RADM CHARLES HENRY DAVIS

          Flag Officer Andrew H. Foote, commander of the Civil War Western Gunboat Flotilla supporting US Army operations in the upper Mississippi River, was in poor health.  He had been struck in this foot with shrapnel in February at the battle of Fort Donelson—a wound which festered and was now giving him considerable pain.  Of late, he was developing episodes of fever and prostration that were hampering his ability to command.  In a letter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles dated this day, he recommended CAPT Charles H. Davis as his successor should his health warrant his relief.  Foote left the squadron on 9 May to recuperate back east, appointing Davis as temporary commodore of the flotilla.  The next day, the flotilla suffered an embarrassing defeat at Plum Point Bend off Fort Pillow, Tennessee, at the hands of Confederate gunboat/rams.

          Charles Henry Davis was a respected senior officer in his day.  Though not a combat veteran, his work in mathematics, navigation, marine science, and astronomy had earned him acclaim.  As flotilla commander he quickly rebounded from Plum Point Bend, staging a one-sided victory over the same Confederate gunboat/rams at Memphis on June 6^th.  He next moved his 12-ship ironclad/timberclad flotilla to Milliken’s Bend just north of Vicksburg.  While awaiting LTGEN Ulysses S. Grant’s actions, Davis conducted reconnaissance forays in the White River of Arkansas and Mississippi’s Yazoo River on 5-8 August and 16-27 August respectively.

          But as the summer of 1862 wore on, an outbreak of malaria gripped the Vicksburg area.  To protect his crews from the “bad air,” Davis moved the flotilla 150 miles north to Helena, Arkansas.  Back in Washington, Union leaders cared little about malaria and saw Davis’ action as timidity.  Welles already thought Davis more a scholar than an aggressive, fighting commander.  Davis was relieved on 12 October and appointed, instead, as Chief of the Bureau of Navigation.  He was promoted to RADM a few months later, on 7 February 1863.

          Back in Washington, Davis’ remarkable scientific work continued.  After the war he became the Superintendent of the Naval Observatory and served with the Lighthouse Board.  Off duty, Davis was an original founder of our present-day National Academy of Sciences.  Davis continues to be honorably remembered by our Navy with USS DAVIS (TB-12, DD-65, DD-295) and the oceanographic research vessel CHARLES H. DAVIS (AGOR-5).  As well, a sea anemone native to the Canadian Maritimes, Rhodactis davisii, is named to honor his contributions to Marine Science.

Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History  22 APR 25

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 41-43.

Davis, Charles Henry, Jr.  The Life of Charles Henry Davis, Rear Admiral, 1807-1877.  New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1899.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 2 “C-F”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1977, pp. 244-45.

Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 63.

Stewart, Charles wW  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, pp, 85-86.

Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 23, Naval Forces on Western Waters April 12 to December 31, 1862.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1919, p. 395.

ADDITIONAL NTOES:  Charles Davis was largely self-taught.  He had studied mathematics at Harvard College from 1821-23, but left before finishing after his appointment to the Naval Academy.  Harvard recognized Davis with an honorary Bachelor of Arts degree in 1841 and an honorary Legum Doctor degree (LL.D.) in 1868.  Davis died on Active Duty on 18 February 1877 and is buried in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He was 70 years old.

          Davis was replaced in command of the Western Gunboat Flotilla by RADM David Dixon Porter.  The Western Gunbpat Flotilla shortly transferred to the US Navy as the Mississippi Squadron.

          Andrew Foote’s medical issue may well have been chronic osteomyelitis with periodic breakouts of sepsis.  He would live only into the next year, succumbing to one such episode in 1863.

          USS CHARLES H. DAVIS operated with the US Navy from 1962-70, when she was loaned to the New Zealand Navy.  She served there until 1998 while still being carried on our books as T-AGOR-5. She was stricken from our NVR in 1998 and sunk as an artificial reef off New Zealand the following year.

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                                 RADM WILLIAM S. BENSON, USN

In the years before WWI, the Secretary of the Navy took a more hands-on approach to day-to-day Navy activities.  He was assisted by the Chiefs of the eight Bureaus in matters such as personnel, docks and yards, inspections, and provisioning.  But in the area of fleet operations the SecNav was on his own, notably even in times of international conflict.  Senior Navy officers recognized that Secretaries of the Navy, as political appointees, often had little or no military experience.  And to this end, there were calls for the creation of a senior officer position that could advise SecNav and oversee fleet operations.  When this proposal reached President Woodrow Wilson’s SecNav, Josephus Daniels, he immediately objected.  In his mind, this threatened the basic Constitutional tenant of civilian control of the military.  Even the American public opposed “Prussianization” of the Navy, a reference to Prussia’s military-centric governance of that day.

