CSS Hampton Flag Finds a Home

“In the museum business, if you are lucky, you occasionally have an opportunity to experience what we call ‘wow’ moments.” – Elizabeth A. Poulliot, HRNM Director

Timing is everything.  At least in light of recent events, it is.  If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of two Federal Army officers, we might not have the Civil War Navy’s most recent and prized artifact, the flag of the CSS Hampton.

Richmond, Virginia: 1865

Virginia stood wounded and defeated in the last two years of war.  After suffering heavy casualties throughout Grant’s Overland Campaign, Virginia’s army braced their backs to the south of Richmond at Petersburg in June 1864.  To the west, Virginia’s lush and vibrant Shenandoah Valley burned, denying much needed food and supplies to the starving at Petersburg.  By March 1865, the Petersburg campaign was over.  One month later, approaching Federal armies captured the Confederate capitol.  Richmond remained a burned-out husk of its former self.  The Confederate military was gone and much of its population deserted.  It seems that the war would be over.  Yet victory did not come without its spoils. 

 

CSS Nansemond, one of Hampton's sister ships.

In the midst of the desolation and destruction, Lieutenant William J. Ladd of the 13^th New Hampshire Regiment stood alone in the deserted city Capitol.  According to the History of the regiment, Ladd rode towards Rocketts landing and found a Union cavalryman.  The two rowed out onto the James, where they pulled down two flags off of the CSS Hampton, one of two Maury that saw action during the American Civil War.  Little did they know, the Confederates rigged the ship to explode.  Minutes after they rowed back ashore, the ship went up in a fiery blaze; symbolic of the Navy’s demise and that of its most prized city. 

Dayton, VA: 2011

Ladd kept the flag after the war at his home in Milton.  In the 1960s, the flag made its way to Dayton, VA and into the hands of the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society (HRHS).  The flag that once flew defiantly against the government of the United States lay in a collections box.  Nancy Hess, Vice President of the society, came across the discovery in 2011.  Included with the flag was a handwritten inscription sewn onto the flag:

 

"That of Confed gun boat Hampton burnt in James River at the taking of Richmond.  The flag was taken from the burning ship by Liet. Ladd (13th N. Hampshire), Ge. Devens Staff."

The flag was a terrific find.  Yet it remained in extreme disrepair.  The board at the HRHS decided to look for a new home for the flag, eventually reaching Captain H.J. Hendrix, Director of the Naval History and Heritage Command.  Captain Hendrix offered to see to the flag’s conversation and care. 

Dayton, VA: 2013

In front of a crowd of nearly fifty people, Captain H. J. Hendrix, NHHC Director, accepted the flag of the Hampton on behalf of the U.S. Navy.  After a long journey, the flag will be preserved and displayed at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum (HRNM) in Norfolk, VA.  Elizabeth Poulliot, HRNM  Director, will gladly work with Washington, D.C. to see the flag make it to Norfolk.  What better place to preserve the history of the gunboat than near the place where it was built across the Elizabeth River? 

 

NHHC Director Captain H.J. Hendrix inspects the flag of CSS Hampton

The flag is an important piece that helps us understand the importance of the Confederate Navy in Hampton Roads.  Poulliot plans to  “to prominently display it in our Civil War gallery.”  She added that visitors will “want to learn more about the Civil War, and how the Confederacy build Maury gunboats.  The acceptance of this ensign from CSS Hampton is an honor for our institution.”

For information on the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, please visit the website HERE or go to their BLOG. 

Richmond Press Blasts Mallory on Capital Defenses.

Navy photo: The Richmond press and soon the Confederate Congress questioned Stephen Mallory’s competence as Navy secretary.

For all Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory's spending on ironclads, the Richmond press complained, “The enemy commands the water.” 

The newspapers were reflecting the growing sense of dread that gripped the capital of the Confederacy as the Army of the Potomac massed at Fortress Monroe. Norfolk had fallen. The Gosport Naval Shipyard was back in Union hands. CSS Virginia was lying in the mud off Craney island.  Richmond seemed ripe for attack from the river.          

For months, the Dispatch, the Examiner, and the Whig demanded the James River be obstructed. They wondered what lessons – if any ¾ had been learned from the defeats at Forts Donelson and Henry, Island No. 10, which fell in a combined naval and land attack and put much of Tennessee under Union control. Worse yet was what happened below  New Orleans. The ironclads being built to defend it were not ready for battle, and the Union Navy captured the South’s largest city in a daring strike up river. Along the Atlantic coast, matters were no better.  Fort Macon in North Carolina was taken in a combined sea and land assault as was Fort Pulaski, defending the water approaches to Savannah, Georgia.

           The Whig was scathing:"The amiable somnambulist who presides over naval affairs has contented himself ... without once putting his foot outside the city to see that work.”     

The cries for Mallory’s head were soon echoing inside the Confederate Capitol.