Robert E. Lee’s Railroad Gun

   The War brought some emerging technology to the forefront, innovations like repeating rifles and ironclad ships. The railroad was used to funnel troops and supplies, and then the wounded from battlefields to hospitals in cities. One of the new technologies was the use of armored railroad cars bearing large cannons.

(Library of Congress)

   Rumors filtered into Army of Northern Virginia command in early June 1862 that the Federal army was building a mobile battery to operate on the railroad. Due to their close proximity to Richmond, Lee believed that the only way that the enemy could get large cannons close to the Confederate capital was to use the York River Railroad.[1] On June 5, Robert E. Lee, who just three days prior had been assigned command of the principal Confederate army in Virginia, wrote Maj. W.H. Stevens, his chief engineer, concerning the vulnerability of the railroad. If the Federals constructed “a railroad battery, probably plated with iron,” they could “sweep the country.” While a fixed battery could be constructed, Lee wanted Stevens to explore the idea of their own “railroad battery…plated and protected with a heavy gun.”[2]

   That same day Lee wrote to Col. J. Gorgas, chief of the Ordnance Department: “Is there a possibility of constructing an iron-plated battery mounting a heavy gun, on trucks, the whole covered with iron, to move along the York River Railroad?” Lee asked. He told Gorgas to inquire with the Navy Department. Lee also mentioned using mortars on the railroad as well.[3]

   A third note went out from Lee that day to Capt. George Minor, Chief of Ordnance and Hydrography. “I am very anxious to have a railroad battery,” Lee wrote, mentioning he had written Gorgas and Confederate naval Lt. John M. Brooke on the subject. “Till something better could be accomplished I proposed a Dahlgren or Columbiad, on a ship’s carriage, on a railroad flat, with one of your navy iron aprons adjusted to it to protect gun and men. “If I could get it in position by daylight to-morrow I could astonish our neighbors.”[4]

   Lee did not get his cannon until June 24. The design was one by Brooke, who also designed both cannons and armament for the CSS Virginia. Minor reported that a rifled and banded 32-pounder had been mounted on a railcar, and supplied with 200 rounds of ammunition, including 15-inch solid bolts, all under the command of Lt. R.D. Minor, C.S. Navy.[5]

   The cannon was used at least once during the Seven Days campaign, during the battle of Savage Station. Private Robert K. Sneden, 40^th New York, wrote that during a lull in the battle, “a shrill locomotive whistle was heard… soon appeared coming down the tracks toward us a nondescript car, which was roofed over at sides with railroad iron set at an angle, and from which in front projected a heavy gun… While all eyes were directed toward it, [its] big gun opened fire suddenly, and everyone looked for some place of shelter.” The “heavy gun,” according to Shenen, fired several shots before being withdrawn half a mile back up the tracks where it continued firing till dark. Also noted was that the Confederates had placed cotton bales on the cars, with infantrymen behind them, to protect the gun. As the gun withdrew, the Federals commenced to tear up the York River Railroad, preventing the gun from advancing any closer.[6]

   Following the action at Savage Station, the armored battery disappears for a couple of years, probably stored at the rail yard in Richmond. There is a rumor that the gun saw action at Drewry’s Bluff in June 1864. The cannon was obviously captured at the end of the war, maybe in Petersburg. An armored railroad battery was photographed at the end of the war. Some historians believe that the imaged  cannon is Lee’s Railroad Gun.[7]

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[1] OR 11, pt. 3, 573.

[2] OR 11, pt. 3, 574.

[3] OR 11, pt. 3, 574.

[4] OR 11, pt. 3, 576.

[5] OR 11, pt. 3, 615.

[6] Bryan and Lankford, Eye of the Storm,76-77.

[7] see also David H. Schneider, “Lee’s Armored Car.” Civil War Times, February 2011.

Nassau Bacon – from Ohio

 

      “We are eating new beautiful onions from Nassau,” Charles Blackford wrote in June 1864. Blackford was Longstreet’s assistant judge advocate.  Blackford’s letter home about the onions is a little more revealing concerning foodstuffs in the ANV in the spring and summer of 1864. He continues: “With our onions we have bacon cured in Ohio and shipped to Nassau to be sent to us by blockade runners.” It is well known that by 1864, most foodstuffs for the Army of Northern Virginia were coming from Nassau on blockade runners and into the port at Wilmington.[1]

   Almost everyone is familiar with the role of the blockade in supplying the Confederate armies. Agents from various states and the Confederate government worked out trade deals – either cotton, or promises of future cotton – in exchange for munitions of war, medicines, and foodstuffs. These items were then loaded onto ships, making their way to the ports in the Bahamas, largely Nassau. The items were then transferred to shallow-draft blockade runners and steamed into various Southern ports. By 1864, it was really only the port of Wilmington that was still open and supplying Lee’s army in Virginia. 