Despite Daniels’ objections, Congress did create the position of Chief of Naval Operations in the Navy Act of 1915, passed on March 3^rd.  Daniels was given the distasteful task, to him, of nominating a senior CAPT or Flag Officer for this new position.  This was a time of increasing awareness that significant reform was necessary to the structure and functioning of the Navy, the creation of a CNO being only one of these reforms.  Admired senior “insurgents” such as George Dewey, Henry B. Luce, Alfred T. Mahan, Bradley A. Fiske, Henry C. Taylor, and William A. Sims supported reform, opposing Daniels’ conservatism.  Congressmen Richmond P. Hobson and Henry Cabot Lodge were on board as well, as was former President Teddy Roosevelt.  Were Daniels to select a reform-minded senior officer, he would have set himself up for difficulties.

CAPT William Shepherd Benson was, at the time, Commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  He was a respected officer, a veteran of the Spanish-American War, with both headquarters experience and cruiser and battleship command at sea.  Most importantly to Daniels, Benson was not involved in reform efforts.  And on 11 May 1915 Congress approved his nomination to become the first CNO.

Benson proved more than equal to the task of outlining and defining the role of the new position, while simultaneously accepting subordination to SecNav.  His work answered the concerns of both to conservatives and reformists.  He oversaw creation of the Navy Reserve, executed our interventions in Central America, and prepared us for entry into WWI.  He served for four years, retiring and receiving a promotion to RADM on this date, having cemented the CNO position and assuaged fears of military over-reach.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  30 SEP 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 2 1901-1918.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, pp. 22-24.

Coletta, Paolo E.  American Secretaries of the Navy  Vol 1 1775-1913.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1980, pp. 498-500.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Benson is known for another magnanimous act.  His son, LT Howard H.J. Benson, USN, had become skipper of the submarine H-2 by 1913.  When the US entered WWI in 1917 the younger Benson was on shore duty.  He petitioned his father, then CNO, for orders to a combat posting.  His father declined to act either for or against his son’s request, leaving his son to forge his own career.  LT Benson ultimately secured combat duty as skipper of convoy escorts, and earned a Navy Cross in the process.

          The eight Bureaus in this day were Engineering, Docks and Yards, Ordnance, Navigation, Medicine and Surgery, Provisions and Clothing, Construction and Repair, Equipment and Recruiting

Richmond Hobson was a former Navy officer and Medal of Honoree from the Spanish-American War.

Promotion to Flag Rank upon retirement was a practice of our Navy in the past, often done as a reward for an outstanding career.  It is no longer practiced.

Our WWII era destroyer BENSON (DD-421) and our troop transport ADMIRAL W.S. BENSON (AP-120) both remember our first CNO.  BENSON was the first of only two modified Sims-class tin cans today known as the Benson-class.  She was launched 15 November 1939 with RADM Benson’s widow as sponsor.  She saw action in convoy duty in the Atlantic and Mediterranean before transferring after VE-Day to the Pacific.

The post RADM William S. Benson, USN appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                  CONTROVERSIAL SILVER STAR

This dawn saw eleven Army Air Corps Martin B-26 Marauder bombers of the Army Air Corps 22^nd Bomb Group waiting on the runway at Port Moresby, New Guinea.  They were one of three squadrons on mission “Tow Nine” to bomb the Japanese airbase at Lae.  This was a “milk run” compared to missions over Rabaul and New Britain.  Yet the minutes were slipping by, and the VIPs they were waiting to carry were late.  Finally, BGEN William F. Marquat’s party arrived and dispersed among the bombers.  LCDR Lyndon B. Johnson, Navy liaison to the General’s staff, boarded a B-26 nicknamed “Wabash Cannonball” but immediately excused himself to retrieve a forgotten camera.  When he returned, his seat had been taken by LCOL Francis R. Stevens, and Johnson had to scramble for another plane.

The squadron took off at 0851, but 30 minutes into the flight “The Heckling Hare”–in which Johnson had found a seat–lost a generator and had to turn back.  Ten bombers flew the remaining 80 miles to the target but arrived late and nearly collided with a flight of outbound Mitchell’s that had finished their runs.  As the Marauder’s lined up, they were jumped by two dozen enemy A6M2 Zeros.  “Wabash Cannonball” was hit repeatedly and began spinning out of control.  She plummeted into the sea in flames, none of the eight aboard were recovered.  The surviving Marauder’s made it back to Port Moresby where one crash landed on the field and four more were reported to be well riddled.

