CSS STONEWALL

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

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

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

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

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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                       CDR TUNIS CRAVEN, HERO OF MOBILE BAY

To a boy from Portsmouth, NH, the life of the sea seemed natural, thus, when Tunis Augustus MacDonough Craven was appointed a Midshipman on 2 February 1829, no one was surprised.  He distinguished himself during the Mexican War as a Lieutenant under CDR Thomas O. Selfridge aboard DALE, 16, leading shore parties that routed Mexican troops and captured cannon at Muleje, Loreta, and Cochori in Baja and Sonora.  The Civil War found Craven skippering TECUMSEH, a single-turret ironclad monitor, a class of warship well respected by both Civil War navies.  She carried two 15″ Dahlgren smooth-bores, capable of hurling a 440-pound steel bolt that could rip enemy armor.  Her iron hull befitted her advanced construction; she was designed to engage the best the enemy could produce.  RADM David G. Farragut appreciated the value of monitors and placed four in the van of his attack on the Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama.  These could resist shot from Forts Morgan and Gaines guarding the bay’s entrance channel, while simultaneously engaging the ironclad ram CSS TENNESSEE, a clear threat to Farragut’s wooden-hulled steam frigates.

In the mist this morning, TECUMSEH led the 18-ship Union squadron into Mobile Bay.  At 0700, she opened with two rounds at Fort Morgan, after which she noticed TENNESSEE sliding toward the oncoming Union line.  CDR Craven ordered the helm to port, bringing his monitor onto a ramming course for TENNESSEE.  This carried the monitor inboard of the buoy marking a Confederate torpedo (mine) field.  Closer and closer Craven glided, until just 100 yards from the Confederate, a tremendous explosion suddenly bashed TECUMSEH’s keel.  Catastrophic flooding plunged her bows immediately, lifting her screw completely out of the water.  Inside, panicked men scrambled for daylight.

Craven dove for the only escape, a small hatch behind the pilothouse.  He and the pilot, John Collins, reached the ladder simultaneously, at which point Craven graciously stepped back, stating, “After you, pilot.”  His civility allowed Collins to escape, but sealed Craven’s fate with that of 92 other crewmen, for in only 25 seconds TECUMSEH rolled completely.

Only 21 escaped.  So terrifying was the spectacle of her demise that BROOKLYN, leading the main squadron, backed down in the channel fearing the same fate.  With his line now breaking and exposed to fire from the shore, a frustrated Farragut yelled to CAPT Percival Drayton of the flagship HARTFORD, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”  HARTFORD passed to port of BROOKLYN, leading the squadron through the rest of the mines that Farragut correctly gambled were waterlogged from lengthy immersion.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  11 AUG 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. 78, 1981.

Fowler, William M., Jr.  Under Two Flags: The American Navy in the Civil War.  Avon Books, New York, NY, p. 240-41, 1990.

Hoehling, A.A.  Damn the Torpedoes!  Naval Incidents of the Civil War.  John F. Blair Pub., Winston-Salem, NC, p. 113, 1989.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

As is usually the case with famous quotes, there is today some argument about the actual content of the exchange between Craven and Collins.  According to A.A. Hoehling, Craven was already partway up the ladder when Collins grabbed his leg and said, “Let me get out first, captain, for God’s sake; I have five little children!”, to which Craven stepped back saying “Go on, sir.”  Indeed, the monitors of those days were floating coffins in an emergency.  The sole egress route was a one-at-a-time hatch near the pilothouse.  (Miraculously, two or three additional sailors were able to squeeze through TECUMSEH’s tiny gun ports).  As TECUMSEH rolled there was stone silence aboard the Confederate TENNESSEE.  These sailors recognized they might very well suffer an identical fate, in fact, they were at that moment over the same torpedo field.

Some have commented that the Civil War was our last major conflict in which the opposing sides openly shared a measure of compassion for each other.  Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston, commanding ashore, observed TECUMSEH’s demise with the comment, “The event was the most startling and tragic loss of the day.”

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