The Advance, a North Carolina blockade runner.

   “Nassau bacon is a term frequently used during the war. James C. Elliott, 56^th North Carolina, recalled that in 1864 “Our food was miserable—musty meal and rancid Nassau bacon. Our bread was cooked at the wagon yard on canal, west side of Petersburg.”[2] Another Tar Heel reminisced that “old soldiers will all remember Nassau bacon, a very gross, fat, porky substance which ran the blockade at Wilmington and was distributed among Lee’s veterans as bacon.”[3] Moxley Sorrel, also on Longstreet’s staff before being promoted to brigadier general in the fall of 1864, thought that some “bacon from Nassau was coming through the blockade, and it would not be incredible for the blockading fleet to allow it to come through in hope of poisoning us.”[4]

   But what of Blackford’s claim – that his bacon had been cured in Ohio and sent to Nassau? Hamilton Cochran, writing in Blockade Runners of the Confederacy  in 1958, explains how the process worked. Brokers, or “bacon buyers,” would visit hog farms in New York and other states “and offer hog raisers far more per pound for their hams and bacon than the United States government or civilian merchants were offering.” After the brokers bought large quantities of hog meat, it was  “salted and shipped out of New York or Philadelphia to Bermuda or Nassau. . .  Upon arrival in the islands, the hams and bacon were sold at quadruple their cost to agents of the Confederate States Quartermaster Corps, then shipped to hungry soldiers on the firing line.”[5] Eugene R. Dattel notes that at times, the meat shipped out of Boston or New York was sent to Canada first, then on to Bermuda or Nassau. The meat was also sent to Liverpool, unloaded and then reshipped to the Caribbean.  By January 1865, over eight million pounds of meat had arrived in the port of Wilmington alone. “This was extremely good business for Northern farmers whose sons were dying on Southern battlefields,” Dattel notes.[6]

   This round-about way of importing bacon (and other items) produced in the North to feed Confederate armies was not really a secret. Major General W.H.C. Whiting wrote in June 1863 that many of the blockade runners in Wilmington were “mostly filled with Yankee goods.” Whiting arrested the crew of one steamer, the Arabian, which had bypassed Nassau and sailed directly from New York.[7] War Clerk John Jones noted in October 1864 that Beverly Tucker was in Canada, contracting with a New York firm, to trade bacon for cotton “pound for pound.” The Secretary of the War had authorized the negotiations.[8] Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, James Seddon and others all knew about this operation. And it was not just limited to Wilmington. The trade was so heavy in eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia that in January 1864 the Subsistence Department needed 600 to 800 bales of cotton each week, delivered to Weldon.[9] Writing after the war, Robert Tannahill told former Commissary General Lucius B. Northrop that “there is no telling the amount of supplies we could have gotten from the North in the way of exchange for cotton.”[10]

   Even Northern officials knew of the trade, much of which originated in New York. The American consul at St. George’s Bermuda, wrote to Secretary of State William H. Seward in June 1863: “I beg to apprise you that large quantities of mdse [merchandise] are shipped from N. Yk  [New York] to these islds and transshipped o/board steamers for blockaded ports. There is no doubt that Major Walker who styles himself Confederate States Agent, is receiving goods ex N. Yk by almost every vessel under various marks. A large portion of the goods shipped from here to Wilmington are from N. Yk.”[11] The trade continued, even after the capture of the Cape Fear River and Wilmington. On March 8, 1865, U.S. Grant telegraphed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton that “We have supplies going out by Norfolk to the rebel army stopped, but information received shows that large amounts still go by way of the Blackwater.” In another telegraph, Grant told Stanton that spies or informants in Richmond “send word that Tobacco is being exchanged for Bacon…” Lincoln gave Grant the authority on March 10 to suspend all trade permits and licenses, regardless of whoever issued them, within the state of Virginia, with a few exceptions.[12]

   If you would like to learn more about food and the Confederate Army in Virginia, check out my book, Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, here.

 

[1] Blackford & Blackford, Letters from Lee's Army, 252.

