USA > Virginia > City of Portsmouth > City of Portsmouth > A record of events in Norfolk County, Virginia, from April 19th, 1861, to May 10th, 1862, with a history of the soldiers and sailors of Norfolk County, Norfolk City and Portsmouth, who served in the Confederate States army or navy > Part 23
USA > Virginia > City of Norfolk > City of Norfolk > A record of events in Norfolk County, Virginia, from April 19th, 1861, to May 10th, 1862, with a history of the soldiers and sailors of Norfolk County, Norfolk City and Portsmouth, who served in the Confederate States army or navy > Part 23
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225
IN THE NAVY-PORTSMOUTH.
Miami was a fast side wheel steamer. There was a brief engage- ment with her, in which her commander, Lientenant Flusser, lost his life. A shell fired by his own hand struck our ship, exploded and a fragment rebounding, killed that gallant officer. The Al- bemarle was then making ready to ram the Miami, if possible, but discretion was considered the better part of valor by the com- manding officer of the Miami, and he backed his vessel down the stream for a mile or two, then turned, and kept on his way. The Albemarle followed in pursuit, but the race was to the swift that day and the chase was soon abandoned. Plymouth fell as the re- sult of next day's battle, the Albemarle holding the river front and rendering invaluable assistance in the bombardment of the strongly fortified town.
" Later on, May 5th, 1864, a most memorable engagement took place in the waters of Albemarle Sound, where, for the greater part of a day, the Albemarle contended with eight heavily armed Federal war vessels, some of them carrying 100-pounder Parrott guns. Her assailants moved around her in a circle, discharging broadsides as they passed. Shot and shell rained down upon her like hail on the roof of a house. Her smoke stack was riddled with holes and almost shot away. In consequence, the flues would not draw, and no steam could be made, propellers could not turn over and she lay like a log on the water. The Sassacus, a large double ender, ran into her, and jumped on her forward deck, hoping to sink the ram by this additional weight, but our gunner put a shot through one of the boilers of the Sassacus and she was glad to haul off with the steam made by the other. Two of the ships endeavored, by towing a large seine, to entangle the propel- lers, " but in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird," and Captain Cooke was able to raise a little steam, and so manoeuvred his ship as to escape this ingenious contrivance for her destruction. A bold effort was made to throw kegs of gunpowder down her smoke stack, but that scheme failed also. One of her two guns was disabled early in the action, the muzzle being shot away. Night put an end to the conflict, and, with the aid of a quantity of lard and bacon, which was used for fuel, enough steam was gotten up to take the ship back to her wharf in Plymouth, and comparatively uninjured, although each one of the other combat- bants was seriously damaged, and some of them sunk. Captain Cooke was as cool in action as he was brave and determined. He did not know what fear meant and it has often been said of him that he would fight a powder magazine with a coal of fire."
Captain Cooke was promoted to captain in the navy for his gallantry on this occasion, and given a wider field of duty. An- other commander was assigned to the Albemarle, and a careless guard being kept on her, Lieutenant Cushing, of the United States Navy, sunk her with a torpedo attached to the bow of a small
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lannch, while she was lying at the wharf in Plymouth. Captain Cooke lived through the war, after which he returned to his home in Portsmonth, and died in 1869.
LIEUTENANT WM. H. MURDAUGH was born in Portsmouth, en- tered the United States Navy September 9th, 1841, and was ap- pointed in the Confederate States Navy June 26th, 1861. When the secession movement began at the South he was executive officer of the U. S. Frigate Sabine, then stationed in Pensacola harbor, and upon the secession of Virginia, resigned his commis- sion and entered the service of that State, and afterwards the Confederate States. Ile was severely wounded at the attack upon Fort Hatteras by the Federal fleet on the 29th of Angust, 1861. He had command of a gun and was directing its fire when a piece of shell shattered his arm. He was taken from the fort to one of the Confederate gunboats, and thus escaped capture when the fort fell. After recovering from his wound he was placed in com- mand of the steamer Beaufort, in James river, and in 1863, was sent to Europe on special service for the Navy Department, and was there when the war ended.
