USA > Virginia > Virginia and Virginians; eminent Virginians, executives of the colony of Virginia, Vol. II > Part 3
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" The ship was docked ; a prow of steel and wrought iron put on and a course of two-inch iron on the hull below the roof extending in length
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180 feet. Want of time and of material prevented its completion. The damage to the armor was repaired; wrought-iron port shutters were fitted, etc. The rifle guns were supplied with bolts of wrought and chilled iron. The ship was brought a foot deeper in the water, making her draft twenty-three feet.
"Commodore Josiah Tatnall relieved Admiral Buchanan in com- mand. On the 11th of April he took the Virginia down to Hampton Roads, expecting to have a desperate encounter with the Monitor. Greatly to on surprise the Monitor refused to fight us. She closely hugged the shore under the guns of the fort with her steam up. Hop- ing to provoke her to come out, the JJamestown was sent in, and cap- inred several prizes, but the Monitor would not budge. It was pro- posed to take the vessel to York river, but it was decided in Richmond that she should remain near Norfolk for its protection.
"Commodore Tatnall commanded the Virginia for forty-five days, of which time there were only thirteen days that she was not in dock or in the hands of the navy yard. Yet he succeeded in impressing on the enemy that we were ready for active service. It was evident that the enemy very much overrated our power and efficiency. The South also had the same exaggerated idea of the vessel.
"On the 8th of May, a squadron, including the Monitor, bombarded our batteries at Sewell's Point. We immediately left the yard for the Roads. As we drew near, the Monitor and her consorts ceased bom- barding, and retreated under the guns of the forts keeping out of range of our guns. Men-of-war from below the forts and vessels expressly fitted for running as down joined the other vessels between the forts. it looked as if the fieet was about to make a fierce onslaught on us. But we were again to be disappointed. The Monitor and the other vessels did not venture to meet us, although we advanced until projec- tiles from the Rip-raps fell more than half a mile beyond us. Om object, however, was accomplished; we had put an end to the bom- bardment, and we returned to our bnoy."
Captain Buchanan was promoted to be Admiral in the Confederate States Navy, and temporarily relieved from command on account of wound received in the engagement of the Virginia March 8th. On March 25th Commodore Josiah Tatuall was ordered to command of the naval defenses of Virginia waters, and he assumed command March 29th. From the 8th to the 29th the Virginia was ably commanded by Lieu- tenant Jones, who for this service was promoted captain. (This pro- motion was to captain in the Confederate States Navy; the promo- tion previously noted when he was sent to Norfolk was in the Virginia Navy.) The Confederate authorities entertained the belief that the Virginia would be able to drive the entire fleet of the enemy from
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Hampton Roads. Virginians were confident that the blockade of their shores would be raised by the ironclad. The people of the Northern coast, cities anticipated seeing their harbors laid waste by it. Secre- tary Mallory seat Commodore Tatnall a communication on April 1st. in which he said: "The enclosed note, sent me by friend in Baltimore, will inform you of some interesting points about the Monitor. This vessel has achieved a high reputation by her recent combat with the Virginia; and the enemy, no less than our own people, look forward to a renewal of it as a matter of course, and with deep interest. I confess to a very deep interest in your success over her, for I am fully con- vinced that the result of such a victory may save millions of dollars and thousands of lives." The information conveyed by the note enclosed was certain points in the construction of the Monitor, a knowledge of which might be serviceable to the Virginia in meeting her again.
Again on April 4th Secretary Mallory instructed Commodore Tatnall : " Do not hesitate or wait for orders, but strike when, how and where your judgment may dictate. Take her [the Virginia] out of the dock when you may deem best, and this point is left entirely to your dis- cretion." Commodore Tatuall in his defense before court-martial said: "Aware that Hampton Roads furnished me no field for important operations, I early turned my thoughts to passing the forts and strik- ing unexpectedly at some distant point, say New York, or Port Royal. or Savannah, and in a letter of the 10th of April to the Secretary, 1 conveyed my views." At a meeting of the Federal Cabinet called after the fight in Hampton Roads, Secretary of War Stanton said: " The Merrimac [Virginia] will change the whole character of the war; she will destroy, seriatim, every naval vessel; she will lay all cities on the seaboard under contribution. I shall immediately recall Burnside : Port Royal must be abandoned. I will notify the governors and mui- cipal authorities in the North to take instant measures to protect their harbors."