[2] Elliott,  The Southern Soldier Boy, 26.

[3] Clark, ed., Histories of the Several Regiments and Battalions, 4:53.

[4] Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, 281.

[5] Cochran, Blockade Runners of the Confederacy, 47.

[6] Dattel, Cotton and Race in the Making of America, 198.

[7] Jones, A Rebel War Clerk, 1:319, 321.

[8] Jones,  A Rebel War Clerk, 2:290.

[9] OR, Series 1, XLVI, pt. 2, 1104; Goff, Confederate Supply, 167.

[10] quoted in Goff, Confederate Supply, 168.

[11] “American Consular Records-Civil War Period.” Pt. 1, Bermuda Historical Quarterly, 17 (Summer 1961) 66.

[12] Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, 8:342-4.

The Deadliest Single Shot of the War

   The Civil War looks different in different parts of the country. The guerrilla actions in Missouri and Western North Carolina are a far cry from the large battles waged in North Georgia and Central Virginia. The same is true for the naval actions. Ships on blockade duty off Charleston Harbor are far different from the ironclad gunboats that steamed along the Mississippi River.

   In 1861, the Federal government began building special ironclads that were able to navigate the Mississippi River. The USS Mound City was one of those ironclads. Constructed in Mound City, Illinois, in 1861, she was 175 feet long in total and drew five feet of water, with a speed of nine miles per hour. Her armament consisted of thirteen cannons overall: thee 9-inch, six 32-pounders, and four rifled 42-pounders, with a crew complement of 175 men.[1]

   The Mound City steamed up and down the Mississippi River.

USS Mound City.

    Typically, an ironclad would escort a mortar boat down the river to bombard Fort Pillow.  On May 10, 1862, the Confederate River Defense Fleet attacked at Plum Point Bend. Most of the Federal ironclads did not have sufficient steam to maneuver. Three Confederate vessels, the CSS General Brag, General Sumter, and General Sterling Price, rammed the USS Cincinnati; the vessel later sank. The USS Carondelet and Mound City arrived, and the CSS Earl Van Dorn rammed the Mound City, opening a four-foot hole in the Federal ironclad. The captain was able to run the ship ashore before it sank. The timber and cotton-clad rams of the Confederate fleet were able to sink two ironclads with no losses. They moved off before the rest of the Federal gunboats arrived.[2]

   The Mound City was repaired and rejoined the squadron. A month later, the Mound City took part in an expedition up the White River in Arkansas to destroy Confederate gun emplacements located at St. Charles, Arkansas. This would allow Federal vessels to resupply a Union army under Maj. Gen. Samuel R. Curtis. Curtis was attempting to capture Little Rock but was stuck at Batesville due to a lack of supplies. Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Thomas C. Hindman constructed fortifications near St. Charles to stop such an action. Besides the two artillery batteries, three ships were scuttled in the river as obstructions. Additional logs were floated down the river and driven into the bottoms to further impede ships. The main battery consisted of two rifled 32-pounders taken from the CSS Pontchartrain. The secondary position contained two, 3-inch Parrott rifles. Cannons were removed the CSS Maurepas before it was scuttled, and added to the defenses. Overall, the Confederate force numbered just seven cannons and 114 crewmembers, including 34 men from the 29^th Arkansas Infantry.[3]

   Joseph Fry, a former U.S. Naval Officer, the commander of the CSS Maurepas, was in overall command.

   The Federal expedition was composed of several ships – the timberclads USS Conestoga, New National, and White Cloud. Aboard the New National and the Jacob were members of the 46^th Indiana Infantry. Several miles below St. Charles, two scouting parties, one on the land and one on the river, were sent forward. They found the Confederate defenses but could not determine their strength.[4]

   On the morning of June 17, Federal naval vessels began moving up the river. The Mound City was in the lead. Confederate infantry, with a 12-pound howitzer, were sent as sharpshooters along the riverbank. When within two and a half miles out from the defenses, Confederates were spotted and the Mound City opened fire, scattering the pickets. The Federal infantry disembarked on the shore, and, with skirmishers posted, began to advance.[5]

   The Mound City began dueling with the shore batteries. Confederates were able to do much damage against the ironclad, even before they fired what appears to be the deadliest single shot of the entire war.  The Mound City moved to steam past the first battery when a solid shot struck near a gun port, killing three or four gunners. Then, the shot ruptured one of the ship’s boilers, filling the ship with scalding steam. Of the approximately 175 men on board, 125 were killed and over twenty others were wounded. The Mound City floated down the river and ran aground. Fry demanded that the remaining men onboard surrender. When they refused, the Confederates opened fire, killing several.[6]