LIEUTENANT WALTER R. BUTT was born in Portsmouth, and served on the Virginia in her battle with the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, March Sth and 9th, 1862, and subsequently commanded the Nansemond in James river. He entered the Naval Academy in 1855.
LIEUTENANT WM. E. HUDGINS was born in Portsmouth, and at the beginning of the war was a lieutenant in the U. S. Revenue Service, and entered the Confederate Navy as a lieutenant May 26th, 1863. He was with Captain John Taylor Wood in August, 1863, in his boat expedition against the Federal Gunboats Satellite and Reliance, off the mouth of the Rappahannock river and after their capture, was placed in command of the Reliance. Captain Wood subsequently carried them up the Rappahannock, took from them everything movable, and then burned them. Lienten- ant Hudgins served on various vessels after that and was on duty with the navy in Battery Buchanan, near Fort Fisher, at the entrance to Wilmington harbor, on the 15th of January, 1865, when it was captured. He was slightly wounded on that occa- sion.
LIEUTENANT CHARLES J. HASKER was a boatswain in the United States Navy and received a similar appointment in the Confeder- ate Navy. He served in that capacity on the Virginia (Merrimac) and was promoted to a lieutenancy for gallantry on that and sub- sequent occasions.
LIEUTENANT FORREST was in delicate health at the beginning of the war and went to Western North Carolina to try to recuperate bnt died there on the 10th of April, 1863.
Engineers John W. Tynan and E. A. Jack, and Carpenter
.
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IN THE NAVY-PORTSMOUTH.
Hugh Lindsay were on the Virginia in her battle in Hampton Roads, and Gunner John A. Lovitt served on the Patrick Henry in the same engagement. He and Engineer Tynan were on the gunboat Chattahoochee in Florida, on the 1st of June, 1863, when her boiler exploded, killing fifteen of her officers and crew. The vessel was under command of Lieutenant John J. Guthrie at the time, and Midshipman Charles K. Mallory, of Norfolk, was among the number killed. The magazine was within about three feet of the boiler and the coolness of Gunner Lovitt in quelling the panic which ensued in consequence of this proximity and an apprehen- ·ded explosion, was very highly commended. He was in Battery Buchanan during the two attacks on that fort and Fort Fisher.
Carpenter Joseph F. Weaver was on the Seabird, Commodore Lynch's flagship, at the battle near Roanoke Island, February 7th, 1862, and was captured when she was sunk at Elizabeth City, on the 10th, by a 9-inch Columbiad shell from one of the pursuing Fed- eral gunboats. He was paroled with Captain Cooke and subse- quently exchanged.
Engineers Schroeder, Warner and Manning, as well as all of the others mentioned in the foregoing list rendered efficient ser- viees to the Southern Confederacy, and lived to see the termina- tion of the war.
Engineer Schroeder made a eruise on the Tallahassee with Cap- tain Wilkerson, was one of the officers sent to Canada on the expedition to release the Confederate prisoners confined on John- son's Island, and was afterwards sent to Europe to assist in pro- curing and fitting out cruisers for the navy.
On the 30th of April, 1863, Congress passed a special act "to authorize the appointment of one Chief Constructor in the Navy." It was passed as a recognition of the services of Naval Constructor John L. Porter, and he was appointed to it by President Davis. Constructor Porter designed several sea-going ironclads, which the Navy Department endeavored to have built in Europe. The principal one was a powerful vessel, with a center turret contain- ing ten guns, and sheathed with iron ten inches thick. The Navy Department made a contract with G. N. Sauders, Esq., to build her in England, but the war ended before she was completed. Her bow projected forward under water, and was built solid for about fifteen or twenty feet back from the stem, so as to serve for a. ram. He designed another, with hinged gunwales, which could be raised or lowered at pleasure.
