BATTLE OF ELIZABETH CITY (cont. from 8 FEB)

Union forces from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron had driven a Confederate “mosquito fleet” from Roanoke Island, and at 1430 on the afternoon of February 9^th, CDR Stephen C. Rowan pursued.  Rowan weighed anchor in the schooner-rigged sidewheeler USS DELAWARE and rallied UNDERWRITER, COMMODORE PERRY, and MORSE in a van leading 10 smaller gunboats in column.  Upon entering the Albemarle Sound they sighted the smoke of the enemy escaping up the Pasquotank River.  Rowan followed, but nightfall stopped his progress 10 miles below Cobb’s Point, where the Confederates had built a battery on the riverbank.

Shortly after 0800 this morning, Rowan sighted the Confederates, whose gunboats had taken refuge under the four 32-pounders of Fort Cobb.  On the opposite bank, the schooner BLACK WARRIOR was moored, bringing her two 32-pounders to the action as well.  Rowan signaled a dash for the enemy, and the Rebel batteries opened.  Shot and shell pierced the air, many arching over Rowan to strike his following column.  Rowan’s flotilla closed regardless, holding their fire and keeping formation.

The specter of the opening Union cannonade at 600 yards struck panic into the Confederates!  Those serving the shore battery fled after firing only their initial volley.  The few dozen local militia that had shown up sheepishly the day before, broke formation and deserted.  Individual Union gunboats now paired off against Rebel steamers.  USS CERES grappled the Confederate CSS ELLIS and swarmed boarders across.  Rebel skipper, CDR James W. Cooke, ordered his men to abandon ship over the side, while he and a few loyal sailors held up the Yankees with cutlasses.  In a final act, he set ELLIS ablaze, only to the fires extinguished by the onrushing Union sailors.  The gunboat was captured by the Yankees.  Most of the other Rebel crews fired their ships as well and fled overboard.  CSS FANNY, SEA BIRD, and BLACK WARRIOR were burned or scuttled.  BEAUFORT and RALRIGH escaped up the canal to Norfolk.  Had not CSS APPOMATTOX been just two inches too wide, she might have escaped up the canal as well. 

In short order Rowan’s force routed what feeble resistance remained.  Shore parties destroyed Confederate warehouses, war matériel, and several gunboats still under construction.  Two schooners were found to be moored to the city’s wharf, one loaded with furniture and the other with grain.  These were towed into the North River cut and scuttled to block access to the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal.  Having crushed enemy naval strength in the area and secured Union control of North Carolina’s sounds, Rowan turned back for the Fleet.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  17 FEB 24 

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, p. II-20.

“Detailed report of Commander Rowan, U.S. Navy, commanding second division in the sounds of North Carolina.”  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 6, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 29, 1861, to March 8, 1862.”  Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 606-09.

“Report of Lieutenant Chaplin, U.S. Navy, commanding U.S.S. Valley City, transmitting surgeon’s report of casualties.”  IN:  Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol 6, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 29, 1861, to March 8, 1862.”  Washington, DC: GPO, pp. 614-15.

Trotter, William R.  Ironclads and Columbiads:  The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 88-91.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 81, .

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  CDR Cooke above would later captain the infamous Confederate ironclad CSS ALBEMARLE on her successful sortie against the Union squadron at Plymouth, North Carolina.  The Union gunboat UNDERWRITER would earn even greater fame later in the war as a platform for raids up North Carolina’s rivers.

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                                  CAPTURE OF ROANOKE ISLAND

Fortress Monroe, situated at the entrance to Hampton Roads, was one of three forts south of the Mason-Dixon Line that remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War.  Confederate lines of communication were thus compromised in the Virginia region.  For the duration of Rebel occupancy of Norfolk, the city was necessarily supplied from the south, via North Carolina’s Albemarle Sound and its tributary rivers and canals through the Great Dismal Swamp.  One such viaduct, the Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal, connected Norfolk to Elizabeth City, on the Pasquotank River, a transit point for goods smuggled across the Outer Banks.  One of the first Union efforts of the war was the capture of Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks that fell after a day’s siege on 29 August 1861.  Should Roanoke Island at the mouth of the Albemarle Sound now be captured, the supply lines to Norfolk’s Rebels might be completely severed.

Roanoke Island’s defending Confederates had constructed earthen breastworks, Fort Bartow, on Pork Point about midway up the landward shore.  A small fleet of seven converted ferries, armed tugboats, and shallow draft coastal steamers, mounting nine guns in total, had been assembled as well, under the command of Confederate Navy Flag Officer William F. Lynch.  Chief among these was CSS FANNY, a former Union Army screw steamer whom the Rebels had captured four months earlier.  These gunboats held a position behind a line of obstructions blocking the north end of the channel at Roanoke Island.

On the morning of 7 February, a combined Union Navy and Army force led by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough and BGEN Ambrose Burnside opened a naval bombardment of Fort Bartow.  Nineteen warships mounting over 50 guns, not the least of which were 100-pounders and 9″ rifles, pounded Fort Bartow for seven hours with 2600 projectiles.  The bombardment covered the landing of Burnside’s 4000 troops and six artillery pieces at Ashby’s Harbor to the south that afternoon.  After slogging through a swamp, Burnside’s troops enveloped the fort that fell to a charge of the 9^th New York Regiment this morning.

The Confederate “mosquito fleet,” as it was derisively called, was overwhelmed from the start and could only muster a long-range pestering fire.  CSS CURLEW was hit below the waterline by a shot from USS SOUTHFIELD and was run aground and set afire near a Rebel battery.  CSS FORREST was disabled with a shell through her engine, but she was towed safely behind the Confederate line.  Though Goldsborough’s ships were hit 27 times, none were lost.  With the fall of Fort Bartow, and the clearing of the obstructions by Union engineers, Lynch ordered his remaining gunboats to scurry up the Pasquotank River to Elizabeth City, where he would stage his next defense of the canals to Norfolk.

Continued 10 February…

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. II-19-20.

Silverstone, Paul H.  Warships of the Civil War Navies.  Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 237, 239.

Site visit, Fort Bartow site, Roanoke Island, North Carolina, 6 May 2006.

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. 62.

Trotter, William R.  Ironclads and Columbiads:  The Civil War in North Carolina, The Coast.  Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair Pub., 1989, pp. 75-88.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  The other southern forts that remained in Union hands throughout the war were Fort Jefferson, off the southern tip of Florida, and Fort Pickens near Pensacola.

Considering the vital importance of Hatteras to the security of Norfolk, historians have noted how lightly defended were the Confederate forts on that island in August 1861.

CSS CURLEW was hit by a plunging shot that penetrated her upper deck and crashed out the bottom of her hull.  Her skipper, LT “Tornado” Hunter, beached her successfully, but in doing so blocked the guns of a Rebel battery known as Fort Forrest.  She was fired both to prevent her capture and to unmask the battery’s guns.

Only six Union sailors were killed in this battle and 17 wounded.  Burnside lost 37 killed and 214 wounded ashore, however the Confederates lost 23 killed, 58 wounded, and an insufferable 2500 captured.

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