   Additional Federal gunboats moved up into the position, and the Federal infantry positioned themselves to storm the works. With the Federals just fifty yards away, the Confederates abandoned their works. Twenty-nine Confederates, including Fry, were captured. Eight others were killed during the battle. The Mound City was towed downstream and the Federals began working on clearing the obstructions from the river. Many of the dead Federals were buried in a mass grave near the lower battery. The Federals destroyed the earthworks, transported the smaller cannons back to Memphis, and spiked the larger cannons, dumping them in the river.[7]

   What became of the USS Mound City? She was repaired and served in the Vicksburg Campaign, and later, the Red River Expedition. After the war, she was decommissioned and sold at public auction on November 9, 1865. The vessel was broken up in 1866.[8]

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[1] Mirza, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks, 100.

[2] Symonds, The Civil War at Sea, 111.

[3] Chatelain, Defending the Arteries of Rebellion, 132, 181; Bearrs, “White River Expedition, June 10-July 15, 1862.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 21 (4): 315-318.

[4] Bearrs, “White River Expedition, June 10-July 15, 1862.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 21 (4): 312-314.

[5] Bearrs, “White River Expedition, June 10-July 15, 1862.” Arkansas Historical Quarterly, 21 (4): 319-20.

[6] Barnhart, “The Deadliest Shot,” Civil War Times, 45 (March/April 2006) 30-36

[7] Barnhart, “The Deadliest Shot,” Civil War Times, 45 (March/April 2006) 30-36; Hubbs, “A Rebel Shot Causes “Torture and Despair,” Naval History, 16 (2):46-50.

[8] https://www.navsource.org/archives/09/86/86066.htm

Piracy! Smuggled Weapons! A Master of Disguise! The Capture of the St. Nicolas

   The first couple of months of the war include a series of well-documented events: Fort Sumter fell in April, the U.S. Army occupied Arlington Heights in May, and the two sides clashed at Big Bethel in June. Those are all well-known stories. Lesser known is the strange story of one of the first Confederate naval victories.

   George N. Hollis had an idea. He was going to steal the St. Nicholas, “and manning her with volunteers . . then take the Pawnee.” It was a bold and daring plan. The Maryland side of the Potomac swarmed with Federal soldiers. But, the plan just might work.[1] 

The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 1861. 

   The St. Nicholas was a packet boat that ran regularly between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., with other stops in Alexandria and Georgetown.[2] With a Confederate commission in hand, the permission of Virginia’s Governor Letcher, and cash to purchase firearms up North, Hollis set out with his two sons and five other men. Upon reaching Point Lookout, the draft for the firearms was given to “Colonel Thomas, of Maryland, alias Zarvona,” who proceeded on to Baltimore and Philadelphia to procure weapons and maybe a few more men. Hollis told Thomas to return to Point Lookout on the St. Nicholas. A day or two later, the St. Nicholas returned for its regular stop at Point Lookout. Hollis and his band boarded the vessel about midnight where he found “Colonel Thomas dressed as a woman, to avoid suspicion, as he had high, large, trunks such as milliners use; they contained arms and ammunition.”[3]

   Just a few minutes after leaving the wharf, Hollis gave the signal. The trunks were opened, and the members of the party were armed, with Hollis taking a Sharps rifle and pair of pistols. He ran to the wheelhouse and put his “hand on the captain’s shoulder,” capturing the vessel. Hollis ordered the captain to sail the St. Nicholas to Coan River, on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. He was joined by a small body of Confederate soldiers under a Captain Lewis. The passengers were landed and most made their way home. There was a group of ladies that “amused themselves by making Confederate flags out of the Yankee flags I had captured.” Hollis determined that the Pawnee was out of reach. Instead, he sailed out into the Chesapeake Bay toward Fredericksburg. He soon spotted the brig Monticello, with a load of coffee from Rio. Hollis captured the brig without firing a shot. He moved a crew under Lt. Robert D. Minor and sent the load of coffee to Fredericksburg. An hour later. Hollis and the St. Nicholas captured a schooner coming from Baltimore and bound for Washington, D.C., with a load of ice. Once again, Hollis placed a “prize” crew aboard and sent the vessel to Fredericksburg. On board, Hollis found a “splendid flag of a 74” that had been borrowed from the U.S. Naval yard for Stephen Douglas’s funeral. He used the large flag to make “a goodly number of secession flags.”[4]