CHAPTER XXX.
OPERATIONS AROUND NORFOLK CITY, APRIL, 1861, TO MAY 10, 1862.
When this work was commenced and it was thought by the anthor that he would be compelled to rely solely upon the mem- ory of the survivors of the war for what he might write, he feared it would be impossible for him to obtain from that source a sufficient amount of data pertaining to the troops who entered the Confederate service from Norfolk city, to do them justice, hence, his original attention was to leave them out entirely, for the reason that faint praise would be worse than none at all, but since then he has had an opportunity to inspect the muster rolls and official records of the various companies from their original muster into service until the 1st of January, 1865, and has, there- fore, found himself in a position to record as accurately as an official report tells it, the story of those who marched away with . their commands on the 10th of May, 1862, at the evacuation of the city, and did service in the field. After Jannary 1st, 1865, the official records cease, and what appears upon the rolls of the different companies after that time has been supplied from mem- ory.
Before the war the sentiment of a majority of the people of Norfolk city was opposed to the secession of the State, and at the election to send a delegate to the State Convention, which had been called to consider the situation, held February 4th, 1861, General George Blow was elected as a union delegate, over Mr. James R. Hubard, secessionist, by a majority of 480, out of 1,434 votes cast. After President Lincoln's proclamation, calling for 75,000 troops to coerce the States which had seceded, General Blow .voted with the majority in favor of the passage of the ordi- mance of secession, under instructions from a mass meeting held April 4th.
Before the State had seceded the war fever was gathering force in Norfolk, and the news of the attack upon Fort Sumpter, April 11th, augmented it to a still greater degree of fervor, so that on the 19th of April, when General Taliaferro arrived in the city to take command of the State troops and it was evident that there was going to be war, the citizens, with singular unanimity, acqui- esced in the inevitable and girded themselves for the contest.
Before the beginning of hostilities there were in Norfolk city . the following military companies, fully equipped with everything except ammunition :
The Norfolk Light Artillery Blues, Captain Jacob Viekery.
The Woodis Riffemen, Captain Wm. Lamb.
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OPERATIONS AROUND NORFOLK CITY.
The Norfolk Juniors, Captain F. F. Ferguson.
The Independent Grays, Captain Richard C. Taylor.
Company F, Captain II. W. Williamson.
All of these companies had full ranks, and in order to accom- modate the hundreds who were desirous of responding to the call of the Governor, new companies were organized rapidly, as fol- lows :
The United Artillery Company, Captain Thomas Kevill.
The Norfolk Light Artillery, Captain Francis Huger.
The Atlantic Artillery, Captain J. Hardy Hendren.
The Norfolk Light Infantry, Captain John R. Ludlow. Company A, 6th Regiment, Captain Wm. N. McKenny.
The Norfolk Harbor Guard, Captain John J. Young.
Among these companies were quite a number of Norfolk county men from the Tanner's Creek section, but as they enlisted in the city, they cannot, at this late day, be fully identified.
On the night of the 19th of April, 1861, the Norfolk military companies took possession of Fort Norfolk, which was then used as a powder magazine, and the powder therein stored, amounting to five hundred barrels, or fifty thousand pounds, was placed on board the revenue schooner James Buchanan, and sent to Rich- mond, under guard, for safe keeping.
On the afternoon of the 20th all was bustle and excitement in Norfolk, and the " Pawnee war " raged there that night as well as in Portsmouth. That afternoon some unauthorized persons began sinking obstructions in the river below Fort Norfolk for the purpose of shutting in the Federal authorities at the navyyard and thus preventing them from removing the vessels and the vast amount of valuable war material which was on hand. This fact, coming to the knowledge of Commodore McCauly, commanding the navyyard, hastened his departure and the destruction of the navyyard.
