On the Friday evening of 28 June 1861, nearly 60 passengers boarded the packet St. Nicholas for a voyage from Baltimore to Washington. Because the Civil War had begun two months earlier and the passengers had to be searched for weapons and contraband, the boarding process took some time. There was further delay when one of the last passengers, a stylishly dressed woman who registered as Madame la Force, was accompanied by several large trunks that had to be wrestled below to her cabin.
The young woman spoke fluent French and little English, but she soon was communicating with the male passengers and crew in more fundamental ways. She flirted shamelessly, tossing her head and peering out through a veil that covered her eyes and cheeks but not her lips. Most of the ship’s officers were mesmerized by the charming woman, but the ship’s captain later said, “I didn’t like the appearance of that French woman at all. She sat next to me at table so close that our legs touched.” Another passenger reported that the “young woman behaved so scandalously that all the other women on the boat were in a terrible state over it.”
Later that night, at an hour when passengers normally retired to sleep in their cabins, one of the crew noticed that many of the male passengers remained on deck. He surmised they hoped to see more of the French passenger. He was later shocked to find that all of these men were eventually invited to her cabin.
George Watts, a former sailor in the U.S. Navy, was among those men who had remained on deck. He was nervous, and when someone touched him on the arm, he “whirled around like somebody had stuck a knife in me.”
“You’re wanted in the second cabin,” the man told Watts.
Looking anxiously about, Watts followed the man to the cabin. When he entered, he saw the “frisky French lady” removing her dress. As the cabin full of men watched, she also removed her wig and makeup!
From the feminine crinoline cocoon emerged a Confederate colonel, dressed in a fine regimental uniform. The other men began opening the “lady’s” trunks and arming themselves with the cutlasses, carbines, and pistols they found inside.
It did not take long for the armed men to capture the ship and, after putting the crew and innocent passengers ashore and bringing aboard an additional contingent of Confederate soldiers, the St. Nicholas, now renamed the Rappahannock, headed out into the Chesapeake and captured a number of Union prizes.
Confederate States Navy
Like the battle at Bull Run a short time later, this early Confederate success was demoralizing to the Union cause and was hailed in the South. While the North’s seafaring tradition and industrial capacity made the Union Navy the more successful of the two, the Confederate States Navy was not without its own achievements. Making do with decidedly little, the South occasionally relied on innovation—such as the clever ruse of “Madame la Force”—and the determination and skills of a few individuals to do what they could in the face of overwhelming odds.
In previous wars, the U.S. Navy had been the underdog and relied on guerre de course (commerce raiding) as a chief strategy. Now the Confederate Navy was forced to embrace this method, and it did so with some aplomb. Three Confederate raiders did most of the damage. The Florida, the Shenandoah, and the Alabama—all originally merchant ships purchased from the British—captured and destroyed 162 ships among them. Most famous was the Alabama, commanded by Raphael Semmes, whose modus operandi was to disrupt Union commerce by removing the crews of captured ships as prisoners, then burning the ship. Over the course of nearly two years the Alabama roamed the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, capturing and burning 64 Union merchant ships and sinking one warship, the iron-hulled steamer Hatteras. Semmes also captured four other merchant ships but spared them the torch so he could use them to offload his prisoners. Semmes’ storied career ended when he encountered the sloop-of-war Kearsarge, commanded by Captain John Winslow, in the French port of Cherbourg. The same reckless courage that had served him well in his audacious roaming now caused his downfall when Semmes challenged Winslow to meet him in international waters for a one-on-one battle, which the Union commander accepted and won.
The armed sloop Florida under Captain John Maffitt captured 39 Union merchants, two of which he converted to raiders that made another 23 captures. The Shenandoah, commanded by Captain James Waddell, ranged over the Pacific doing serious damage to the American whaling industry there. Waddell continued his foray in those distant waters until August 1865, unaware that the war had ended several months before.
Underdogs are often quicker to embrace technical innovations, and the Confederate Navy was no exception. On 8 July 1861, the Union ship Resolute removed two floating mines from the Potomac River. It was a harbinger of things to come, as Confederate mines would sink or damage more than 40 Union warships during the war.
In 1863, an odd-looking semi-submersible craft christened the David appeared. She made several attacks on Union warships that fall and the following spring. Fifty feet long and steam-powered with a cigar-shaped hull, she was armed with a spar torpedo and was a forerunner of the PT boats that would gain fame in the Second World War. Several more of these innovative craft were built and entered service in the Confederate Navy.