   Hollis then captured another vessel coming from Baltimore and headed to Boston. This one was loaded with coal, which Hollis used to replenish the St. Nicholas. At that point, Hollis, afraid that word had gotten out and Federal gunboats were looking for him, sailed the St. Nicholas to Fredericksburg. The Confederate government purchased the St. Nicholas for “about $45,000” and turned it into a gunboat.[5]

   “Piracy on the Chesapeake” read a headline in The Baltimore Sun on July 2, 1861. The St. Nicholas was last seen leaving Point Lookout “under great speed for the Virginia shore . . . There is no doubt but that she was taken forcible possession of by parties who came passengers in her from Baltimore.”[6] By the evening, The Baltimore Sun was able to report that it was Hollis who had captured the St. Nicholas. After unloading passengers and taking on board soldiers, Hollis proceeded to capture three other vessels.[7]

   The news quickly made the rounds. “The rebels have succeeded by a coup de main in seizing and carrying off a Baltimore steamer” reported the New York Daily Herald.[8] “The seizure of the steamer St. Nicholas from this port . . . proved to have been a bold piratical expedition,” summed up The New York Times.[9] The Richmond Dispatch considered the affair a “Brilliant Achievement.”[10] The New Bern Daily Progress labeled it a “Daring Exploit.”[11]

Harper's Weekly, July 27, 1861

   In 1910, the Evening Sun told the story of George W. Watts, the “Last Survivor of Col. Zarvona Thomas’ Band.” Watts stated that Thomas had sixteen men with him that night. After boarding the vessel, Watts could not find the colonel, but did notice “a mighty pretty young woman, stylishly dressed, flirting outrageously with some young officers. She talked with a strong French accent . . . That young woman behaved so scandalously that all the other women on the boat were in a terrible state over it.” Later, Watts was summoned below deck. On entering the cabin, he saw his comrades, “gathered around that frisky French lady.” Watts recognized the eyes as belonging to Thomas. Thomas “shed his bonnet, wig, and dress and stepped forth clad in a brilliant new Zouave uniform. In a jiffy the ‘French lady’s’ three big trunks were dragged out and opened. One was filled with cutlasses, another with Colt’s revolvers and the third with carbines.” Watts and the others armed themselves, then proceeded to take possession of the St. Nicholas. According to Watts, the Pawnee was no longer in position guarding the river south of Washington, but had moved closer to the city, escorting a dead naval officer to the capital.[12]

   The story of the capture of the St. Nicholas is so outlandish that it almost seems like an episode in a work of fiction. Yet, it really did happen, and the history of this strange event, though less spectacular than a battle, needs to be told along with those of Fort Sumter and Big Bethel Church.

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[1] OR Navy, 4:553.

[2] The Baltimore Sun, March 19, 1861.

[3] OR Navy, 4:553.

[4] OR Navy, 4:555.

[5] OR Navy, 4:555.

[6] The Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1861.

[7] The Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1861.

[8] New York Daily Herald, July 2, 1861.

[9] The New York Times, July 3, 1861.

[10] Richmond Dispatch, July 2, 1861.

[11] Daily Progress, July 1, 1861.

[12] The Evening Sun, August 27, 1910.

Confederate submarines

When someone mentions Confederate submarines, everyone thinks of the C.S.S. Hunley, and rightfully so. The Hunley did become the first submersible combat vessel to sink an enemy warship. But the South’s drive to build and successfully implement innovative warships goes far beyond one ship in February 1864. There were several other Confederate submarines and attempts to disrupt the blockade of Southern ports.

An excellent resource on the subject is Mark Ragan’s Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare (1999). The only thing that could make this book more beneficial would have been an appendix, maybe a quick reference guide, listing the barest details of each submarine.

Another note: the Confederacy built both semi-submersible and completely submersible vessels. The former are at times referred to as torpedo boats or David-Class Torpedo Boats. These craft were built of wood, contained a single screw, and had a steam boiler. They were fifty feet in length, had a four-man crew, and boasted a spar torpedo on the end. They were designed to run at night semi-submerged toward a Federal vessel, to drive the torpedo inside the vessel, and to then back away. On October 5, 1863, a “David” vessel attacked the U.S.S. Ironsides in Charleston, seriously damaging the vessel. The Confederate David was able to return to harbor. (135-137)

Information on many of these Confederate submarines is extremely limited. Many of the Confederate naval records were destroyed at war’s end. 