General Taliaferro, who was sent to Norfolk at the beginning of hostilities to command and organize the State troops, was trans- ferred to Gloucester Point, and on the 25th of April, General Walter Gwynn, an old army officer, assumed command, and in turn was relieved by General Huger, May 23d. In the meantime troops from all portions of the South were pouring into the city, and batteries were erected at Seawell's Point, Boush's Bluff and Fort Norfolk, and a line of entrenehments, with embrasures for heavy artillery, was thrown up back of the city to resist an attack from the direction of Fortress Monroe, should one be made. The Norfolk companies were assigned to regiments as follows :
Captain W. N. MeKenny's Company to the 6th Virginia Regi- ment as Company A.
The Woodis Rifles to the 6th Virginia Regiment as Com- pany C.
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NORFOLK COUNTY, 1861-5.
The Norfolk Light Infantry to the 6th Virginia Regiment as Company D.
Company F to the 6th Virginia Regiment as Company G.
The Independent Grays to the 6th Virginia Regiment as Com- pany II.
The Juniors to the 12th Virginia Regiment as Company H.
The Norfolk Light Artillery Blues, to the 16th Virginia Regi- ment as Company II.
The United Artillery to the +1st Virginia Regiment as Com- pany E.
Norfolk Light Artillery-unattached.
The Norfolk Harbor Guard-unattached.
The Atlantic Artillery-unattached.
In this connection it would not be out of place to give a brief history of the military movements in the vicinity of Norfolk prior to and which led to its evacuation by the Confederates.
On the 19th of May, while detachments from the Blues, Ju- niors and the Woodis Rifles, of Norfolk, and the Columbus Light Guard, of Georgia, were at work upon the battery at Seawell's Point, and before it was completed, only three guns having been mounted and the sand blocking up the embrasures, the United States Steamer Monticello opened fire upon it. The fire was briskly returned by the fort and after a short engagement the Monticello hauled off. No one in the fort was injured. Captain Colquit, of the Columbus Light Guard, commanded the Confed- erates, and for want of a Confederate States flag, the battle was fought under the Georgia State flag, belonging to the Light Guard. During the firing the men had to work in front of the embrasures shoveling away the sand so that the guns could have play. Captain Win. Lamb commanded the Woodis Rifles and the detachments from the Blues and Juniors were under Lieuten- ants W. T. Peet and John Holmes respectively. The bombard- ment was resumed by the Monticello on the 21st, but with like result .* This was the second engagement in Virginia between the shore batteries and the Federal vessels, and the Norfolk boys, as well as the Georgians, were not alarmed at the bursting of the big shells, but stood their ground manfully.
During the winter of 1861-2, the soldiers from the far South, who were quartered near Norfolk, would have suffered severely from the cold, but for the patriotism and benevolence of the ladies of the city, who organized themselves into sewing circles, and by these and other means, raised funds to provide them with shoes, overcoats and blankets, necessaries which the Confederate author- ities had not the means of supplying.
Two companies were started in Norfolk but failed of organiza- tion for want of sufficient numbers. These were the Old Domin- ion State Guard, of which Captain Charles B. Langley was elected
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OPERATIONS AROUND NORFOLK CITY.
commander, and the Lee Artillery, Captain James Y. Leigh. The name of the first company was afterwards changed to the Harris Guards, but neither was mustered into service. The men whose names were enrolled enlisted in other commands.