LCDR Johnson returned the next day to Townsville, Australia, where, on June 18^th, he was awarded the Silver Star (our nation’s 3^rd highest combat award) by GEN Douglas MacArthur.  His citation lauded him for gathering valuable intelligence and demonstrating “marked coolness” under fire on a “suicide” mission.  At the time, LCDR Lyndon Johnson was the US Representative from the 10^th Congressional District of Texas, on leave from Congress to fight (as were many young Congressmen in early 1942).  But a few weeks later President Roosevelt recalled all Congressmen to their legislative duties, and LCDR Johnson left the South Pacific.

Mr. Johnson continued in public service and in 1963 became President Lyndon Johnson.  Over the course of his career, he often wore his Silver Star on his lapel and claimed the moniker “Raider Johnson.”  In a 1964 book entitled The Mission, written before the action reports from “Tow Nine” were declassified, the details of this day’s mission are retold by two of “The Heckling Hare’s” enlisted crewmen.  They describe a harrowing return under heavy enemy fire, an account not corroborated in the now-declassified action reports or by the other five crewmen.  Controversy surrounds Johnson’s medal today, as it did throughout his career.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  15 JUN 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Caidin, Martin and Edward Hymoff.  The Mission.  New York, NY: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1964.

Tillman, Barrett and Henry Sakaida.  “Silver Star Airplane Ride.”  Naval History, April 2001, pp. 25-29.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  “The Heckling Hare’s” crewmen on this mission did not learn Johnson had received the Silver Star until after the war.  Personnel records show that no one else aboard the bomber received an award for this day’s mission.  The now declassified after action reports identify no battle damage to “The Heckling Hare” on the mission of 9 June 1942.  Historians researching Johnson’s medal point out that the timing and details of “The Heckling Hare’s” flight would have had her turning back well before the squadron was attacked.  A crippled B-26, returning on one engine would have been able to manage only about 150 knots, and would have found it difficult to shake what the two “Heckling Hare” enlisted crewmen described in 1964–eight pursuing 320-knot Zeroes.  As a result, the story recounted by historians Martin Caidin and Edward Hymoff in The Mission has been called into question.

Some now theorize that savvy GEN MacArthur’s knowledge that the South Pacific theater had taken a backseat in American headlines, and that influential politicians then serving in his theater were about to be recalled, may have influenced his decision to award LCDR Johnson.

Regardless of the controversy it is interesting to speculate how the Vietnam War, civil rights law, and American military policy might have changed had LCDR Johnson not forgotten his camera this day in 1942!  Our current Arleigh Burke­ destroyer DDG-1002 remembers LCDR and Commander-in-Chief Lyndon Johnson.

The post Controversial Silver Star appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                         ARTICLE 114. DUELING.

James Barron and Stephen Decatur enjoyed distinguished careers during the wars with the Barbary pirates.  They became not just colleagues, but good friends.  Thus, Decatur was disheartened in 1807 when Barron, then in command of the frigate CHESAPEAKE, 36, fell victim to HMS LEOPARD, 56.  The British suspected CHESAPEAKE of harboring Royal Navy deserters and watched for her departure from Virginia for the Mediterranean.  Once Barron had sailed beyond the Virginia Capes, CHESAPEAKE was halted and fired upon by LEOPARD.  The action caught Barron totally by surprise.  His guns had been stowed for the long voyage ahead, compelling him to strike his colors.

Barron later faced a court-martial over this incident.  Presiding at this trial, reluctantly, after his requests to the contrary had been denied, was Stephen Decatur.  The court found Barron negligent and suspended him from duty, whereupon he entered the merchant service.  As circumstance would have it, Barron was in England when hostilities in the War of 1812 commenced and was unable to secure passage to America until the War’s end.  Upon his return, murmurings sprang up that his detention in England had not been completely accidental, reflecting a hint of cowardice in his character.  It was rumored to Barron that Decatur was party to these murmurings, and he challenged his former friend to gentlemanly redress on the field of honor.

On this morning in 1820, the two met in a valley near Bladensburg, Maryland.  In retrospect, Decatur’s second, CDORE William Bainbridge, and Barron’s second, CAPT Jesse D. Elliott, could probably have resolved the quarrel had they acted on the opportunity that now presented.  Just before the two faced off Barron expressed to Decatur the hope that “…on meeting in another world, they would be better friends than in this,” to which Decatur replied, “I have never been your enemy, Sir.”  From a short eight paces they turned and fired, neither aiming to kill.

Barron was wounded in the thigh but survived.  Barron’s bullet entered Decatur’s hip and was deflected into his pelvis, causing substantial hemorrhage.  About 12 hours later, Stephen Decatur, one of the most promising officers in the history of our Navy, died at his home in Lafayette Square. 

Though this was certainly not the only duel between military officers in our history, it was arguably the most costly.  A revision of the Navy Regulations in 1837 forbade dueling as does our modern UCMJ.  James Barron eventually returned to the active duty list and ascended to the position of senior Commodore of the Navy, though he never again commanded at sea.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  26-27 MAR 24

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Beach, Edward L.  The United States Navy:  200 Years.  New York, NY: Henry Holt Co., 1986, pp. 143-46.