The Hunley by Chapman

Franklin G. Smith wrote to the Columbia Herald on June 10, 1861, about building a fleet of Confederate submarines: “Excepting our privateers the Confederate States have not a single ship at sea. Throughout our southern seaports, men of a mechanical turn and of the right spirit must go to work, maturing the best plans for the destruction or the capture of every blockading ship. From the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rio Grande, our coast is better fitted for submarine warfare than any other in the world. I would have every hostile keel chased from our coast by submarine propellers. The new vessel must be cigar shaped for speed - made of plate iron, joined without external rivet heads, about thirty feet long, with a central section about 4 x 3 feet - driven by a spiral propeller. The new Aneroid barometer made for increased pressure, will enable the adventurer easily to decide his exact distance below the surface.” Of course, there never was a fleet of submarines built, but there were a few of note.

Pioneer – built in New Orleans, Louisiana, and tested in February 1862. The ship was 34 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet high. It was powered by a hand crank that was attached to a propeller. The Pioneer was scuttled in a canal near Lake Pontchartrain when New Orleans was evacuated. The Federals raised and examined the ship, and in 1868, it was sold for scrap.

Bayou Saint John submarine – no one seems to know the name of this vessel. It was dredged out of Bayou Saint John in 1878. When it was eventually opened, three skeletons were found inside. The submarine is now on display at the Capitol Park Museum – Baton Rouge.

Shreveport submarines – there were supposedly five submarines under construction in Shreveport, Louisiana, by the Singer Submarine Corporation in 1863. One of these was sent to Houston, Texas, while the other four were scuttled toward the end of the war. The other four are still submerged but apparently “surface” in the news when they are exposed during low water levels at the Cross Bayou. See https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/24/mystery-of-missing-civil-war-subs-resurfaces/22288817/

Richmond submarines--these include several built by Tredegar Iron Works. One was tested on the James River below Rocketts at the end of 1861. In this test, a diver emerged from the submerged vessels and planted an explosive charge on the bottom of a barge. Once secure in the submarine, the charge was detonated, sinking the barge. On October 12, 1861, an unnamed submarine, possibly the one above or maybe a different vessel, was launched at Sewall’s Point and made for the U.S.S. Minnesota. The craft became entangled in a net and was almost captured. It is not really clear what became of these vessels.  

Pioneer II (American Diver) – built in Mobile late 1862. It started out with some type of electrical motor, and then had a steam engine, and eventually had a hand crank. On its first mission in February 1863, in an attempt to attack the Federal blocking fleet there at Mobile Bay, it foundered in heavy seas and sank. But the crew did survive.

Colonel E. H. Agaman – was the idea of Col. E.H. Agaman. His submarine was rocket powered. It is not clear if the submarine itself was rocket powered, or the torpedo. After the fuel for the rocket was shipped from Augusta, Georgia, to Mobile in April 1863, this vessel disappears from the pages of history.  

CSS Squib also operated in the James River. In April 1864, the Squib placed a torpedo on the hull of USS Minnesota and detonated it. The torpedo was too close to the surface, and the Minnesota was not seriously damaged. The final disposition of the Squib is unknown. The Squib is also referred to as the Infanta. There were also operating at the end of the war three others: the Scorpion, Hornet, and Wasp.

CSS Hunley – most famous. Constructed in Mobile and transported to Mobile, the Hunley sank twice and killed a crew and a half before the attack the USS Housatonic. Of course we know that the final crew of the Hunley did not return and sank as well, somewhere beyond where the Housatonic went down.

CSS Captain Pierce might have sunk the USS Tecumseh in August 1864 in the battle of Mobile Bay. The boiler of the submarine might have exploded shortly thereafter.

CSS St. Patrick was privately built in Mobile and transferred to the Confederate navy in January 1865. The St. Patrick struck the Federal ship USS Octorara with a torpedo, but the torpedo misfired and did no damage and the St. Patrick escaped.

There were at least two submarines under construction in Wilmington, North Carolina, in late 1864, early 1865. But their final dispositions are unknown.

(For more information, please check out Ragan’s Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, or, Daniel Franignoul’s “Submarine Monsters of the Confederacy,” Confederate Historical Society of Belgium)

The raid on Windsor, North Carolina, January 1864.

