As the sun rose over the Confederate anchorage off Sewell’s Point, Virginia, on Sunday morning, 9 March 1862, the officers and men of the revolutionary new ironclad CSS Virginia (nee USS Merrimack) were exultant. On the previous day, she had made a sensational debut against the Union blockading squadron at Hampton Roads, sinking two wooden frigates, damaging a third, and making naval history with her seemingly impregnable armor.
Midshipman Robert Chester Foute, a young gunnery officer on board the Virginia, shared the crew’s belief that this ship would be the salvation of the Confederacy. He had performed coolly under direct fire at close quarters against warships of his former flag. For the First time he felt fully justified in what had been a tough decision to resign from the U.S. Naval Academy and cast his lot with the South.
Neither Midshipman Foute nor his shipmates could know that they had reached a momentary zenith. They were unaware that John Ericsson’s new turreted Union ironclad, the Monitor, was already waiting for them that same morning in Hampton Roads. For Foute and the other Confederate naval officers, the road ahead would lead from highest hopes to urgent schemes and frustrating setbacks. It would culminate nearly three years later in the final, desperate week of the war, when, the last of their improvised ironclads destroyed, they would fight as naval infantry with the remnants of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. The path from Hampton Roads to Saylers Creek would get progressively brutal.
When he was 16, Foute had been appointed to the Naval Academy’s class of 1862, from Tennessee, his home state. He was particularly influenced by the strong views of his father. Dr. George Foute, an ardent supporter of states’ rights. The election of Abraham Lincoln as 16th President of the United States on 6 November 1860 was an anathema to most Southerners who held such views. On 3 December, Foute became the first Southern midshipman after the election to resign from the Naval Academy. He re- turned home to share the fate of his native Tennessee-
The Fledgling Confederate Navy. Tennessee was the last of the states of the Confederacy to secede. The Act of Secession finally carried on 8 June 1861, nearly two months after the firing on Fort Sumter, South Carolina- Three days later. Confederate Secretary of the Navy Steven R. Mallory wrote Foute, advising him that President Jefferson Davis had appointed him an acting midshipman in the Confederate Navy. He ordered Foute to report for duty to Captain Josiah Tattnall in Savannah, Georgia
The Confederacy had neither a standing navy nor the industrial base from which to build and sustain one. The Union fleet had a formidable advantage, increasing daily- To break the Union blockade and protect key harbors, the South needed desperately to experiment with the cutting edge of naval technology: mines, torpedoes, submarines, and especially, ironclad ships.
Of course, no ironclads awaited Foute in Savannah that summer of 1861. In fact, the great disparity between opposing naval forces shone clearly in the brief combat between Captain Tattnall’s “Mosquito Fleet” and Union Flag Officer Captain Samuel F. DuPont’s South Atlantic Squadron during the Port Royal Expedition in November- This was the first significant naval engagement of the war and Midshipman Foute’s first fight. Tattnall engaged the foe at varying ranges for three days, but when he took an 11-inch shell from DuPont’s flagship through the port wheelhouse, he prudently fled the scene, dipping his broad command pennant thrice to DuPont, his old Messmate. It was not an auspicious beginning.
On Board the CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads
Midshipman Foute’s fortunes took an abrupt upward swing in late 1861 when the Navy Department selected him to join an elite group of officers for service on board the ship that would be renamed the CSS Virginia. Foute had been avidly following the progress of the Merrimack, a captured Yankee frigate that for six months was being converted into the first true ironclad in the Western Hemisphere.
Foute reported on 12 February 1862, two weeks before Flag Officer Franklin Buchanan, the ship’s first commander. Most of the officers he selected came with active experience in the U.S. Navy. Veteran seamen, however, "'ere such a rarity in the South that the Navy had to recruit landsmen from Major General John B. “Prince John” Magruder’s division at Yorktown.