Site visit, Stephen Decatur House, Lafayette Square, Washington, DC, 23 May 2007.

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. 36.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Edward Beach contends that the real instigator in this duel was Jesse Elliott.  Branded since the War of 1812 as the “coward of Lake Erie” for failing to come to the aid of his Commodore, Oliver Hazard Perry, Elliott is known to have harbored a desire to recover his honor against Perry.  His desires were thwarted, however, when Perry died in August 1819 of yellow fever.  Elliott and Barron had agreed to act as each other’s second in their respective duels.

Two other Navy officers were present that morning as well.  CAPT’s David Porter and John Rodgers had both refused offers to be Decatur’s second, and both had discouraged Decatur’s participation.  Both had ridden independently to Bladensburg that morning and secreted themselves in the nearby wood.  When Barron and Decatur both fell, Elliott was suddenly overcome by the fear of becoming an accessory to murder.  Dueling was illegal even back in 1820, though existing laws were seldom enforced.  Elliott fled the scene, and it was Porter who reportedly ran him down on the road back to Washington and forced Elliott to return to Barron’s side.

Though dueling was unlawful and Barron, Bainbridge, and Elliott were widely known to be participants in this duel, none was ever censured by the Navy.  All three continued to rise within the Navy’s hierarchy.  As a result, the respectability of Naval officers in the public’s eye (as compared to Army officers) suffered for decades.

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                                     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 quickly saw action serving under his father in USS ESSEX, 32, in the War of 1812, aboard whom he was wounded in the engagement with HMS PHOEBE, 36.  He was the first Commandant of the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1853 and went on to command the West Gulf Blockading Squadron of the Civil War.  The victor at New Orleans, Vicksburg, and Mobile Bay, he was our Navy’s first RADM in 1862, first VADM in 1864, and first ADM in 1866.  Following that war, he commanded the European Squadron and remained our Navy’s senior ranking officer.  Not until George Dewey, a generation later, was another officer so widely honored.

But Farragut’s later years were plagued by ill health.  When an invitation from the Commandant of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, NH, was received in 1870, the 69-year-old Farragut perceived a chance to breathe what was thought to be the healing New England air.  He made the journey aboard the sidewheel double-ender USS TALLAPOOSA, confined to bed for most of the voyage.  When TALLAPOOSA entered Portsmouth Harbor on Independence Day, she fired a gun salute to her embarked admiral, inspiring Farragut to arise, don his uniform, and climb to the quarterdeck.  There he was heard to comment, “It would be well if I died now, in harness…”  During his visit he went aboard the 30-year-old, 16-gun sailing sloop-of-war DALE–like Farragut, an aging veteran of the Mexican and Civil Wars.  Upon disembarking he remarked with affection to her caretaker, “This is the last time I shall ever tread on the deck of a man-of-war.”  His words were prescient.  Only days later he again took to bed, and two weeks later, on this day, ADM Farragut died.  It was a peaceful Sunday.  Eight bells had just tolled noon.  One humble man’s 60 years of service to the Flag had ended.  The cause of death was listed as apoplexic stroke.

On the 17^th the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, paused for a public funeral.  A flag-draped rosewood coffin preceded a mile-long procession of military officers and public officials.  The Admiral was laid to rest in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Brox. 

Five warships have remembered David G. Farragut, including our current Arleigh Burke-class destroyer DDG-99.  A respectful city of Washington DC apportioned Farragut Square, where, on 16 April 1872, the US Congress commissioned the statue that today centerpieces that square.  The bronze propeller of Farragut’s Civil War flagship, USS HARTFORD, was melted down and used to cast his likeness, whose understated inscription simply reads, “Farragut”.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  21 AUG 23

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, pp. 394-96.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 7 “T-V”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981, pp. 23-24.

Lewis, Charles Lee.  David Glasgow Farragut:  Our First Admiral.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1943, pp. 366-78.

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. 84.

ADDITIONAL NOTES: To die “in harness” is an old expression that means to die while working, or, when used in a military context, to die on Active Duty.  It alludes to the use of the word “harness” to describe the armor worn by soldiers of antiquity.  “Apoplexic stroke” is an outdated medical term for sudden cerebrovascular demise.  Alternatively, medical historians postulate today that Farragut’s death may have been the result of cardiac arrest after a prolonged decline in cardiovascular health.

The other US warships honoring Farragut are:  TB-11, DD-300, DD-348, and DLG-6.