Perhaps the Confederate Navy’s most innovative endeavor was the submarine H. L. Hunley, which proved the viability of submarine warfare when she attacked and sank the Union blockader Housatonic in Charleston’s outer harbor. She also showed the dangers inherent in submarine operations by sinking twice during training—killing five of her crew the first time and all eight the second—and then a third and final time soon after her successful attack, again killing all eight of her crew.
Littoral Operations
As the Union blockade began to gel and federal naval officers grew familiar with the Southern coast, the advantages of capturing certain littoral points became clear. Not only would capture deny their use to the Confederacy, but it would also allow the Federals to use them as logistics stations to support the blockade and as origination points for inland penetrations into key Southern areas. To that end, U.S. Navy forces, working sometimes independently and often in conjunction with the Army, captured key ports and important choke points along the coast.
The first of these was in the vicinity of Cape Hatteras, where Pamlico Sound enjoyed the protection of the Outer Banks along the North Carolina coast and provided a haven for Confederate blockade runners and privateers that preyed on Union shipping. In late August 1861, a joint Army-Navy expedition commanded by Major General Benjamin Butler and Flag Officer Silas Stringham combined shore bombardment with the first amphibious landing of the Civil War to capture Forts Clark and Hatteras, which guarded one of the key entrances to the sounds.
The capture removed a key Confederate access point, but it also provided a base of operations for the northernmost Union blockading squadron where ships could receive stores and coal as well as effect repairs. Recognizing the other three blockading squadrons would benefit from similar stations, the Navy in November went after Port Royal Sound in South Carolina, located between the key Southern ports of Charleston and Savannah. Here, a large fleet of 77 vessels (consisting of two steam frigates, an assortment of other steam-powered and sailing warships, and more than 50 troop transports and colliers), commanded by Flag Officer Samuel F. DuPont, pounded Forts Beauregard and Walker into submission. A 16,000-man force under the command of Brigadier General Thomas Sherman landed unopposed. A small Confederate naval squadron, commanded by Commodore Josiah Tattnall, proved no match for the powerful Union flotilla but was able to safely ferry the soldiers evacuating the two forts.
Returning its attention to the North Carolina coast in early February 1862, the Navy attacked Roanoke Island, where a Confederate garrison controlled the choke point between Pamlico Sound and Albemarle Sound to the north. A force of 17 gunboats suitable to the shallow waters commanded by Flag Officer Louis Goldsborough escorted an Army division under Major General Ambrose Burnside for the assault on this key island, whose capture could provide access to important Confederate rail lines inland.
Goldsborough’s squadron exchanged fire with the several forts that guarded the main waterway and drove off an opposing squadron of Confederate gunboats. The forts capitulated, allowing Burnside to successfully land his troops and take possession of the island.
With the two sounds now under Union control, the Army and Navy were able to subsequently capture Elizabeth City near Norfolk, New Bern on the Neuse River, and the ports of Beaufort and Morehead City. These captures gave the Union control of the entire North Carolina coast except Wilmington, a key port on the Cape Fear River much farther south that remained in Confederate hands until very late in the war.
Brown Water Operations
Early in the war, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had considered riverine warfare an Army problem. But by the fall of 1861, the Union Navy had purchased its own river steamers and had started to build a fleet of ironclads for use on the western rivers. Beginning in early 1862, the Navy and the Army began coordinating their efforts to capture key points along the Tennessee, Cumberland, and Mississippi Rivers, whose north-south orientations made them avenues of access into the rebel states.
Key to Southern control of the central Confederacy were Forts Henry on the Tennessee River and Donelson on the Cumberland. In February 1862, Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant and Flag Officer Andrew Foote set out to capture these key fortifications. As they first converged on Fort Henry, Grant’s force was slowed by heavy rains, but Foote decided to attack the fort without Army support. On 4 February, his force—consisting of the ironclads Essex, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Carondelet as well as the so-called woodclads Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington—opened fire on the fort. Moving his ships into close range, Foote’s squadron knocked out 13 of the fort’s 17 guns, while losing only the Essex. A half-hour before Grant’s force arrived, the fort surrendered. With the river now open, Foote sent his gunboats farther upstream to destroy a key railroad bridge, severing a vital Confederate rail connection.
Fort Donelson proved a harder nut to crack. Going back down the Tennessee to the Ohio River and then up the Cumberland, Foote opened fire on this second key fort, at first with only the Carondelet until other gunboats arrived with Grant’s army. Taking many hits from the well-positioned rebel guns, Foote’s squadron was driven off, but the Confederates, surrounded by Grant’s forces and thwarted from a fighting breakout, eventually surrendered on 16 February.