Buchanan and his officers soon realized that there would never be enough time or resources to do the job right. Because ammunition was so scarce. Secretary Mallory advised Buchanan to rely on the ship’s 1,500-pound iron ram as much as possible. Flannel for powderbags was also in short supply. Urgent appeals to the ladies of Norfolk, however, did produce donations of flannel dresses and underthings. No matter how painstakingly the engines and boilers were rehabilitated, the fact remained that the U.S. Navy had condemned them after the Merrimack's last cruise. There were no better in the Confederacy.
The ship was commissioned the CSS Virginia on 17 February 1862. Conversion and modifications continued around the clock for weeks. Buchanan finally realized he could wait no longer. His experimental ship might always be slow, deeply laden, and cumbersome, but he knew he had to take action before the industrial North produced its own ironclad. He boldly decided to strike first. The Virginia's first sea trial would be historic.
On 8 March, the South enjoyed the full force of Buchanan’s boldness and its new technical superiority. The Virginia closed with and destroyed the wooden Union frigates Cumberland and Congress and badly damaged the Minnesota. Withstanding direct hits from the guns of these ships and those of Fortress Monroe, the Confederate ironclad appeared truly unstoppable. It was the Confederate Navy’s finest hour. Midshipman Foute experienced his own moments of personal glory while helping serve the Virginia’s seven-inch bow pivot gun. During one anxious period, his ship’s ram fully embedded in the stricken Cumberland, it appeared that the Confederate ironclad would go down by the bow with her adversary. Flag officer Buchanan, wounded in the first day’s fray, later commended Foute and four other midshipmen for their performance under fire: “Their conduct would have been creditable to older heads, and gave great promise of future usefulness.”
The following morning the naval equation changed again as the Virginia and the Monitor commenced their revolutionary encounter. Neither ship could prevail against the other’s armor plate. Nor could the slower Virginia ram her more agile opponent. Combat was reduced to point-blank fire. Concussion from the Monitor's 180- pound balls pounding against the Virginia's casemate caused Foute and his shipmates to bleed from their noses and ears. A shot from the Confederate ironclad struck the Monitor’s pilothouse, wounding her commanding officer, but the Confederates could not exploit their temporary advantage. The Monitor retreated to shoal water. Lieutenant Catesby ap Roger Jones, acting skipper of the Virginia, appreciative of his ship’s great draft and the ebbing tide, opted to return to base. The epic battle ended in a tactical draw.
Midshipman Foute’s impression was different. He felt that the improvised Virginia had withstood the worst the dreaded new Yankee ironclad could deliver. With the Virginia's broken ram replaced, her armor-piercing shot delivered, and a little luck, he believed the Confederates would prevail in the next encounter. Their plan during the early spring of 1862 was for a return engagement with the Monitor. A bold notion surfaced and prevailed: the Monitor was to be boarded and captured. The ship-starved Confederates believed they could win the war with both ironclads in their fleet. Foute later recalled the scheme to board the Monitor from four small gunboats:
“All four of these vessels [were] to pounce down on the ‘Monitor’ at the same time, on a given signal, and from different directions, all hands were to rush on board, wedge the turret . . . then scale its sides, deluge the interior with chloroform . . . and cover the turret and pilot house with tarpaulins and wait for the crew to surrender.”
On 11 April, the rearmed and partially repaired Virginia steamed back into Hampton Roads in hopes of closing with and capturing her armored foe. But the Monitor stayed out of range in shallow water. The Confederate boarding “pirates” returned to port, disappointed and empty-handed.
No second opportunity would ever materialize. The Monitor provided sufficient protection for Major General George B. McClellan’s rear and flanks that the Union campaign up the peninsula to Richmond was finally able to move. Confederate forces in Norfolk were abruptly exposed and vulnerable. Foute and his shipmates suddenly faced a critical threat from the land behind them, as Norfolk was abandoned. The Confederate high command desperately needed the Virginia's guns up the James River to help protect the capital at Richmond. But the big ship’s draft was too great to navigate the upper river. Refusing to abandon the ship willingly to the advancing Yankees, Foute’s new commanding officer, Josiah Tattnall, decided to blow up the great ship, and with it, the great naval hope of the Confederacy. The heartbroken crew escaped to Richmond.
