Porter's Mortar Fleet in Hampton Roads

Many historians and enthusiasts agree that the U.S. Navy's James River Flotilla was ill-equipped to attack the Confederate garrison at Fort Darling along Drewry's Bluff in May 1862.  Besides the lack of Union Army units nearby, the Flotilla's ships were designed for ship to ship action.  They were not designed to tackle a fort sitting far above the river.  Why didn't the Navy use mortar boats on the James River as in the Mississippi?  Even if they were less than effective at engagements like Island No. 10, their involvement might have inflicted some damage on the approach to Richmond.  Although this was intended to occur, the ships did not arrive in time. 

On July 9, 1862, Secretary Welles, ordered Porter and most of the mortar fleet to transfer from the Mississippi River to the James.  The mortar ships were used against Vicksburg for much of June in preparation for an assault on the fortress city.  However, Welles received reports that Union ground forces under General Halleck were not ready to attack and the water level in the Mississippi was beginning to drop.  Seeing that the mortar ships could be better used in the East and with the endorsement of Assisstant Secretary Fox, Welles ordered the transfer.

The move took four weeks.  The first ships began to filter into Hampton Roads in the beginning of August.  En route to Hampton Roads, Porter's flagship USS Octorara captured the blockade runner Tubal Cain off the east coast of Key West.  That was the only postive development of the transfer.

Leaving aside the fact that the fleet arrived a full month after the Army of the Potomac ended the Peninsula Campaign, the mortar fleet and its sailors were in no shape for action.   Flag officer Goldsborough reported that many of the sailors were suffering from what we now call relapsing fever (older term: "bilious remittent"/ slang term: "camp fever"), which had spread throughout ships serving on the Mississippi.  Welles responded to this issue suggesting the Navy enlist African American men camped around Fort Monore to fill in the ranks, as there were not enough sailors in Northern ports to provide replacements. 

Upon looking at the ships themselves, Goldsborough questioned their seaworthiness to Welles. "Are these vessel to be sent up the James River in their present condition?" he asked.  Commodore Charles Wilkes further questioned Welles, implying that the Secretary was seriously misinformed about the readiness of the ships.  He stated that it would be several months before the ships could see offensive action again, as many of the mounts holding the mortars were in serious disrepair.   Furthermore, Army commanders in Hampton Roads refused to release any African Americans to the Navy. 

Thus, the idea of using mortar ships to capture Richmond was killed.  Furthermore, with Farragut and Porter's pull back from Vicksburg, the siege of the city was effectively lifted.

Keeping the James River in Rebel Hands

Union Navy fails to fight past  Drewry's Bluff below Richmond in May 1862. 

Nowhere did Matthew Fontaine Maury best deliver his service in coastal defense to the Confederacy than at Richmond during the Peninsula campaign.  His torpedoes [mines] and coastal batteries ultimately forced the Union to keep to the land as its soldiers drew closer and closer to the capital.  He had made the river a death trap for the Union Navy. The few poor roads, thick woods, and swamps to the east proved natural chokepoints and lines of defense. The fortuitous finding of miles of insulated telegraph cable along Willoughby Spit in Hampton Roads in February 1862 allowed Maury, not President Jefferson Davis or Navy Secretary Stephen  Mallory, to make the James River near the capital impenetrable by the summer of 1862, indeed for the remainder of the war.  While the press clamored for stout defenses, Maury quietly provided them.

            About six miles downstream of Rocketts Wharf, the Confederate Navy’s shipyard, Maury and his assistants, notably Hunter Davidson, like Robert Minor and John Mercer Brooke, a member of the Naval Academy’s first graduating class with service at the observatory, set their mines in the narrowest and shallowest part of the river.  They placed the mines in mid-channel at between three and a half and seven and a half fathoms of water.

            The place for the "ranges” selected was under the cover of the guns on Drewry's Bluff on the south bank and Chaffin's farm on the north.  "They were ignited by a bit of fine, platinum wire, heated by means of a galvanic current from a galvanic battery on shore.  The conducting wire having been cut the two terminals were then connected with the platinum wire making a span between the terminals of say one-half inch.  They were then secured firmly in a small bag of rifle powder to serve as a bursting charge,” Maury later reported.

