The Hatteras Expedition - One More Time

CWN 150 Blogger Gordon has provided coverage of the US Navy’s first big operation of the Civil War, the Hatteras Expedition, in two prior posts (18 Aug 2011 and 21 Sept 2011), so I certainly don’t mean to duplicate prior content. That said, I had to share with you this illustration I found in the online collection “Civil War Drawings” on the Library of Congress web site.


The picture struck me because it is so dynamic; it resonates with activity. In the right foreground are infantry companies forming up on the beach. In the left foreground additional troops are coming ashore in the surf, and behind them ships boats are bringing in more. Towards the background on the left, the Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane appears to be providing close inshore gun support, foreshadowing the role played by destroyers in the D-Day landings at Normandy. In the background in line-ahead formation are the “big boys”: the steam frigate Minnesota, the sailing sloop Cumberland, the steam frigate Wabash, and the side-wheel steam gunboat Susquehanna. The target of their gunfire is in the right background, Fort Clarke, and you can see the shells bursting over the fort.

Cape Hatteras Expedition

The bombardment of Fort Clark by Cumberland, Minnesota, and Wabash.

On August 26, 1861, the U.S Navy and Army's expedition to Cape Hatteras cleared Hampton Roads and navaigated south. Commodore Slias Stringham commanded the Navy's portion of the expedition that consisted of the steam frigates USS Wabash and Minnesota, the sail sloop-of-war USS Cumberland, the paddle steamer USS Susquehana, and steam gunboat USS Monticello. 

Before leaving Hampton Roads, Stringham had received intelligence about the two forts that guarded the Inlet from recently released merchant ship masters.  The Confederate garrison allowed the officers of the ships to roam the forts freely.

The attack began on the morning of August 28. With Wabash towing Cumberland, the two ships approached Fort Clark. From about 1,300 yards from the Confederate fortification, Wabash began the battle with her two pivot guns, both X-inch Dahlgrens, followed by Cumberland and Minnesota’s X-inch Dahlgrens. The rest of the squadron’s smaller guns then engaged. The squadron steamed in a clockwise circle south and then back to the north.

Flag Officer Samuel Barron  had earlier travelled down from Portsmouth, Virginia to take charge of forts, called Forts Clark and Hatteras. Using guns captured from Gosport, Barron ordered his garrison to return fire. Finding Clark outgunned, he ordered that the garrison to retreat to Fort Hatteras. After several more hours, Barron believed the situation hopeless and surrendered. Stringham shipped the Confederate commodore and the garrison to prisons in the north.

Strategically, the capture of the two forts shut down privateering for good.  It also opened up the North Carolina sounds to further advances.  It also came one month after the Union debacle at Bull Run.  As a result, the Northern press treated the victory as if the North had just won the war. 

Fort Clark after being captured

The Hatteras Expedition Assembles

Cape Hatteras and the North Carolina Sounds had become a perfect safe haven for Confederate commerce raiders.  As Northern merchant ships used the Gulf Stream as expressway home from West Indies ports, the local waters were target rich.  Several dozen small merchants fell victim to privateers and small commissioned gunboats.

To put a stop to this, the Union's Blockade Board recommended using filling schooners with stones and sinking them Hatteras' channel.  After consultations with local pilots about the currents in the area, the idea was soon rejected.  Commodore Silas Stringham recommended seizing the Hatteras Inlet as the only real solution.

In mid-August, the expedition began to assemble in Hampton Roads.  The large steam frigates USS Minnesota and Wabash and the all sail sloop-of-war USS Cumberland formed the core of a task force of several warships and transports.  The expedition's assembly caused a buzz in Northern newspapers who were looking for something positive to write about in light of the humiliating sting of Bull Run.