In the Doldrums On Board the Georgia: Midshipman Foute was home in Tennessee on leave in early June 1862, when he received orders directing him to Savannah “without delay” for duty on board the new “floating battery” Georgia. Foute took his time returning to Savannah. He had been disillusioned over persistent claims in the northern press that the Monitor had whipped the Virginia at Hampton Roads, as well as the condemnation prevalent in Confederate newspapers of Tattnall’s destruction of the Virginia. Foute’s own emotions had swung widely with the fortunes of the Virginia. In early March he and his shipmates had been hailed as conquering heroes. Seven weeks later they were being labeled as treasonous villains by the fickle press.
Foute’s bitterness heightened soon after he reported to the Georgia for duty. His new ship was longer and more heavily armored than the Virginia, but she had fatal design and construction flaws. Ponderous, overweight, and underpowered, the Georgia could hardly get under way on her own. Derisive labels soon abounded: “a splendid failure,” “the mud tub,” “a maritime disaster.” Finally, the Confederates were forced to moor the Georgia permanently in the riverine approaches to Savannah. She became nothing more than an immobile naval battery, a symbol of frustration. The only feature for Foute was his appointment to master-in-line-of-promotion in October
Special Duty Abroad
Master Foute’s second frustrating tour with the Savannah Squadron ended abruptly in May 1863 with confidential orders from the Navy Department for “special duty abroad.” He surmised that he was being selected for service on one of the new ironclad rams being built covertly in Britain for the Confederate Navy by the Laird Company on the Mersey near Liverpool. Still disheartened over the loss of the Virginia and the failure of the Georgia, Foute was thrilled at the opportunity for service on board a true warship—seagoing, fully powered, and heavily armed.
Foute reported to Charleston along with other handpicked naval officers, including several old shipmates from the Virginia. They embarked in the blockade runner Margaret and Jessie and sailed at midnight on 28 May. Successfully eluding the immediate blockading ships, the Margaret and Jessie set course for Nassau.
Only two days out of port, the USS Rhode Island intercepted the blockade runner, and a race for neutral sanctuary in the British Bahamas ensued. After several hours the Yankee warship had closed the range sufficiently to commence firing on the unarmed runner.
Foute’s feelings of outgunned helplessness were even more acute than in his previous encounter with Captad DuPont’s Federal “armada” at Port Royal. The runner finally entered British territorial waters surrounding the island of Eleuthera, but the Yankee ship ignored the sanctuary and continued in “hot pursuit.” The Rhode Islow drove the Margaret and Jessie aground in the surf zone, continued her murderous fire at rapidly decreasing range, then launched a boarding party. Foute and the other survivors tumbled over the sides of their stricken ship, swam 400 yards through the surf, and scattered ashore in the brush. The shipwrecked Confederates took several days to reassemble, when they hailed a passing coaster and their way to Nassau.
In the 74 days it then took Foute to elude the blockade and reach Paris, the military situation in America had changed drastically. Notably, the Battle of Gettysburg the capture of Vicksburg in July had indicated to the watching world that the North would eventually prevail.
The Confederate Navy nevertheless continued its covert operations abroad, trying desperately to circumvent European neutrality laws and the increasing diplomatic weight of the United States. The Confederates were well-served by energetic Commander James Bulloch, their principal naval agent abroad. Even after the double disasters in Pennsylvania and Mississippi, Bulloch nearly succeeded in obtaining new warships from both England and France. He planned to purchase unarmed vessels, then take them to sea for rendezvous with Confederate crews and armament, just as he had done earlier with the fabled raider Alabama.
In the meantime, the large contingent of Confederate naval officers in France waited impatiently for their new ships. At one point, nearly one-third of all lieutenants (22 of 67) were assigned overseas, awaiting a break in the diplomatic logjam.