The post The Passing of Farragut appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                    5 JULY 1801

                  DAVID (JAMES) GLASGOW FARRAGUT BIRTHDAY

Jordi Farragut Mesquida was a Minorcan-born sea captain sailing Spanish merchant ships between Vera Cruz, New Orleans, and Havana in the 1770s.  With the outbreak of our Revolutionary War, Mesquida anglicized his name to “George Farragut” and came to our newly declared nation to fight against King George III.  Serving with the South Carolina State Navy, he was wounded and captured during the British siege of Charleston.  A prisoner exchange allowed him to fight again at the battle of Cowpens.  He finished the war as a MAJ in a light horse company of the North Carolina State Regiment.  With the peace, George married his North Carolina sweetheart, Elizabeth Shine, and the couple moved west to Tennessee.  Their first of five children, James Glasgow Farragut, was born this day.

With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Spanish-speaking George was selected for an administrative position in New Orleans.  Son James had his first nautical adventure on the 1700-mile flatboat trip down the Tennessee and Mississippi Rivers.  In 1808, during a yellow fever outbreak, family friend LT David Porter, Jr., USN, brought his ailing father (and Revolutionary veteran), David Porter, Sr., to the Farragut home.  The elder Porter had Consumption (tuberculosis), complicated acutely with sunstroke.  Despite Elizabeth’s ministrations, the elder Porter died on 22 June.  Indeed, Elizabeth died that same day of yellow fever.  A distraught George Farragut consigned the care of his children to friends–James to LT Porter.  When James reached 9 years of age, Porter arranged an appointment as a midshipman, taking him under his wing and into combat in the War of 1812 aboard ESSEX, 32.  James changed his Christian name to David to honor his adopted father and steadily rose through the officer ranks.

A southerner by birth, David Glasgow Farragut nevertheless distinguished himself as a Union Navy commander during the Civil War.  To be sure, on 16 July 1862, Farragut was the first officer appointed a Rear Admiral with Congress’ creation of that rank.  Later, on 5 August 1864, from his flagship USS HARTFORD, RADM Farragut entered the Confederate held waters of Mobile Bay.  When the guns of the Confederate forts opened, the lead ship backed down in the channel, threatening to ruin the operation.  In his typical fiery style, Farragut ordered HARTFORD to pass around BROOKLYN–through a known mine field (mines in these days were called “torpedoes.”)  With the order, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” Farragut gambled that months of submersion had waterlogged the devices.  HARTFORD’s crew could hear the primers of the torpedoes snapping, but Farragut’s daring paid off, and the squadron went on to rout the Confederates.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 JUL 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 60-61.

Hoehling, A.A.  Damn the Torpedoes!  Naval Incidents of the Civil War.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 105-20.

Lewis, J.D.  “American Revolution in North Carolina.”  AT:  https://www.carolina.com/NC/Revolution/nc_patriot_military_major_s.html, retrieved 16 June 2023.

Lyons, Renee Critcher.  Foreign-Born American Patriots: Sixteen Volunteer Leaders in the Revolutionary War.  New York, NY: McFarland & Company, 2013, p. 91.

Potter, E.B.  Sea Power: A Naval History, 2^nd ed.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1981, pp. 104, 147-48.

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, pp. 31-32, 74.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  History records little about David Porter, Sr.’s Revolutionary War naval service.  His son, David Porter, Jr., and David, Jr.’s son, David Dixon Porter, are remembered with our warships PORTER (TB-6, DD-59, DD-356, DD-800, DDG-78).  David Glasgow Farragut has become an icon of our service’s heritage and is remembered with FARRAGUT (TB-11, DD-300, DD-348, DDG-37 (DLG-6), DDG-99).

Historians have since debated the actual words used by Farragut to command HARTFORD forward at Mobile Bay–but his intent is accurately portrayed with the quote above.

The use of “torpedo” for an underwater mine derives from the name of a fish.  The torpedo ray is native to the shallow waters of our Atlantic shores.  Like the electric eel, the torpedo ray can generate an electric shock and does so when stepped upon by waders.

The post (James) Farragut Birthday appeared first on Today in Naval History.

                                                   29 JUNE 1842

                                     “PATHFINDER OF THE SEAS”

Matthew Fontaine Maury was born in a woodland cabin near Chancellorsville, Virginia, on 14 January 1806.  At age 5 his family moved to Franklin, Tennessee, where Matthew attended the Harpeth Academy for teachers.  On 1 February 1825 Tennessee Congressman Sam Houston (later of Texas fame) arranged an appointment for Maury as a midshipman.  There being no Naval Academy yet, Maury reported for training aboard USS BRANDYWINE, 44.  There he became disenchanted with the navigation text of the day, Nathaniel Bowditch’s New American Practical Navigator.  Transferring to the sloop VINCENNES, 18, Maury was aboard for our Navy’s first circumnavigation of the globe.  He kept copious notes on winds, currents, and lunar changes during the cruise.  On 3 March 1831 Maury sat for the midshipman’s exam, where, to a question on navigation he used his own method of spherical trigonometry.  Though he answered correctly, because he failed to use Bowditch’s accepted method he was not passed.

