The Hosptial Transport Service

Daniel Webster

In 1861, almost no one predicted the shear bloodshed that would be caused by the ground fighting during the Civil War.  Fortunately for thousands of soldiers, the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a volunteer group of civilian medical professionals and other well meaning citizens, did and attempted to fill critical gaps in the Army's medical system.   One of the gaps was there was no infrastructure set up to move wounded soldiers from the battlefield to hospitals in Washington, Philadelphia, and New York to receive long-term care.
The Commission's executive secretary Frederick Law Olmsted (most famous for his work on New York City's Central Park) noticed that the Army's Quartermaster Corps had several surplus steamers and asked if the Commission could use them as hospital ships.  At first, the Quartermaster Corps said no, when it did say yes, often pull the ships away from the Commission at the last second.  By late April 1862, however, Olmsted's persistence paid off and the Commission received the steamer Daniel Webster.  By mid-May, the Commission's Hospital Transport Service had seven ships working out of White House, Virginia on the York River and Harrison's Landing on the James  River. 




J H Spaulding

Each ship carried upwards of several hundred soldiers, many of them suffering from various diseases.  Tending to the sick and wounded on board were female nurses, many of whom had followed their husbands who were working as doctors.  Towards the end of the campaign in July, one ship, J.H. Spaulding rescued several hundred wounded soliders trapped behind the lines.  Against the advice of officers on Galena and Monitor, Spaulding flew a flag of truce and steamed past Confederate shore batteries.  Some of the nurses joked with Lieutenant Jeffers that they would be sure to put mattress in the wheelhouse for protection.  Jeffers later thought that was a good idea and took some of the mattress of Spaulding...for the Monitor!

The Service ended with the end of the Peninsula Campaign in July 1862.  Several thousand men were saved because of the ships.  Two of the Commission's nurses penned an excellent first person account of the Hospital Transport Service in their memior Woman's Work in the Civil War.

Drewry's Bluff Weekend Recap

The Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial/Hampton Roads Naval Museum was in attendance at this past weekend's sesquicentennial commemoration at Drewry's Bluff.  Over 500 people came and visited our exhibit display, which included several different Special Edition Civil War Navy Daybooks, USS Alligator and Monitor posters, Blacks in Blue Jackets pamphlets, and other educational material for guests to enjoy.  It was wonderful weather on Saturday and Sunday for a slew of events, programs, lectures, and activities around the Fort and inside the eeducational tent. 

For me, the highlight of the weekend was the Saturday morning sign dedication for the USS Monitor and Confederate Marines.  It was an honor to speak at that event, and to introduce Lieutanant (junior grade) Martin K. Dineen from PCU Arlington (LPD-24).   LT Dineen spoke of the legacy of the Monitor and its significance in his own service as navigation officer on Arlington.  Dave Alberg, Superintendent of the Monitor National Marine Sanctuary spoke on the discovery and recovery of the famous ironclad ship, touching on some upcoming developments in its conservation.  The wayside marker will be located on the bluffs onlooking the site where the ship moved into position to protect the ironclad Galena 150 years ago. 

Our exhibit was located in the USMC Historical Co. Tent.  Thank you Gunnery SGT Tom Williams for allowing us to use the space at the end of the tent.  It was much appreciated!  We were also delighted to talk with volunteer docents from the National Museum of the Marine Corps.  It is always fun to hear the playful banter of Navy and Marine Corps museums working side by side!  Needless to say, those gentlemen were a pleasure to work with for the weekend.  It was also Mother's Day on Sunday, so on behalf of the CWN 150 I would like to say thank you to all the mothers past, present, and future: without you, there would have been no sailors during the war to commemorate today!

Once again, we had our LEGO models of the Monitor and the Virginia out for display.  Each model was situated next to a professional model of each ship, adding to the fun and excitement of building each one.  Needless to say, they were a big hit with the kids (and more so with the adults!).  These instructions are available on the HRNM Educational Resources website.  If you at Drewry's this weekend, you probably heard me talking at our exhibit about the newest ironclad LEGO model: the USS Galena.  To show you I wasn't kidding, here is a pic of the development:

USS Galena  LEGO Digital Model Development (TBA)

It will hopefully be complete with instructions in upcoming months.  The initiative is part of the HRNM Program: Brick by Brick LEGO Shipbuilding, which has free ship buildings instructions available for FREE download HERE. 

Make sure to go to the Richmond National Battlefield Park Facebook Page to look at all the fantastic images that were capture from this weekend's activities.  NPS Ranger Jason Martz did a fantastic job capturing the event on camera.  Stay tuned for the Civil War Monitor cross-postings on Drewry's Bluff (Iron Men Afloat) tomorrow. 