For Foute, the months of waiting in Paris were bitter-sweet. On one hand, he was anxious for the call to sea, rumored almost daily. On the other, the youngster from Tennessee was fascinated to the point of distraction with the urbane delights of the French capital. Then he fell in love. At a formal ball he met Mary Stewart deKantzow, an American citizen, the daughter of Baron Frederich deKantzow of Stockholm, Sweden, and Eloise Bullitt of Louisville, Kentucky. She was also the niece of Diana Bullitt Kearny, widow of Union Major General Philip Kearny, a bonafide hero killed in action the previous year. Mary’s family disapproved of her affection for the young Confederate officer at first, then relented. For the first time, Foute began to shape a vision for life beyond the seemingly endless war.
In the meantime, The British and the French closed door to any further negotiations. There would be no new warships. The news devasted Foute. In his year overseas he had received promotions to second, then first lieutenant, and had been selected for the prestigious “Provisional Navy of the Confederate States,” as well. But Foute was still a mariner without a ship. Thus, in July 1864, he volunteered for assignment back to the Confederacy.
Death of a Navy: Lieutenant Foute’s return was less traumatic than his outward transit of the Union blockade 16 months earlier. Although the blockade was measurably more effective, Foute and his companions slipped unscathed into the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, on board the runner Falcon. He was shocked to see the effects of the blockade and the exhausting toll of three years of war on his countrymen. War news was all bad. Morale was low, and chronic hunger abounded.
At the end of September 1864, the Navy Department ordered Foute to return to Savannah for service on board yet another ironclad, the CSS Savannah. After nearly 27 months of relative security in the backwaters of the war, Foute was now returning to center stage for the last, desperate fights. He found the Savannah superior to the hapless Georgia. With her casemate protected by four inches of armor plate, the Savannah mounted two Brooke rifles and two smoothbore cannons. Like all other Rebel ironclads, however, she had an improvised and unreliable power plant. Her deep draft, slow speed, and overall unseaworthiness restricted any sustained forays into the ocean, which limited the ship’s role to harbor defense.
Foute chafed at the loss of initiative and offensive spirit implied in this mission. In his impatience, however, he failed to appreciate the larger value. Even as harbor defense vessels, the Confederate ironclad squadrons posed a legitimate threat to any direct assault from the sea by the Union fleet. In fact, one of the few remaining strategic dividends still retained by the Confederates in the fall of 1864 was the existence of the small, ironclad “fleets-in- being” in Savannah, Charleston, and Richmond.
The Union solution to the threat was to turn Major General William Tecumseh Sherman loose from Atlanta to assault Savannah and Charleston from inland. By late December 1864, Sherman’s veteran army had nearly encircled Savannah. Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard, almost out of options, gave orders to sink the immobile Georgia in place. He directed the Savannah to cover the evacuation of Lieutenant General William J. Hardee’s troops, then escape to Charleston, 100 miles to the north.
Commander T. W. Brent provided modest fire support to Hardee’s troops, made a halfhearted attempt to cross the river obstacles en route to the open sea, then abandoned the Savannah and blew her up. Foute and his shipmate joined the rearguard of the retreating army and marched a dozen miles to Hardeeville, South Carolina, to catch the trains for Charleston.
For Foute and an increasing number of other displaced naval officers, the journey through the final 100 days of the Confederacy would be picaresque. In Charleston, however, there was still hope. There, Flag Officer John R. Tucker led a small but professional squadron that preserved strong naval traditions. Tucker ordered Foute to the CSS Columbia, a promising new ironclad nearing completion. Getting the ship ready for sea became a desperate race against time, as Sherman’s army drew closer. The Columbia's eight guns and six inches of protective armor made her a potential blockade-breaker. Unfortunately, she was simply too heavy. On her trial run in early February 1865, she struck an underwater obstruction that broke her back. Foute’s crew had to abandon her that same evening.