It was the intention of the United States Government to fortify and retain possession of the navy yard, and on the 19th of April General Scott ordered Captain H. E. Wright, of the engineers, to call at Fortress Monroe, get from Colonel Dimiek, its commander, a regiment of troops, reinforce Commodore McCanley, and pre- pare for the defence of the yard. Captain Wright arrived at Fortress Monroe on the Pawnee, on the 20th, and Colonel Dimick placed at his command a regiment of 370 men under Colonel Wardrop. With this force he embarked on the Pawnee and reached the navy yard about dark that evening. He found that most of the vessels had already been senttled and that Commodore McCauley was disposed to defend the navy yard to the last ex- tremity. Accordingly the troops were landed and some prepara- tions made for defence, but Commodore Paulding, who came from Washington on the Pawnee, decided to finish the destruction of the yard and evacuate it. Captain Wright and Commander Jno. Rogers were sent to blow up the dry dock, taking with them forty soldiers and a boat's crew from the Pawnee. From Captain Wright's report, which is somewhat confused and conflicting, he seems to have been considerably demoralized by the situation. Ilis description of the arrangements for blowing up the dock does not tally with what the Virginia troops found there the next morning, but this may be accounted for by the supposition that he ordered such arrangements to be made and supposed his subor- dinates had carried out his orders. He said, when everything was ready, he sent away all of the men except one seaman from the Pawnee, and then they lighted four slow matches, the dock having been mined with 2,000 pounds of powder. Captain Wright and Commander Rogers, from Captain Wright's report, seem to have been left behind, among the burning buildings, after everybody else had gone, and made their way out of the main gateway, through the fire, seized a boat, imagined themselves fired upon from Portsmouth, saw in the darkness a large military force collecting against them " at a point below, where the river was narrow," and therefore concluded to land in Norfolk and sur- render to General Taliaferro. They were kindly treated, for- warded to Richmond the next day and from there sent to Wash- ington. To quiet their fears that they would be assailed by the people of Richmond, Governer Letcher escorted them to the cars and sent a couple of officers with them to Washington. Evi- dently " the man from the Pawnee " did not light the fuses, for the mine was not exploded, nor were the fuses found. Captain Wright's report omits to state what became of this man. A very
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NORFOLK COUNTY, 1861-5.
well authenticated account of the dry-dock affair will be found in chapter I, ante.
The last mail from Baltimore was received in Norfolk on the 9th of May, though the port had been declared in a state of block- ade earlier. The steamer arrived at Fortress Monroe from Balti- more that morning, and the Norfolk mail was sent up on the William Selden, which was sent to Fortress Monroe for it, but the Confederates did not send her down again. They detained her in Norfolk and would not permit her to return, for fear that she would be seized by the United States authorities. The army and navy officers in the department of Norfolk did not get on harmo- niously together at first, and there was a warm dispute between General Gwynn and Commodore Forrest as to the possession and control of the property in the navy yard. General Gwynn com- plained to the Governor that he had been unable to obtain an in- ventory of the stores, &e., in the navy yard. General Lee, com- manding the State forces, advised mutual concessions, and the breech was smoothed over. General Gwynn was relieved by General Benjamin Huger on the 23d of May.
Shortly after the breaking out of the war, the Confederates be- gan fortifying the Nansemond river, but it was difficult to reach the batteries there from Norfolk, for the reason that the United States vessels controlled Hampton Roads, but on the night of the 5th of June Captain A. Sinclair, of the navy, commanding the small steamer Roanoke, eluded them and ran his boat into the river and established communications between the batteries and the railroad at Suffolk.
On the 15th of June, Saturday, the Federals opened fire upon the batteries at Seawell's Point with a Sawyer gun, which they had mounted at the Rip-Raps, and General Huger sent down to that point a lot of railroad iron to shield the magazine and the face of the batteries. The distance from the Point to the Rip- Raps, as measured by the engineers, was 3 5-8 miles.
On the 23d of April Governor Letcher appointed General R. E. Lee to command the State troops, and on the 10th of May the Secretary of War, Mr. L. P. Walker, placed all of the Confeder- ate troops in Virginia temporarily under his orders. Colonel Talcott, of the engineers, reported to General Lee on the 26th of April that " seven guns had been mounted on the battery at the Naval Hospital ; that at 10:30 a. m. on the 22d he commenced, with one hundred and twenty laborers, to build a work on Craney Island to mount twenty guns. A battery to mount twelve guns has been laid out on Pinner's Point. The work on this is under control of officers of the navy. [It was built under the supervi- sion of Major F. W. Jett, of the Confederate Engineers.] The works in progress will mount sixty-one guns when completed. Of these, fourteen will be at the Naval Hospital, fifteen at Fort
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OPERATIONS AROUND NORFOLK CITY.
