessary to cover Grant’s river crossing, made a daring run past Vicksburg on the dark night of 16-17 April.  Doing so gave them access to the Yazoo, which reaches the Mississippi just south of Vicksburg.  By noon on 18 May 1863 RADM David Dixon Porter found himself on the Yazoo River with the ironclad USS BARON DE KALB and the tinclads CHOCTAW, LINDEN, PETREL, ROMEO, and FOREST ROSE.  Porter was supporting MGEN William T. Sherman’s move up the Yazoo.

At Snyder’s Mill the Rebels had constructed extensive earthworks that would have been a formidable obstruction to Sherman’s and Porter’s advance had not the Confederates abandoned it the day before.  Here Porter’s men found tents, field equipment, supplies, and 14 gun emplacements replete with artillery and ammunition.  A band of Confederates left to recover this material skidaddled at the sight of Porter’s boats.  Porter then sent LCDR John G. Walker ahead in BARON DE KALB to investigate rumors of a Confederate shipyard further upriver in Yazoo City.

DE KALB arrived this day in Yazoo City to find a column of smoke marking the Confederate shipyard.  Three warships lay on the ways nearly completed:  CSS MOBILE awaited only her iron plating; CSS REPUBLIC was being fitted with an iron ram at her bows; and a third 310-foot steamer Walker described as, “a monster,” was about to receive her 4.5″ iron plating.  Her 70-foot beam enclosed six steam engines, powering four paddlewheels and two screw propellers.  She would have given the Union a boatload of trouble indeed!  The steamers were seaworthy enough for Walker to have commandeered them for the Union, but for the lack of pilots to guide them downriver they were burned.  The shipyard was found to have five lumber and planing mills, blacksmith, machine, and carpentry shops, and all manner of equipment necessary to build or repair vessels of any size.  A hospital ashore nursed 150 wounded Confederates, who were paroled, never to fight again.  Walker destroyed the works, conservatively estimated to be worth $2 million in 1863 dollars.

Walker’s return was plagued on the 22^nd by three field pieces and 200 infantry from the shore near Liverpool Landing.  But as quickly as Union guns trained shoreward, the Rebels fled.

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

“Additional Report of Acting Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy, transmitting report of Lieutenant-Commander Walker, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Baron de Kalb, regarding operations at Yazoo City.”  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 25, Naval Forces on Western Waters from May 18, 1863, to February 29, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 7-9.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. III-82-83.

Jones, Virgil Carrington.  The Civil War at Sea:  Vol 2  The River War.  New York, NY:  Holt Rinehart Winston, 1961, pp. 421-22.

“Report of Acting Rear-Admiral Porter, U.S. Navy.”  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 25, Naval Forces on Western Waters from May 18, 1863, to February 29, 1864.  Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 5-7.

Sweetman, Jack.  American Naval History:  An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, pp. 71-72.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The Yazoo Pass expedition was an attempt to reach the Yazoo River from the north by breaching the Mississippi River levee opposite Helena, Arkansas.  Doing so flooded a former river channel that connected with Moon Lake, and the Coldwater and Tallahatchie Rivers to reach the Yazoo.  The expedition was halted by the impassable Confederate Fort Pemberton on the Tallahatchie just three miles from the Yazoo.

Tinclads were the most prolific class of gunboat in the Mississippi Squadron of our Civil War.  Each was a former civilian riverboat, purchased by our Navy and reinforced with heavy timber bulwarks overlain with sheet metal.

Most naval squadrons of these days had limited capacity for housing POWs.  Captured soldiers and sailors were therefore paroled.  They signed documents swearing never again to take up arms against the Union and were released in return.  Paroles had mixed effectiveness, especially since soldiers thereby returning to their homes did not wish to be perceived as deserters.

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