Maury next reported to the sloop-of-war FALMOUTH, 24, and upon reaching Cape Horn correctly deduced the location of favorable winds.  FALMOUTH navigated the Horn days ahead of another warship using conventional charts, prompting Maury to publish On the Navigation of Cape Horn in the American Journal of Science and Arts later that decade.  After service on DOLPHIN, 11, and POTOMAC, 50, Maury returned to shore duty in May of 1834.  He used the time to write A New Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Navigation, a replacement text for Bowditch–a work that was praised by Bowditch!  In 1838-39 he served as astronomer and hydrographer on the US Exploring Expedition to the South Seas.  But in a stagecoach accident on 17 October 1839, Maury sustained a leg fracture that left him with a permanent limp and precluded any further sea duty.

Ashore, Maury lobbied for the creation of a Naval Academy and criticized graft.  At the time, ship repair contracts were being let for amounts greater than the original cost of construction!  On this date the Lieutenant was appointed to head the newly established Depot of Charts and Instruments, an assignment his superiors thought would sideline the bothersome officer.  Upon the establishment of the Naval Observatory in 1844, Maury became its first Superintendent.  Collating volumes of accumulated oceanographic data, he published Wind and Current Charts and Sailing Directions in 1847.  In 1848 the clipper ship W.H.D.C. Wright used these pamphlets to successfully avoid the equatorial doldrums to reach Rio de Janeiro from Baltimore in a record 38 days and return in 37 days!  Maury earned the abiding respect of all mariners as the “Pathfinder of the Seas.”

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  5 JUL 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 4 “L-M”. Washington, DC: GPO, 1969, p. 278.

“Matthew Fontaine Maury.”  AT: www.eraoftheclippership.com/ page14web.html.  20 May 2006.

Site visit.  Maury birthplace, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial, Chancellorsville, VA, 16 February 2002.

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. 44.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  In 1855 Maury published The Physical Geography of the Sea, the first textbook of oceanography, and a text that was employed for decades at the Naval Academy.  During the Civil War he sided with his birth-state, Virginia, serving as a CDR in the Confederate States Navy and an agent for shipbuilding in England.  He died on 1 February 1873 and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia.  The site of his birth is preserved in the National Park Service’s Chancellorsville Battlefield historical site.

Maury Hall, at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester Point, Virginia, remembers Matthew Fontaine Maury, as does the US Navy destroyers, DD-100 and DD-401, and the oceanographic survey ship AGS-16.  However, as a Confederate officer, modern political correctness dictated that Maury Hall aboard the US Naval Academy be renamed.  The former Maury Hall is now Carter Hall, after Navy veteran and US President Jimmy Carter.

The post “Pathfinder of the Seas” appeared first on 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 mission was a daring run past the vaunted Confederate batteries at Vicksburg.  He towed two coal barges in case any Union warships downstream were in need of resupply.  The trio passed half the batteries before their presence was detected in the darkness, and no shots struck the gunboat.  Six days later Brown started back upstream.  The night of 24 February found INDIANOLA at Palmyra Island, north of Grand Gulf, Mississippi.  Here about 2130, lights were noted in pursuit.

CSS WEBB, DR. BEATTY, GRAND ERA and the former Union gunboat QUEEN OF THE WEST, now in enemy hands, were gunning for Brown!  QUEEN closed first, ramming and sinking one of the coal barges.  Covering musket fire from DR. BEATTY allowed QUEEN and WEBB to repeatedly charge Brown.  Recognizing that he had to keep INDIANOLA’s vulnerable sidewheels from being struck, Brown lingered exposed on the deck to direct his pilot.  At times he knelt on a ventilation grating to communicate instructions to the engine spaces below, with Confederate minié balls whizzing all around!  On several occasions as the rams closed, Brown directed the fire of his gunners, aiming and discharging one gun himself.  None of the Union sailors had seen action before this night, and the darkness only added to the near-panic aboard the overwhelmed INDIANOLA.  Brown coolly directed his gunboat’s response for a terrifying hour.  Then QUEEN succeeded in ramming from the stern, carrying away the Union rudder and punching through her hull.  When a second ramming blow parted the starboard sidewheel shaft and smashed a second hull breach, INDIANOLA became unmanageable.  Two and a half feet of water rapidly flooded the bilges, forcing Brown at 2320 to run INDIANOLA onto the shore.  She came to rest on a sand bar just south of Palmyra Island, where, having lost only two casualties, Brown’s crew destroyed the signal books and valuable gear.