But hopes and fears were unfounded. No further victory was to be won by the Virginia. No victory at sea, for she had not one seagoing qualification, and could only be used for harbor defense. No victory in Hampton Roads, for her fighting qualities had been tested, and the enemy were not minded to meet her again. As Lieutenant Jones tos- tifies, whenever she came out of the Elizabeth, all Federal boats fled to shallow water where she could not follow: and the Monitor, while her officers loudly claimed a victory for March 9th, was kept close under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and could not be tempted into another engagement.
The movements of the two opposing armies on the peninsula, in
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March and April, 1862, resulted in the change of base of Gen. Joe E. Johnston's army from the Yorktown lines to the west bank of the Chickahominy, and from this change resulted the, perhaps, unneces- sary oi der for the Confederate evacuation of Norfolk. On May 10th the Confederate land forces fell back from the vicinity of Elizabeth river, the batteries at Craney Island, Sewell Point and all along the river were abandoned. General Huger with his troops withdrew from Norfolk, the mayor of the city negotiated its surrender to General Wool, and once more the navy yard was given over to the flames. The smaller vessels of the Confederate fleet had in April withdrawn to James river, and after Norfolk was abandoned moved up the river to positions behind the fortifications at Drewry's and Cbaphi's bluffs. Commodore Tatuall ordered the Virginia lightened and run up James river to the protection of Richmond. After the crew had worked five or six hours lightening the boat, and she was lifted so that she could not be defended where she lay, the pilots announced their inability to carry her up the James (where the draft was eighteen feet) beyond James- town Flats, at which point it was reported the enemy hold both banks of the river. Only oue course could then be pursned to keep her ont of the enemy's hands. She was put on shore and fired, and hor crew landed as near Cranes Island as possible, the only way of retreat open to them. She burned about an hour, and blew up a little before five o'clock on the morning of May 11th.
This unlooked for end to the career of the ironclad, whose victories had been exaggerated, whose defects were then not known, and from which so much was expected, created great dissatisfaction throughout the Confederacy. Commodore Tatnall was severely consured for destroy- ing the Virginia, not only by those ignorant of the facts in the case, but also by those whose knowledge of the situation should have led them to endorse his action. He called for a Court of Inquiry, which reported, in substance, that the Virginia ought not to have been de- stroved at the time and place it was done. As soon as this finding was made known, the Commodore promptly and very properly called for a court-martial, which was convened on July 5, 1862, composed of the following officers : Admiral Franklin Buchanan ; Captains Lawrence Rousseau, Sidney S. Lee, George N. Hollins; Commanders Robert G. Robb, Murray Nelson, Eben Farrand, A. B. Fairfax, M. F. Maury. George Minor; Lientenants W. L. Maury, Robert B. Pogram; Judge Advocate Robert Ould. By this court Commodore Tatnall was honor- ably acquitted, the court finding:
" That after the evaluation of Norfolk, Westover on James river became the most suitable place for her [ the Virginia] to occupy; that while in the act of lightening her for the purpose of taking her up to
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that point, the pilots for the first time declared their inability to take her up. That when lightened she was made vulnerable to the attacks of the enemy. The only alternative, in the opinion of the court, was to abandon and burn the ship then and there, which, in the judgment of the court, was deliberately and wisely done."
The Monitor, of which quite as much was expected in the North as in the South was expected of the Virginia, had a career almost as brief and much less serviceable. After some slight service in the James river in the summer of 1862, she was taken to Washington for repairs in September, returning to Hampton Roads two months later. On December 29th, she set out for Beaufort, North Carolina, in tow of the Rhode Island, and two days later she sunk in a heavy gale off the North Carolina coast.
UP THE JAMES RIVER.
Virginia was now, as had been foreseen, to become the great battle ground of the war. To reach the Confederate capital by land or water was the aim of every movement of the Federal army in the cast. Chesapeake bay and James river, the water approaches to Richmond, were henceforth to be the scene of all naval engagements of any importance on Virginia waters.
