Patrolling the Ohio River and Intercepting Morgan's Raid



Throughout the war, both the Union and Confederate armies conducted raids deep into enemy territory in the hopes that they would draw units away from the front lines.  Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan conducted one of these raids began in late June 1863.  Morgan's superiors gave Morgan freedom to go anywhere he wanted in Kentucky.  He was, however, not permitted to cross the Ohio River.

Morgan ignored the order and invaded Indiana and Ohio. Even with the Vicksburg and Gettysburg campaign underway, the 1,000 mile raid was a national sensation followed closely by newspapers North and South.

Brig. General John Morgan-A
Kentucky-native, he ignored
his original orders and began
one of the most sensational
raids of the war in late
June 1863.

While state authorities in Indiana and Ohio organized emergency defense units, the Navy's river forces organized.  The responsibility for operations on the Ohio River fell to Lieutenant Commander LeRoy Fitch.  Up until now, the Ohio River was a quiet sector.  Upon hearing word of Morgan's path of destruction through Yankee territory, David Dixon Porter knew Morgan would have to cross back across the Ohio at some point.  He ordered Fitch to ready his ships.

Fitch's squadron consisted of several "tinclad" steamers.  Originally prewar wooden paddle steamers, the Navy converted these vessels into warships by placing 1/2-inch of iron plating along the broadsides and weapons on board. Before the war was over, the Navy commissioned sixty-three tinclads.  In a move that would be common by the early 20th century, the Navy gave each tinclad a name and unique hull number. 






Lieutenant Commander LeRoy Fitch, commanding
officer of the Ohio River flotilla.

 

Unsure exactly where Morgan might try to cross, Fitch spread his squadron out over several hundred miles on the Ohio between Louisville and the West Virginia border. 

He placed USS Springfield and Victory at Louisville and Silver Lake and Fairplay further upstream towards Cannenlton, Indiana.  Five other vessels, Reindeer, Naumkeag, Magnoila, Allegheny Belle, and Moose [Fitch's flagship], moved upstream towards West Virginia.  Fitch's intelligence believed Morgan's main force was proceeding east.  Fitch's problem was that there were at least six to eight fords that Morgan could cross the Ohio.  Thus he had to keep one gunboat near each possible crossing.   


One of Fitch's gunboats-Tinclad Number 35, USS Reindeer

The first contact with Morgan's forces by a Fitch gunboat occurred when Acting Ensign Joseph Watson, commanding Springfield, claimed to come under fire at New Albany, Indiana on July 9.  Channelling George McClellan, Watson reported that his ship was attacked by at least 10,000 men and three batteries of artillery.  Morgan began his raid with about 2,5000 men and two light artillery guns.

July 19 brought more serious action. Fitch and Moose found Morgan's forces trying to cross the Ohio at Sandy Creek Shoals.  Amidst a heavy fog, Fitch ordered Moose to flank speed.  Concerned that Morgan would try to place his two 20-pounder Parrot Rifles in a position to fire at his ship, Fitch had Moose's forward guns open fire as soon as the fog allowed.  Morgan's raiders retreated up the banks, with Moose's broadside guns firing at them.  As they retreated, the two Parrot Rifles were left behind.  The next morning, Allegheny Belle joined Moose. 

A bit farther upstream at Buffington Island, Morgan's raiders made a second attempt to cross the Ohio.  Under pressure from Union cavalry forces and militiamen, the raiders were becoming somewhat desperate to escape. But Moose and Allegheny Belle intercepted them and opened fire with shrapnel shells. 

Seeing that Union ground and river forces had them trapped, 750 of Morgan's men surrendered.  Never able to find a secure way across the Ohio, Union ground forces captured Morgan himself along with 300 of his men a week later.   

Two of more Fitch's "tinclads"-
USS Silver Lake ( Tinclad Number 23)(above)
 and USS Fairplay (Tinclad Number 17) (below).