   Windsor, the county seat of Bertie County, was just a little village off the Cashie River in eastern North Carolina. It did not have much military importance. Yet the Federals came calling in January 1864.

   Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. George Pickett were campaigning in eastern North Carolina that winter. On February 1, the bulk of his command would move from Kinston to New Bern in an attempt to wrest control of the port town from Federal occupation. When the Confederates arrived in the area, they sent out foraging parties to secure food and forage for man and beast. One of those groups, reported as two companies from the 62^nd Georgia Cavalry.[1]

USS Massasoit (LOC)

   The Federals stationed at Plymouth, on the Roanoke River, soon learned of the Confederate presence and dispatched naval vessels, with 100 infantry on board, towards the town on the night of January 29, 1864.  The USS Massasoit of Lt. Com. Flusser provided the transport. The vessel proceeded up the Roanoke River before taking a right into the Cashie River. The infantry force landed about three o’clock in the morning about six miles below the town. A member of the 103^rd Pennsylvania Infantry recalled that “About daylight, the advance became engaged,” with the Georgia cavalrymen. “My command was in a detachment that made a detour to the left at double quick to come in on the enemy’s flank, but we had not reached our position before they ‘skedaddled.’” Capt. John Donaghy, 103^rd Pennsylvania, who had command of part of the mixed Federal infantry, lost command of his troops. The Federal infantry force was drawn from every company in the regiment. “My men were so eager to get a pop at the rebs that some of them began firing without orders, unmindful of a line of our skirmishers who were between us and them. It took some vigorous language on my part and some blows with the flat of my sword against their guns to make them cease firing.”[2]

   Donaghy eventually gained control of his men and they proceeded through the abandoned camp of the Georgia cavalry. “The enemy, except a few escaped,” Donaghy wrote, “And all that we captured was their camp, with some arms, and the musical instruments of the band. Brass must have been scarce, for the horns were made of sheet iron.” The Federals marched into town, sending out pickets on various roads while the Federal navy, presumably their land force, “practiced with their howitzers for a while shelling the country in every direction the rebels had gone.” In Donaghy’s opinion, they did nothing but “waste some ammunition.” Following that, Donaghy’s men “consumed a few rails cooking their coffee, for the halt gave us the opportunity to eat breakfast.” Donaghy heard the sound of horses nearby and ordered a lieutenant with a squad to go and investigate. They found several horses tied in the woods, removed from surrounding farms as the farmers attempted to keep the animals safe. “It was a lucky discovery for us, and Lieut. Kelly and I, and some of the boys, ceased to be foot soldiers for the time being. A saddle and bridle was found in a barn nearby, and I borrowed them,” Donaghy recalled. [3]

   On returning to the town, Donaghy encountered Flusser, who “had a bottle with him, and we drank several times to his favorite toast, ‘Confusion to the rebels, and damn the Roanoke sheep.’ By the sheep he meant the ram that the rebels were building up the river. We left the captured horses at the landing, without having any harrowing doubts but that their owners would find them. We were back in Plymouth by nine o’clock at night, with nobody hurt on the expedition.”[4]

   Another member of the 103^rd Pennsylvania wrote that “Horses, mules, wagons, clothing, ammunition and two soldiers were captured. Several prominent citizens were brought away to be held as hostages for certain loyal persons incarcerated in Richmond.” Who were those citizens captured? Several North Carolina newspapers commented on the raid. On wrote that the Federals had ‘burnt up some meat and destroyed some salt. . .and captured and carried off Rev. Cyrus Watters [Walters], of the Episcopal church; also Dr. Turner Wilson and L.S. Webb, Esq., Cashier of the Bank and some one or two others.” Both the commanding officers of the 62^nd Georgia Cavalry, and the newspaper articles, reported that the Confederate cavalry was reinforced and “after some sharp firing, the Yankees retired.” What became of Walters, Wilson, and Webb is unknown,  and more research needs to be done on the “loyal persons incarcerated in Richmond.”[5] 

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[1] ORs, Vol. 33, 107.

[2] Dickey, History of the 103^rd Regiment, Pennsylvania, 54.

[3] Dickey, History of the 103^rd Regiment, Pennsylvania, 51.

[4] Dickey, History of the 103^rd Regiment, Pennsylvania, 55.

[5] Dickey, History of the 103^rd Regiment, Pennsylvania, 51; The Charlotte Democrat, February 16, 1864; ORs, Vol. 33, 107.