After the abandonment of Yorktown, May 3, 1862, and of Norfolk (May 10th), the James river squadron moved slowly up that river, skirmishing with the advancing Federal fleet. The Nansemond and Hampton, gunboats built at the Norfolk navy yard, were sent to Rich- mond. Two other boats nearly finished, and greatly superior to any in the fleet, were burned with the yard. As Mcclellan advanced on the peninsula, the Federal fieet moved from Hampton Roads up the James. On May 8th the fleet shelled Fort Huger, at Hardy's Bluff, three hours withont driving out its garrison. The defense was conducted by Capt. J. M. Maury, Confederate States Navy. The next day an engagement came off between shore batteries and the Federal boats, in which the Patrick Henry and the Jamestown assisted the batteries.
These and other slight engagements affording only a temporary check to the advance of the Federal fleet, the anticipation was awakened in the North that the fleet would reach Richmond without encountering serious opposition. But the Confederates were using the time to good advantage, concentrating their forces and strengthening their defenses at Drewry's Bluff, to give battle there. This bluff, on the right bank of the James, about seven miles below Richmond, was an admirable point for defense, having great natural advantages. 'It has an elevation of about two hundred feet above the river, which at this point is only one mile wide. Preparations for defense there had been begun with our
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battery mounting three guns. In April the first, obstructions were placed in the river. Piles were driven into the bottom, and filled in with logs, stones and iron rubbish. On the approach of the enemy's boats, the Jamestown, Curtis Peck, Northampton, and several smaller boats were sunk in the channel. The earthworks previously constructed were extended. In addition to the three guns of the first battery, a number of heavy navy guns were mounted. Rifle pits for sharp shooters were dug on the opposite bank of the James. A heavy battery at Chapin's Bluff, a few miles down on the left bank of the river, was commanded by Lieut. T. J. Page.
THE BATTLE OF DREWRY'S BLUFF.
Capt. Eben Farrand, Confederate States navy, was senior officer in command of the naval and military forces at Drewry's Bluff. Capt. A. Drewry commanded a battalion of artillery. The bhiff took its name from his family, in whose possession the land had been many years. The naval battery, which had been constructed under supervision of Capt. John Randolph Tucker, and in which the guns from the James- town and Patrick Henry were mounted, was manned by some of the officers and the crews of the Patrick Henry, Jamestown and Virginia. The sharpshooters in the riffe pits on the left bank were under com- mand of Lieut. John Taylor Wood of the navy. Two companies of marines, commanded by Capt. John D. Simms, also served as sharp- shooters. The Federal fleet consisted of three ironclads, the Monitor. the Galena and the Naugatuck, and two wooden gunboats, the Aris- took and Port Royal.
The battle opened at 7:30 on the morning of May 15th, and was fierce and well conducted on both sides but of brief duration. In three hours the Federal fleet was in retreat. As the Monitor passed down close to the left bank, Lieutenant Wood called out to the officer in her pilot-house: " Tell Captain Jeffers that is not the way to Richmond ! "
On the Federal side the loss was fourteen killed, eighteen wounded; the Brooke rifle balls penetrated the ironcladding of the Galena and crippled her; the Parrot rifled gun on the Naugatuck burst as she fired her seventeenth round, and she was compelled to drop out of action before the others withdrew; the Monitor was not injured. The wooden boats were not actively engaged, but were put to service in towing the crippled ironclads toa place of safety. The Port Royal came into range once, and received a shell. On the Confederate side the loss was seven killed, nine wounded. . No serious damage was done the fortifications. The Confederate squadron was drawn up above the obstructions, which the enemy's boats did not reach. Midshipman Carroll, of the Patrick Henry, was killed while acting as signal officer and aide to Captain
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Farrand. Brief and comparatively bloodless as was this engagement it taught the Federal authorities one lesson: That the "On to Rich- mond ! " movement for which the North was clamoring was not to be made by way of the James river. The Federal fleet made no further attempt to pass Fort Drewry. Captain Sidney S. Lee had been ordered to relieve Captain Farrand in command at Drewry's Bluff, and arrived on the 15th, after the battle had begun. Declining then to interfere with Captain Farrand's command, he acted in co-operation with him, rendering valuable aid and council through the engagement. Subse- quently the obstruction of the river at this point was completed under Captain Lee's supervision.