            By June 1862, Maury and Davidson, who had served aboard CSS Virginia, had fifteen casks in the river, arranged in rows and spaced about thirty feet apart.  They transformed Samuel Colt’s minefield concept from an art to a science. The Confederates in Richmond were making “submarine warfare an extremely important and feared tool of war.”  Again, Maury relied on stealth to hold off  nosy Union gunboat commanders. If the Navy or Virginia Governor John Letcher had more powder, Maury and Davidson would have deployed more mines.

            The Union Navy on the James River and in Hampton Roads wanted Maury’s plans for river defense.  With them, they would know the “ranges” of torpedoes, sunken vessels, and other obstructions, and the large gun emplacements.  They reasoned snipers from the shore would be a manageable risk. This summer, they were living in the shadow of Captain David Glasgow Farragut’s daring rush up the Mississippi River with his ocean-going frigates and sloops that led to the fall of the South’s largest city and busiest port, New Orleans.

            Even after the Battle of the Ironclads in Hampton Roads, Union Navy officers in the East, unlike their Army counterparts, were used to having their way. Cape Hatteras, Port Royal, Roanoke Island, and New Bern kept hopes for a short, victorious war.  But now, they were constantly being stymied.  The ironclads were not enough to force the Union Navy’s way to attack the city and the Army of Potomac for now was operating too far  north of the river for their guns to offer support.

USS Galena: Flawed, but Still Standing

In preparation for Drewry's Bluff, we present USS Galena.  This is the ship that is often mentioned in passing and in hush circles as that "other ironclad" that had a flawed design.  The ship served as the flagship for the squadron of U.S. Navy ships that challenged, and failed, the Confederate defenders at Fort Darling and the Bluff.

USS Galena was of the three "experimental" ironclad designs put recommended by the Ironclad Board. The ship had all the right connections.  Her designer was none other than Samuel Pook, designer of the "City"-class ironclads that dominated the Mississippi River system during the war and had a hand is designing the Merrimack-class of steam frigates.  Successful New England shipbuilder C.S. Bushnell backed the ship's design and had her built at his shipyard in Connecticut.

So what was wrong? In simple terms, Galena was a wooden ship trapped in the body of an ironclad.  Pook design a wooden steam sloop with four inches of iron slapped on the sides.  Placing iron over wood was nothing extraordinary.  Most ironclads, including New Ironsides and Virginia, had several inches of wood backing up the ship's iron plates.  The wood and iron work together as an integrated system.

 However, Galena was simply a wooden steam sloop with four inches of iron slapped on the sides.  Additionally, Galena's armor was placed in a "tumblehome" design, meaning the ship's top deck is narrower  than the beam.  The result was a odd, aircraft shelter-like, look to the ship.  The ship's iron would go on to show that just because one places iron on a ship, doesn't make the ship the next Achilles. 

However, when you read more about Drewry's Bluff in future posts, do remember this: of the three experimental ironclads,  only Galena was still floating in 1867.   Granted, this had nothing to do with superior design than the will of Neptune.   It could even be argued that because of Galena, there would never have been a Monitor.  One story goes that Bushnell asked his friend John Ericson's to consultant on Pook's design.  During the meeting, Ericsson's rejected Galena's design outright and pulled out a plan for what he thought an ironclad warship should look like.  Impressed by the design, Bushnell encouraged Ericsson to put his plan in front of the Board.

Drewry's Bluff Commemoration

Today, Laura Orr and I traveled to Drewry's Bluff to talk about some recent developments brewing with the National Park Service for the 150th anniversary commemoration.  Needless to say, we had a wonderful time walking the site and talking about the strategic importance of the battle itself, both for the Navy and the Marine Corps.  

Stay tuned for more updates and posts about Drewry's Bluff in the upcoming weeks in preparation for the anniversary.  CWN 150 staff will be there at the event.  Also, many of you may be wondering where our posts are about New Orleans.  We are in the process of doing some posts with the Civil War Monitor online blog very soon.  Keep coming back for updates!

Be sure to come to the Richmond area on May 12 and 13 to enjoy the MANY activities provided that weekend. Check out the details on the PDF at the website below. More information to come soon! (in this photo: the view of the James River from Fort Darling, taken today.)

http://www.nps.gov/rich/planyourvisit/upload/RICH-150th-Schedule-as-of-20120328-public.pdf

Looking forward to the next couple of weeks!