The loss of these two forts opened western Tennessee, forcing two major Confederate armies to fall back southward. In April, Grant moved up the north-flowing Tennessee River, but upon reaching Pittsburgh Landing was attacked in what became known as the bloody Battle of Shiloh. Initially surprised by the Confederate attack, Grant’s army was nearly pushed into the river. Aided by gunfire from the woodclads Lexington and Tyler, Grant’s forces were able to hang on until reinforcements arrived. Grant eventually drove back the enemy force and avoided disaster.
While Grant was pushing southward along the Tennessee in early April, other Union forces were trying to make headway on the Mississippi, the most important of all rivers that served the Confederacy. Just south of where the Mississippi crosses from Kentucky into Tennessee, a hairpin turn carries the river northward into Kentucky and Missouri. Near the southernmost point of the turn was Island Number 10—so named because it was the tenth island in the river south of the junction with the Ohio—which the Confederates had heavily fortified. Coupled with a floating battery and additional fortifications on the Tennessee bank, this well-prepared island presented a greater obstacle to Union forces than had Forts Henry and Donelson, effectively sealing off the river from Union passage. Besides the more than 50 guns arrayed against them, Union naval forces faced a tactical disadvantage that made a frontal assault unwise. At those forts on the Cumberland and Tennessee, the Union ships had been fighting upstream, which meant that if they were disabled, they could float downstream with the current back into friendly waters. At Island Number 10, they would be attacking downstream, which meant they would be carried into enemy waters by the south-flowing Mississippi should they be disabled. Cutting off the Confederate garrison by severing overland supply lines was a much more desirable way to eliminate this island obstacle, but the Union Army was on the wrong side of the river to accomplish this. To alleviate this problem, two Union Navy ironclads—first the Carondelet and then the Pittsburgh—successfully ran the fearsome gauntlet and were then able to escort the Army across the river from New Madrid on the west bank to Tiptonville on the east bank. Island Number 10 was left isolated, and the Confederate commander surrendered.
A prime example of a successful joint operation was the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on 4 July 1863, and of Port Hudson five days later. Neither service could have succeeded alone in these engagements, but jointly they prevailed. The fall of these last two bastions at last gave control of the entire Mississippi River to the North, completing a key element of the Union’s grand strategy by seizing control of this vital economic artery and effectively dividing the South into two weaker elements. Combined with the Union victory at Gettysburg at the same time, this marked the beginning of the Confederacy’s end.
Farragut at Mobile Bay
In August 1864, David Farragut—now the U.S. Navy’s first rear admiral after his successful capture of New Orleans—took on another Confederate bastion by attacking Mobile Bay on the South’s Gulf Coast. Mobile was an important hub in the South’s railway system and was a haven for blockade runners. Undaunted by the forts and mines (then called torpedoes) guarding the Alabama port, Farragut entered the bay with his ironclad monitors leading the way, followed by another column of wooden sloops to port, each with a smaller gunboat lashed to its port side. The lead monitor—Tecumseh—struck a mine and sank within a minute, taking 93 of her 124-man crew with her. Despite this early loss, Farragut continued into the bay, uttering the now-famous words, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!”
Waiting for Farragut’s ships was Franklin Buchanan. Formerly captain of the ironclad Virginia during her famous engagement with the Monitor, Buchanan now commanded the similar ironclad Tennessee. The latter engaged several of Farragut’s ships in a ferocious battle that lasted more than an hour before she eventually succumbed to the superior Union forces.
Farragut did not take the city of Mobile, but he did capture the several forts guarding the bay, rendering the port unusable to the Confederacy. The timing of the victory was considered by many to be important to President Lincoln’s reelection that November.
Albemarle and Cushing
The Confederate ironclad Albemarle was 122 feet long, built of solid 10-inch-thick southern pine encased in 4-inch railroad-track armor. The vessel was armed with two 100-pound rifled guns mounted on swivels that gave them a clear shot in almost any direction. In October 1864, the presence of this behemoth in the Roanoke River threatened blockading Union forces in the area and jeopardized any Union advances down the Carolina coast.
Ignoring the obvious danger of such a reckless mission, Lieutenant William B. Cushing and 13 other sailors crammed into a small launch armed with a single spar torpedo and headed upriver on a dark, drizzling night to take on the iron monster in her own lair. For eight miles, the little launch made her way past enemy guard posts on shore and picket boats in the river. At about 0300, Cushing saw a large black silhouette looming out of the rainy darkness. As he maneuvered closer in, sentries on the Albemarle spotted the craft and sounded the alarm. Cushing charged full speed at the ironclad. Bullets whipped and cracked all about the men in the launch—several passed through Cushing’s clothing—as they continued to close.