Laura Orr Talks with Marine Living History Volunteer at USMC Historical Co. Tent (Eng)

Again, I want to give a special thank you to all the NPS Staff involved with helping Laura and I this weekend and making the sign dedication.  The official Drewry's Bluff Ceremony ("Honoring Service: Commemorating the Battle of Drewry's Bluff") will be (weather permitting) tomorrow at 6:00 at the NPS site.

Iron Men Afloat: USS Monitor Sign Dedication

This is another post to a multi-part series with the Civil War Monitor Magazine blog entitled "Iron Men Afloat."  Cross postings will highlight key battles and topics of Civil War naval history.  The Monitor will discuss the men involved, while this blog will focus on the machines and technology used during the war. 


The Civil War Monitor Blog will be posting two Drewry's Bluff posts, focusing on a summary of Battle and some commentary on the memory and commemoration of CPL John Mackie, the first USMC Medal of Honor Recipient.  Check back tomorrow to the blog HERE to read these posts. 

Below is a transcript of the speech I gave at the USS Monitor NPS Sign dedication on Saturday, 12 MAY 2012.   There was also a sign dedication to the Confederate Marines at Drewry's Bluff during the ceremony.  A very special thanks to Dave Ruth, Ed Sanders, and Beth Stern at NPS Richmond for allowing the CWN 150 and the U.S. Navy to be represented this weekend at Drewry's Bluff. 

In the spring of 1862, Union forces looked for a direct route to Richmond, both on land and by water.  While the Union Army floundered its first attempts during the Peninsula Campaign, the Union Navy saw relative success.  In May, the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron guarding the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay dispatched a small flotilla of vessels in an attempt to take Richmond by naval force up the James.  If Richmond was the heart of the Confederacy, the James River was the arterial vein that crept from the Chesapeake Bay to its heartland.  Such success might result in an early end to a war which had already cost the lives of thousands of men on both sides of the conflict. 

All seemed desperate for the Confederate capital.  By mid May, the Confederacy had suffered a series of defeats in the West to combined Federal Army-Navy cooperation culminating in a daring gamble by future Admiral David Glasgow Farragut to take New Orleans, the South’s largest city.  In the east, the Confederacy’s mightiest warship, CSS Virginia, lay in pieces near Craney Island at the mouth of the James, unable to traverse its deep draft upriver. Now a large Army waited patiently for the Union flotilla to attempt to break into Richmond.  Only a few obstacles stood in the way for the Union reaching their goal, the most formidable being Fort Darling, situated along Drewry’s bluff just seven miles below Richmond.  It was here on May 15^th that a force of naval ships was repelled by its Confederate defenders.  The victory marked the last attempt for a direct assault into Richmond by water.   

  

Two of the three original Ironclad designs were part of that James River Flotilla:  the USS Galena and USS Monitor.  Of all the ships that served during the American Civil War, few truly stand out in the annals of American naval history.  Of these, one in particular sits high above all others, the USS Monitor.  The ship is best known for its historic engagement with the CSS Virginia on March 9, 1862. 
 

For all the acknowledgement and support in the collective memory of the Battle of Hampton Roads, it nonetheless tells an incomplete story to the epic saga of the Monitor and Virginia.  These machines that spurred the ironclad revolution would be dead in the water without its sailors.  It was here at Drewry’s Bluff where the crews of the Civil War’s most famous ships last battled.  The Virginia’s gun crew, now homeless with the loss of their ship, fired on their adversary downriver as she sought to protect the weaker yet equally heroic ironclad Galena.  In the end, few shots seriously affected the Monitor, adding to its aura of impenetrability.

The Monitor was what one Richmond Daily Dispatch reporter called after the battle an “infernal gunboat” capable of “forces of evil.”  Even the Confederacy viewed the Monitor as something much more than a ship.  It became a symbol of power and prestige, a near mythological force of Union naval might capable of inflicting heavy damage on its enemies.  Had the bluffs been lower and the angle of her guns able to reach them, the outcome of the Confederate victory here might be drastically different.  

Many contemporary officers and officials looked at the Monitor with comical amusement, calling it a “cheesebox on a raft” and “tin can on a shingle.”  Yet that insignificant looking object floating along the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay and the James River became the most powerful warship in the world, worthy of envy and praise.   