Sidney Smith Lee was of the distinguished Lee family whose public services are interwoven with the history of Virginia on so many pages of this work. The second son of " Light-Horse Harry," he was born at Camden, New Jersey, in 1805, while his father was attending a session of Congress at Philadelphia. In his fourteenth year he was appointed midshipman in the United States navy, in which service he remained over forty years. Among the positions of honor he ably filled in this service were: Commander of war vessel, Mexican war, and engaged in siege of Vera Cruz; Commandant of United States Naval Academy at Amapolis three years; Commandant of Philadelphia navy yard three years; Captain of flagship Mississippi, in Commodore Perry's expedi- tion to Japan; member of the Naval Board to receive and entertain Japanese Ambassadors in their visit to thiscountry : Chief of the Bureau of Coast Survey at Washington. This last position he resigned when Virginia, was forced out of the Union, following the comse of his younger brother, General Robert E. Lee, tendering his service to the State that reckons him one of her honored sons. At the close of the war Captain Lee was chief of the Bureau of Orders and Detail at Rich- mond. He died at Richland, Virginia, on the 22d of July, 1869. He was the father of Governor Fitzhugh Lee of Virginia, the " Fitz Leo" of Virginia cavalry fame, and of S. Smith Lee, jr., of the Confederate States navy.
THE JAMES RIVER SQUADRON AGAIN.
The Richmond, " the first fully armored ship that the South put afloat on the James river," was completed in July, 1862. An appeal for funds to be used to build such a ship. the construction to be under supervis- ion of naval officers, and the ship to be tendered the government when completed, appeared in the Richmond Dispatch, March 17, 1862. 1 number of wealthy Virginia gentlemen having volunteered a part of the necessary sum, the remainder was raised by the patriotic ladies of Williamsburg and Richmond, through committees and by a fair the
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Richmond ladies held. The Richmond was described as "a fine vessel, built on the plan of the Virginia, not so large; her ends not submerged. She carried a bow and stern pivot and two guns in broadside." Ex- aggerated reports of her size and strength reached the North, where she was called the " Merrimac No. 2." On July 30th she steamed down to Drewry's Bluff, ready for service. Another boat added to the James River fleet in 1862 was the Drewry, mounting one large gun. When MeClellan fell back beaten from the peninsula, comparative quiet returned to James river. At the close of the year the James River squadron, Captain French Forrest commanding, consisted of the Rich- mond, Patrick Henry, Nansemond, Hampton, Beaufort, Raleigh and Drewry. The Teaser had been captured, July 4th, when she got aground in Turkey Bend while reconnoitering.
Only one affair of note occurred on James river in 1863. All summer Federal ironclads remained in the vicinity of Drewry's Bluff, without again attempting its capture. The Confederate fleet was in daily ex- pectation of an engagement which the enemy never offered. The river itself had been well prepared to receive them. In addition to the ob- structions opposite Fort Drewry, Lieutenant Hunter Davidson had prepared torpedo defenses, which were sunk in the river below that point, and could be fired by an electric arrangement on shore having wire connections with the torpedoes. On August Ist a number of Fed- oral generals left Fortress Monroe for a reconnoissance of Fort Drewry. Their squadron consisted of the monitor Sangamon, and twogunboats, the Commodore Barney and the Cohasset. Some five miles below Drewry's Bluff they reached a line of torpedoes. These did not do all that was expected of them, only one exploding. That was under the keel of the Commodore Barney, and lifted her bow high in air. tearing away the timbers on her sides. So much heavy material went over- board as she carconed that she righted herself; twenty of her crew were washed off her deck, all but two of whom were picked up by boats from the other ships. The squadron retreated down the river. and the next day came in range of a masked force of Confederate artillery and infantry at Deep Bottom. The Commodore Barney, then hardly afloat, got a shell in her boiler, and the Cohasset had hop engines damaged by a solid shot. In September, 1863, the Federal transport John Farron was seriously injured by a torpedo in the James.
OPERATIONS ON THE JAMES IN 1864-5.
Two ironclads were added to the James River squadron before opera- tions opened in 1864. One was a second ironclad Virginia, built in part like her namesake, and in part like the Richmond, not having sub-
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merged ends. She was plated with six inches of armor on the sides of her casements, and eight inches on the ends. Her armament was two six-inch and two eight-inch Brooke rified guns, so placed that three could be fired at a broadside. The other ironclad was the Fredericks- burg, having four inches of armor, and carrying four six-inch guns. Commander John K. Mitchell had succeeded Captain Forrest in com- mand of the squadron.