The defenders had rigged a floating fence of chained logs around the Albemarle to protect her from exactly what Cushing had in mind. Surmising that the logs had been in the water for quite some time and were probably slippery, Cushing plunged ahead, driving the launch right up onto the logs.
Perched there, the Union Sailors were staring point blank into the muzzle of one of Albemarle’s big guns as her crew frantically attempted to fire the weapon. Undaunted by the harrowing sight, Cushing lowered the boom and drove a torpedo into the side of the Confederate ship, just below the waterline. Union torpedo and Confederate gun went off nearly simultaneously.
Miraculously, Cushing and another sailor survived, escaping into the river. The other men perished or were captured. But the ironclad Albemarle sank to the bottom of the river, never to rise again. On hearing of this daring exploit, Secretary Welles called the 21-year-old William Cushing “the hero of the war,” and Admiral David Dixon Porter later wrote that this courageous act “should be written in letters of gold on a tablet for the benefit of future ages.”
Fort Fisher
The city of Wilmington, North Carolina, was important to the South because it was linked to Richmond, Virginia, by rail, serving as a vital logistical conduit for both the Confederate capital and General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Wilmington sat 20 miles up the Cape Fear River and was guarded by a series of shore fortifications, most significantly Fort Fisher.
The first attempt at capturing Fort Fisher began on Christmas Eve of 1864 with a withering bombardment from a fleet commanded by Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter. This was the largest fleet yet assembled, and it rained down thousands of shells on the fort for a day and a half. But when the bombardment ended, the Confederate defenders emerged from their shelters and remanned the fort’s parapets, causing the Army commander, Major General Benjamin Butler, to doubt the bombardment had been enough. After landing 3,000 of his 15,000-man force several miles from the fort on 26 December, Butler decided to abandon the assault. He recovered his troops from ashore and departed, sending word to Washington that Fort Fisher could not be taken.
Butler’s decision was questionable, and he was subsequently relieved of his command and replaced by Major General Alfred H. Terry. But some of his concern was justified. The naval bombardment had done relatively little damage, taking out only three of the fort’s 75 guns. Naval gunners had targeted the fort’s flagstaff rather than aiming at specific targets. For the next assault on the fort—begun on 13 January 1865—ships were ordered to concentrate their fire on specific gun batteries. This time, the bombardment was dramatically more successful, destroying all but two of the fort’s guns. Even so, troops north of the fort who were moving in for an assault on its northwestern corner faced a staunch defense from 2,000 Confederate defenders manning the fort’s well-constructed bastion. Fortunately, Admiral Porter had ordered 1,600 sailors and 400 Marines, led by Lieutenant Commander Kidder Breese, to assault a palisade on the eastern side of the fort’s defenses. Primarily armed with the traditional weapons of a boarding party—pistols and cutlasses—and assembled from a wide array of ships with little time for proper organization, this force was no match for the entrenched enemy soldiers, and it was halted and thrown back. However, the gallant attempt succeeded in sufficiently distracting the enemy defenders to allow Terry’s soldiers to penetrate and capture the fort. Six weeks later, the city of Wilmington fell to Union forces, and the noose further tightened around the Confederacy’s neck. With his vital logistical support shut down, General Lee was forced into a last-ditch defense of the capital at Richmond. On 9 April 1865, he was forced to surrender at Appomattox Court House, ending the Civil War, leaving only one American Navy at sea and on the rivers of the reunited nation.
At War's End
No war in American history was more important than this terrible one when Americans fought Americans and killed one another in gargantuan numbers. It not only finally removed the hypocrisy in our own Constitution by ending the hideous practice of slavery, but it changed how the nation perceived itself. For all of its tragedy, the Civil War served as a relief valve and an ultimate unifier by venting much of the sectional tensions and removing the obstacles that had stood in the way of true nationhood. The long-revered idea of state primacy was given its day and proved to be a myth, and in its stead Americans at last found themselves as part of a greater whole, finally understanding the truth of the Aesopian maxim “United we stand, divided we fall.”
At war’s end, there was no doubt that the contest had been decided primarily by the great battles that soaked the American landscape in blood. It was largely a war of attrition, in which the stronger side eventually drained the other of its resources, its geography, and its will. But it was also clear that there was a wet element as well. The Union Navy’s contributions to the Northern victory could be summed up no better than with the words of Abraham Lincoln himself:
Nor must Uncle Sam’s web feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay and the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks.