By this time almost wild with frustration, Lieutenant Foute then reported to Tucker’s flagship, the CSS Chicora. It was Foute’s fifth ironclad, and a good one, but her days were numbered. While Tucker’s squadron complemented the elaborate defenses of Charleston Harbor. Sherman’s relentless approach from inland was practically unstoppable. Two weeks later, on 18 February, Beauregard ordered Charleston evacuated. Foute was to destroy the Chicora. In a now familiar scenario, he set the ship afire and was the last man to debark before she blew to pieces. Foute and crew were once again a forlorn band afoot. They rode the trains as far as Florence, then marched 80 miles through the countryside to Fayetteville North Carolina, before they could find a through rail to Richmond.
Foute found many familiar faces among the nearly 500 naval officers clustered in Richmond during the final sb weeks of the war. Ironically, they were ending the war as they had started: experienced mariners without a navy General Robert E. Lee assigned Tucker’s ragtag force to man the great guns at Drewry’s Bluff, seven miles down stream from the capital. Lee had personally asked the Secretary of the Navy for this commitment, saying, “There are no finer heavy artillerists.” In this assignment Foute realized an unexpected dividend. He received a concurrent commission as a Major of Artillery in the Confederal States Army.
For Foute and his comrades, however, it was a matter of too little, too late. The coming of spring would unleash a new offensive from General Ulysses S. Grant; Major General Philip Sheridan and Sherman were already closing in from their sectors. Confederate naval offices worked doggedly to maintain discipline and professionalism among their disheartened crews. At the end they were living on little more than pride.
The end itself came like a whirlwind. The Petersburg lines broke; the Confederate government evacuated Richmond. Foute helped Tucker spike the guns and tumble them over the bluff. Their small band barely escaped the oncoming Yankees with an all-night forced march to the northwest. The “Naval Brigade” was nothing but naval infantry now, a grimly determined little force, armed only with muskets, pistols, and cutlasses, trying to catch up with Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. It took three days, Tucker and Foute finally merged with Lieutenant Genial Richard S. Ewell’s Corps at Amelia Courthouse on 5 April. It was a short-lived reunion. Grant’s army cut off most of Ewell’s command the next day at Saylers Creek. After a forlorn attempt to fight through, Ewell was capped. Appropriately, the last unit to surrender was the naval Brigade, which withstood punishing artillery fire and forcibly repulsed several Union infantry charges. Loud cheers rang out from their attackers when the sailors finally agreed to yield. Three days later, Lee surrendered the remainder of his army to Grant at Appomattox. Under the terms of the surrender, all elements of the Army of Northern Virginia, including Foute and his sailors, revived paroles permitting them to “go home, unmolested.”
For Robert Chester Foute, however, the war was not yet over. After the trials and frustrations of the past several months, he wanted nothing more than to visit Mary deKantzow, the woman with whom he had fallen in love m Paris two years before. He learned that she was now jiving in New England with General Kearny’s widow. But it was Foute’s particular misfortune to be passing through Washington on 14 April, his 24th birthday, the night that Resident Lincoln was assassinated. Foute was wearing his Confederate Navy uniform, the only clothes he owned, and was an easy mark for the frenzied provost guards who Patrolled the streets. Although swiftly cleared of any conspiracy connection with John Wilkes Booth and his cohorts, Foute nevertheless sat in the Washington Street Federal Prison in Alexandria for the next two months. Due cause was eventually produced. The U.S. Attorney General James Speed provided this ruling to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton on 22 April: “Rebel officers certainly have no right to be wearing their uniforms in any of the loyal states,” concluding that “. . . the wearing of such uniform is an act of hostility against the government.”
Family legend has it that Foute finally got a message for help to Mary deKantzow through the kindness of a young girl who brought milk to the prison for Rebel officers. In due time, Mrs. Kearny influenced the military authorities to release the young Tennessean, who promptly donned civilian attire and continued his journey to Rhode Island. He married Mary at the Kearny home in September the following year. Robert Chester Foute’s war was at last over.
*The Alexander brothers both are descendants of Robert Chester Foute.