General B. F. Butler, after establishing his army at Bermuda Hundred, detailed gunboats to drag the James river for torpedoes. On May 6th the Commodore Jones, so engaged, rested near Fon and a Half Mile Creek, directly over one of Lientenant Davidson's tank machines, containing four hundred pounds of powder. The torpedo was connected with a galvanie battery secreted in a pit on shore, with a detail of three men from the submarine battery service to operate it. The spark was transmitted, the machine exploded, and the Commodore Jones was blown into fragments, losing in killed and wounded, seventy- five out of a crew of one hundred and twenty; fifty were killed ont- right. The next day the gunboat. Shawsheen was destroyed near Turkey Bend, and all her crew killed or captured.
When the Commodore Jones was destroyed a boat from an accom- panying gunboat was sent to the shore, and the men operating the gal- vanie battery were captured. One of these, placed in the forward boat searching for the torpedoes, rendered his own position as safe as possi- ble by communicating to his captors all the information he possessed relative to the position of the torpedoes. In this way the Federal boats were able to locate and remove twenty torpedoes. One contained a charge of 1,900 pounds of powder.
Drewry's Bluff was now threatened with an attack from Butler on the land side, and was strongly reinforced. The obstructions were removed from the river opposite the fort. and the James River floot passed down to Chapin's Bhiff. ' The Federal fleet below responded by sinking hulks at Trent's Reach to prevent the Confederate vessels com- ing down any further. The river was further closed by stretching booms and cables between the hulks. When this had been completed. Commander Mitchell, understanding that the Federal fleet declined to meet him, took his vessels back to Fort Drewry.
The commander of the James River squadron did not, however, remain inactive in the summer of 1864, but contrived to keep the Federal fleet in the James, and away from Sonthern Ports, by a naval battery on the hill at Howlett House, from which he shelled the fleet at long range, and by sending one and another of his boats to harass that part of Butler's army working on his purposeless canal at Dutch Gap.
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A more serious engagement occurred on October 22d. After the Federals captured Fort Harrison (September 19th) they erected a new battery on the left bank of the James, about two miles below Chapin's Bhiff, and fortifications on Signal Hill. These were masked umtil the morning of October 22d, when the trees in front of them were ent away, and they were uncovered with range on the Virginia, Rich- mond, Fredericksburg, Hampton and Drewry, then lying near Cox Landing. The two last moved out of range, the Drewry receiving one shell which struck one of her gun carriages wounding five men. Com- mander Mitchell with the flag ship, Virginia, bore down toward the battery, signaling Captain Maury to follow with the Richmond, and Captain Roots with the Fredericksburg. The three gimboats kept up the duel with thebattery until it was silenced, thenreturned to Drewry's Bluff. The Fredericksburg had her casement damaged, and six of her rrew wounded. The Richmond had her smoke-stack shot away, but sustained no other injury. The' Virginia was not damaged at all, though hit by seven 100-pound conical bolts from the enemy's rifles, not one of which more than dented her iron plating. The four Federal monitors madeno move to come up and participate in the engagement, although Admiral Lee, commanding the Federal fleet, had assured the Federal anthorities that in putting down the obstructions the work had been so done the obstructions could be removed quickly at any time it was desirable for the fleet to go up the river. On December 7th, the Virginia, Richmond and Fredericksburg came down to Fort Brady, a Federal fortification on the right bank of the James, and exchanged a few shots with its garrison.
In December, five boats of the Federal fleet were sent into Roanoke viver, and on December 9th anchored near Jamesville. The gunboat Otsego, searching for torpedoes, passed over two of them, which exploded, destroying her. The next day the gimboat Bazely and Launch No. 5 met the same fate, and the expedition was aban- doned.
With the opening of 1865 the one hope that remained of relieving Lee's beleaguered and enfeebled army rested in the James River squad- ron. This was sa forlorn hope," indeed, but the gallant naval force that had never yet faltered was ready to make the most of it. If the squadron could get down the James, and disperse the Federal fleet at City Point, Grant's base of supplies would be destroyed, and Lee might gain some advantage thereby.
Circumstances favored the attempt. Believing the Confederate boats would not try to pass the obstructions, all the Federal monitors except the Onondaga had been sent to Fort Fisher. High water came on January 22d, carrying great blocks of ice down the river. It was
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