LCDR Brown and INDIANOLA were captured.  He was exchanged months later in Richmond and went on to command USS ITASCA at the battle of Mobile Bay.  After the Civil War he sailed the former CSS STONEWALL to Japan, upon the sale of that vessel.  He was promoted to CAPT in 1877 and commanded the Department of Alaska.  While overseeing the Norfolk Navy Yard this date he was promoted to Commodore.  He went on to command our Pacific Station in the Philippines until his promotion to RADM in 1893.  Then, following a second tour as Commandant of the Norfolk Navy Yard, RADM Brown retired 19 June 1897, his 62^nd birthday.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11-12 SEP 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 21-22.

“Report of Acting Assistant Surgeon Mixer, U.S. Navy, late of the U.S.S. Indianola, regarding the operations and capture of that vessel.”  IN:  Stewart, Charles W.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 24, Naval Forces on Western Waters from January 1, to May 17, 1863.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1911, pp. 392-95.

Site visits.  Vicksburg, and Grand Gulf Military Monument State Park, Mississippi, 15 October 2003.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  RADM Brown passed away before WWI in 1913.  Our Navy has not yet named a warship for RADM Brown.  In fact, deconflicting several Navy men bearing the name “George Brown” can be complicated.  Brown’s son, George, Jr., as well as a second son named Hugh, both served as US Navy officers.  LTJG George Peter Brown (unrelated) was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at the Battle of the Philippine Sea in 1944.  The Fletcher-class destroyer BROWN (DD-546) remembers an earlier and unrelated enlisted sailor also named George Brown, a hero of the Barbary Wars.

INDIANOLA’s loss thwarted RADM David Dixon Porter’s efforts to blockade the Red River, south of Vicksburg.  The Red River was a pathway for the resupply of Vicksburg from the Trans-Mississippi theater.  At the time Porter’s squadron was stuck north of that city, and he had been detaching warships to run past the city to blockade the mouth of the Red River.  The loss contributed to Porter’s near-disastrous foray up the Red River in March-May 1864.  INDIANOLA remained grounded until January 1865, when Union salvors refloated her after much effort.  She was sold for scrap.

The run past Vicksburg was formidable.  In Civil War days the Mississippi River ran directly in front of the bluffs of the city, then made a hairpin turn to double back past the city a second time within gun range.  Since, the river has carved a new bed, but from the bluffs today, one can still see the trace of the former channel past the city.

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                                        DREADED YELLOW JACK

On this date, 34-year-old Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, hero of the War of 1812, died aboard the schooner USS NONSUCH, 14, in Trinidad.  He and many of his crew had contracted yellow fever on a diplomatic mission to Venezuela.

Malaria, dysentery and typhoid were steady killers in the tropical Americas, but none stirred the public panic that attended yellow fever outbreaks, due in part to this disease’s 50% mortality and its rapid progression–hale by morning; jaundiced, prostrate, and deathly ill by evening.  “Yellow jack” was the scourge that condemned the mythical Flying Dutchman to haunt the seas, and its seemingly random outbreaks were well-known to our Navy.  Though epidemics struck as far north as Memphis in 1878 and Philadelphia in 1793, it was the experience of the trans-Panamanian railway from 1850-55 that engendered the greatest public awareness of yellow fever.  Deaths among construction laborers on this project were so great that disposal of the bodies led to a thriving subsidiary industry.  The Panama Railroad Company became the leading supplier of cadavers, pickled and distributed in barrels to medical schools and hospitals the world over.

Prolific medical research was devoted to yellow jack.  One observation was contributed by Navy Surgeon John F. Bransford, who accompanied the 1872-73 trans-isthmanian canal surveying expedition to Nicaragua and a similar Panamanian expedition two years later.  Pre-dating Army CAPT Walter Reed by years, Bransford recognized that mosquito netting provided protection–he reasoned “by straining the air of germs and moisture.”  Unfortunately, Bransford’s work lay under-credited for years.

Medical progress was hampered by prevailing wisdom that yellow fever resulted from exposure to noxious vapors given off by rotting organic matter, such as that found in jungle soil, (hence its association with digging the railroad bed), or in the filth of cities dispossessed of sewage systems.  This theory was bolstered by local knowledge in Panama of “yellow fever winds” that blew from lowlands east of Panama City and brought periodic outbreaks of the disease.  Also clear to the Victorian mind–the lazy, lascivious, or morally wanting were much more susceptible.  Bourbon and mustard seed, combined with a God-fearing, industrious lifestyle, were the only remedies.

In modern times a vaccine and programs to reduce breeding of the Aedes aegypti mosquito provide effective prevention.  Those today who resist immunization or who shun mosquito netting need only think back to this day when American Navy lost one of our greatest heroes to a (now) preventable disease.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  30 AUG 22

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. 103-04.