Norfolk, twelve at Pinner's Point, and twenty at Craney Island."
On the 27th, two eight inch shell guns and eight 32-pounders were ready for action at the Naval Hospital, with furnaces and fuel for heating shot. The work on the Pinner's Point battery was commenced that day. On the 26th four 9-inch Columbiads, with fifty rounds of ammunition for each gun, were sent to Craney Island and mounted. Colonel Talcott did not think very highly of Seawell's Point as a place for the erection of batteries. In his report he calls it Soller's Point.
General Lee recommended to General Gwynn the advisability of employing the naval officers in the construction and service of water batteries, or such as were intended to act against shipping, and in consequence thereof naval officers were stationed at all of the batteries around the harbor to instruct the men in the use of heavy guns. General Gwynn was constantly under apprehension of an attack upon Norfolk by the Federal forces at Fortress Mon- roe, and in reply to urgent letters from him for reinforcements, General Lee authorized him to recruit from the counties of Prin- cess Anne, Norfolk, Nansemond, Southampton and Greensville, and the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, six regiments of infan- try and artillery and four companies of cavalry, and on the 4th of May, at the request of Governor Letcher, all of the Georgia troops in and around Richmond were ordered to Norfolk. These were the 4th and 22d Regiments. The 3d Regiment and 2d Battalion had previously arrived direct from Georgia. General Gwynn wrote to Adjutant General Garnett in Richmond for 100,000 rounds of ammunition. General Garnett sent him 25,000, and suggested, as there was an abundance of powder and lead in Nor- folk, that General Gwynn had better make arrangements to man- ufacture his own cartridges, as they were doing in Richmond.
On the Sth of May General Lee ordered the 1st Louisiana Reg- iutent, Colonel A. G. Blanchard, from Richmond to Norfolk, and on the 14th General Gwynn reported that he had 6,000 troops and wanted 4,000 more, and on the 21st he reported that the en- emy was reinforcing Fortress Monroe and asked for 4,000 more troops. Singularly, while General Gwynn was apprehending an attack from the garrison at Fortress Monroe the commander of that fort was writing to Washington for reinforcements to repel an apprehended attack by the Confederates.
On the 27th of May General Huger, who had relieved General Gwynn in the command of Norfolk, reported to General Lee that seven transports had that day landed troops at Newport News, and the same day General Magruder reported a force va- riously estimated at from 3,500 to 5,000 men had marched to that point from Fortress Monroe. General Lee became apprehensive that the accumulation of such a large force there was for the pur- pose of operating against Suffolk, either by way of the Nanse-
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NORFOLK COUNTY, 1861-5
mond river or by crossing at Burwell's Bay, thus cutting off com- munication between Norfolk and Richmond, hence he directed General Huger to look particularly to the defence of the battery at Pig Point, to guard it against surprise or from an attack in the rear, and at the same time endeavored to collect a force at Suf- folk. On the 27th General Huger divided the department into two military districts. The Norfolk division, or east of the Eliz- abeth river, was placed under command of Colonel Withers of the 3d Alabama Regiment, and the Portsmouth division, or west of the river, under Colonel Blanchard of the 1st Louisiana Regi- ment. Colonel Withers had under him the 3d Alabama Regi- ment, 2d Georgia Battalion, and the 6th, 12th, 16th and 41st Vir- ginia Regiments. Colonel Blanchard's command embraced the Ist Louisiana, 3d, 4th and 22d Georgia, 3d and 9th Virginia Reg- iments, 2d North Carolina Battalion and 3d Louisiana Battalion.
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