Samuel Dana Greene, Executive Officer of the USS Monitor, said it best about the legacy of the ship which rings true to this day: “No ship in the world's history has a more imperishable place in naval annals than the Monitor.”  Without the Monitor, the modern Navy would not be the same.  The ship became a rubric and design for subsequent ships of the 19th and 20^th century, thus ushering in the creation of a modern surface Navy that survives to this day.  

Fifty years from now, how will the Civil War be remembered? What about the Monitor?  It is you, the people who are actively involved and present with this current sesquicentennial commemoration, who will keep the memory of it alive and thriving.  Today, we are all here to dedicate the honor, courage, and commitment of the USS Monitor in its last engagement.  Today, we make history.

A Battlefield Lost: Plum Point Bend

Old river-men say each bend in the Mississippi River has at least one story to tell.  Well Plum Point and Craighead Bends collectively have several hundred.  One of those occurred on May 10, 1862.

After the fall of Island No.10 on April 8, 1862, the Federal Mississippi River Squadron moved down stream to the next Confederate bulwark.  Roughly thirty miles north of Memphis, Tennessee, the river made a series of sharp bends - first west, then east, then west again - as the river flowed around Plum and Craighead Points.  Inside these bends were a maze of snags and sandbars.  Pilots considered this stretch of the river one of more dangerous sections.  Mark Twain described it as "the famous and formidable Plum Point."

If that was not enough, terrain on the Tennessee side of the river made the Confederate defenses even more formidable.  After passing around Craighead Point, the river turns west against the foot of the First Chickasaw Bluff.  The crest of this rise is about 125 to 150 feet above the river level.  And on top of that bluff, the Confederates built Fort Pillow with some forty heavy guns. 

For a month and a half during the spring of 1862, these river bends were the front lines of the war along the Mississippi.  Federal mortar boats lay on the downstream reach of Plum Point Bend, lobbing shells at Fort Pillow.  Federal gunboats covered the bombardment.  On the morning of May 10, a flotilla of Confederate rams rounded Craighead Point, aiming to disperse the Federal fleet.  And they came close to accomplishing that goal.  The USS Mound City and the USS Cincinnati, both ironclad river gunboats, were so seriously damaged they sank along the river banks.  Other Federal boats moved into the shallow waters, where the rams could not go.  So with a tactical victory, the Confederate rams fell back to the protection of Fort Pillow.  The siege continued until the early days of June when the Confederates withdrew to Memphis.

Today, changes to the river's course have drastically altered the terrain over which the siege of Fort Pillow and the naval battle of Plum Point Bend occurred.   The map below provides a rough outline of the river channel as it ran during the Civil War (very rough):



View Plum Point Bend in a larger map

There are three points, marked on the map, that provide visitors glimpses of a battlefield lost.

Just south of Osceola, Arkansas, a state road leads out to old Sans Souci landing (blue push pin) on the river's bank.  Several interpretive markers discuss the history of the river bend to include the naval battle.  The view up river from there takes in what remains of Plum Point.

Riverboat and barges heading past Plum Point

During the Civil War, the river turned to the northeast.  Today it bypasses the old bend, running more southeasterly.  So the bend in the river, where the mortar boats tied off and Confederate rams fought the Federal gunboats, is now isolated in the swampy bottom land on the Tennessee side.

Looking "across" Plum Point Bend

The straight line distance from Sans Souci to Fort Pillow is between three and four miles.  But, illustrating the remoteness of the site even today, the driving distance is over 100 miles.  Fort Pillow State Park includes a river overlook (red push pin), with a view back to Sans Souci.

View from Fort Pillow Overlook

The smokestack in the distant left is a steel mill at Osceola.  Sans Souci is just below that mill in this view.  As mentioned above, the river flows southeasterly - off to the left of this view.  But in 1862, the river turned northeast, across this view to the right.  It then turned sharply south around Craighead Point (out of view to the right) and then flowed west along the base of the Chickasaw Bluff.  The overlook is roughly a mile from the actual site of the Confederate batteries.  But the point is made in this view - the Confederate defenders had the advantage of elevation.

Fort Pillow (green push pin) today is configured to optimize interpretation for the April 1864 battle.  As such, the works orient to the land side.

Interior of the Fort Pillow reconstruction

But the park visitor center/museum exhibits some artifacts from the 1862 fighting.

Mortar fragments at Fort Pillow

The bluffs on which the original Confederate batteries stood has collapsed in several places since the war.  Dense forest prevents a clear view of the old river channel from what remains. However miles of the Confederate outer works remain today.

Section of Confederate outer works

River channel shifts.  Collapsing bluffs.  It's Old Man River, not development, which has altered this battlefield.