McCullough, David.  The Path Between the Seas:  The Creation of the Panama Canal – 1870-1914.  New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1977, pp. 33-38, 137-47.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Yellow fever is not indigenous to the New World.  The Aedes aegypti mosquito, the vector for the disease, was brought from Africa in the bilges of slave ships during the early period of European colonization.  The same mosquito also carries dengue fever.  Since its introduction Aedes aegypti has become endemic to our Gulf Coast states and as far north as Washington, DC.  In this nation the mosquito is recently being out competed by an aggressive sister species, Aedes albopictus, which is also a vector for yellow fever and dengue.  Yellow fever deaths in the United States are rare, although the WHO estimates annual deaths worldwide to be 30,000–90% in Africa where the viral genotype is most virulent.

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                    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.  He served in the Bureau of Charts and Instruments of the Naval Observatory in the years before the Civil War, commanding coastal survey expeditions and inventing an instrument for deep sounding.  By the outbreak of the Civil War, he was a respected officer and hydrographer.  That war necessitated his return to combat, commanding the sidewheel steamer USS Fort Jackson of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from 1863-65.  By this time, his 19-year-old son, James Hoban Sands, had entered the Navy as well and was serving as an Ensign aboard the screw sloop USS Shenandoah.  January of 1865 found father and son participating in the Union Navy effort to close the last remaining port open to the Confederacy, Wilmington, North Carolina.

That Union effort involved reducing Fort Fisher, the bastion guarding an entrance to the Cape Fear River, upon which Wilmington is situated.  Despite weeks of campaigning to this date the fort and its garrison were still intact.  Today’s undaunted Union plan called for a ground frontal assault under naval bombardment.

The elder Sands stood his warship in a line of battle off the fort at 0900 this morning and opened a shot and shell barrage with his 100-pounders and IX-inch gun.  Meanwhile, at 0948, LT Smith W. Nichols, XO of Shenandoah, led a storming party of 68 Marines and bluejackets ashore.  The younger Sands guided one of Nichols’ launches.  Shenandoah’s storming party joined the ground assault and stepped off on a perilous charge of the fixed fort defenses.  Through a hail of bullets and shells they advanced, Sands and the Shenandoah party reaching the outer stockade wall that provided some shelter from the enemy’s fire.  Here they found themselves pinned, returning what fire they could, hoping the bombardment by his father and the rest of the Union flotilla might be effective.

For the rest of this day, Sands and his men hunkered behind the outer stockade wall.  At sunset, the cramped and exhausted assault party began a withdrawal.  Still under enemy fire, Sands, Nichols, and Bo’sun James H. Polley rallied their men.  Through the dedication and industry of Sands, the Shenandoah party reached safety.  None from Shenandoah lost his life this day, only 7 were wounded.  Sands organized the evacuation of the wounded, then turned to help other injured men.  Shenandoah’s skipper, CAPT Daniel B. Ridgely, relayed to RADM David D. Porter that Sands, “deserved the highest praise for his zeal and energy shown throughout.”

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 1 1862-1900.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989. p. 157.

Cogar, William B.  Dictionary of Admirals of the U.S. Navy, Vol 2 1901-1918.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, pp. 247-48.

“Report of Captain Ridgely, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Shenandoah.”  IN:  Rawson, Edward, George P. Colvocoresses and Charles W. Stewart.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 11: North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 28, 1864, to February 1, 1865.  GPO, Washington, DC, p. 539.

“Report of Captain Sands, U.S. Navy. commanding U.S.S. Fort Jackson.”  IN:  Rawson, Edward, George P. Colvocoresses and Charles W. Stewart.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 11: North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 28, 1864, to February 1, 1865.  GPO, Washington, DC, pp. 547-48.

“Report of Lieutenant Nichols, U.S. Navy, commanding assaulting party from U.S.S. Shenandoah.”  IN:  Rawson, Edward, George P. Colvocoresses and Charles W. Stewart.  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 11: North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 28, 1864, to February 1, 1865.  GPO, Washington, DC, pp. 539-40.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 42, 72.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Father and son survived this battle, and Fort Fisher did fall.  The elder Sands returned to his scientific work after the war, being promoted to RADM in 1871.  James Sands remained in the Navy as well–also for duty in the hydrographic office of the Naval Observatory.  He, too, was promoted to RADM and in his final tour, from 1905-1907, served as the 19^th Superintendent of the Naval Academy.

Father and son Sands are two of but a handful of Navy officers to be honored with the naming of both a warship and a research vessel–the post-WWI Clemson-class destroyer Sands (DD-243), and the 1960s oceanographic research ship of the same name, (AGOR-6).

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