The raid was the longest distance of its kind during the war.  There are several historic sites and markers along the Ohio River open to the public.  The Ohio Civil War Trails Commission is currently working on a 557-mile trail route. The tinclads for the remainder of the war continued to be active along the Mississippi and Ohio River systems as Confederate partisan groups continued to be active.

The River War in Florida

Union Navy steamer skirmishing with Confederate sharpshooters "near Fernandina, Fla." Possibly the Amelia or St. Marys Rivers. Source: Fla. Dept. of State online photo archive.

CWN 150 Coordinator Matt Eng had some neat links in his “October Updates” post of 13 Oct 2011. One featured an article in the Washington Post that concluded in part “. . . the Civil War was a river war.” This got me thinking about the role of the US Navy in Florida during the war, and that to a great extent we can say the same thing; it was very much a “river war.” For most of the conflict, Confederate militia and home guard controlled much of the interior of the state (roads and railroads), and so the US Army depended a lot on the Navy to transport their men, animals, and material. The US Navy made a number of expeditions up the St. Johns River on the Florida east coast, which I will detail much more on the appropriate dates in 2012. Numerous cutting out expeditions to go after blockade runners and/or contraband were conducted by the US Navy on the rivers of both coasts in Florida. Even fictional accounts highlight the river war in Florida. In the novel “At the Edge of Honor” by Robert Macomber, a Union armed sloop commanded by Master Peter Wake engages in a nighttime firefight with two Confederate blockade runners on the Peace River, in southwest Florida:

“Now they could get a bearing on the enemy sounds, coming down the southern shore of the river, to the right of the Rosalie, and almost dead ahead of Thorton's boat. . . Without warning, a blast exploded on the right, followed by a volley of more blasts, as the men in Thorton's boat fired at the enemy. The light of the musket blasts flared out over the water and illuminated the (enemy) schooner for a brief moment. . . . Men on all the vessels were now shouting and screaming. Blasts and flames were coming from everywhere. . . Wake, seeing that the schooner was now just about at the line of anchored vessels and was firing into Thorton's boat, stood up and yelled as loud as he could, 'Fire, Durlon, fire!' The roar of the twelve-pounder overwhelmed all other noise and action. The flame it spewed out carried for twenty feet and lit up the entire river, clearly showing the damage along the starboard side of the schooner from the dozens of small rounds that had been packed into the canister ammunition. . . . The sound of the screaming and yelling and shooting from the schooner made it sound like a ship from hell as it continued out of control toward Wake's sloop.”

Captured schooner crewed by USN sailors from the USS Stars and Stripes skirmishes with dismounted Confederate cavalry on the Ochlockonee River, Florida. Source: Fla. Dept. of State online photo archive.

Keeping the Nation's Captial Open

USS Pawnee and Freeborn engage Confederate batteries at Aquia Creek, June 1, 1861.

In his history of the U.S. Navy in the Civil War, Admiral David Dixon Porter commented that in May 1861 "the country was too busy watching the black clouds gathering in the South and West to note the ordinary events that were taking place on the Potomac Before the Lincoln Administration could execute on any grand strategy of war, there was the very serious issue of Washington, D.C.'s geographic isolation."

Riots and political uncertainty in Maryland temporarily cut of land routes, leaving the Potomac River as the only alterative. Using guns seized at Gosport, Confederate engineers and gunners established fortified outposts along the Virginia side of the river to challenge any ship flying the U.S. flag.  To answer this issue,the U.S. Navy established the Potomac Flotilla. Never large in size or stature, the squadron and Confederate shore batteries fought in several small engagements (often at Aquia Creek) from May through July 1861.  The Flotilla kept the river open, but Confederate gunners often found a way to harass Union shipping.

In a sign of events to come, the U.S. Army initially refused to provide the necessary ground  troops to secure the Confederate forts on a permanent bias.  It was not until the Peninsula Campaign of 1862 that the Potomac was finally secured.

After the war, Porter did not forget the Flotilla’s work. He wrote that "[the public] never stopped to consider the importance of such tedious work as occurred on the great highway from Washington to the sea, nor did they ever seem to reflect that if the river was once closed, the very life of the Union would be imperiled."