Lincoln's Trident: The West Gulf Blockading Squadron during the Civil War

LINCOLN’S TRIDENT

LINCOLN’S TRIDENT

THE WEST GULF BLOCKADING SQUADRON DURING THE CIVIL WAR

ROBERT M. BROWNING JR.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Tuscaloosa

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

uapress.ua.edu

Copyright © 2015 by The University of Alabama Press

All rights reserved.

Inquiries about reproducing material from this work should be addressed to the University of Alabama Press.

Typeface: Minion

Manufactured in the United States of America

Cover illustration: Battle of Mobile Bay, 5 August 1864 (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith, oil on canvas, 40 x 66 inches, 1930 gift of Henry Huddleston Rogers; courtesy of the US Naval Academy

Cover design: Michele Myatt Quinn

∞

The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Browning, Robert M. Jr., 1955–

Lincoln’s trident : the West Gulf Blockading Squadron during the Civil War / Robert M. Browning Jr.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8173-1846-8 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8778-5 (ebook)

1. United States. Navy. West Gulf Squadron. 2. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Blockades. 3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Naval operations. 4. Farragut, David Glasgow, 1801–1870—Military leadership. 5. Mississippi River Valley—History—Civil War, 1861–1865. 6. Gulf Coast (U.S.)—History, Naval—19th century. 7. Mexico, Gulf of—History, Naval—19th century. 8. United States. Navy—History—Civil War, 1861–1865. I. Title.

E600.B83 2014

973.7′58—dc23

2014019856

To my children

Sheri, Robert, and Holly

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. The Hydra of Secession

2. All Was Saved but Our Honor

3. Beauty and Booty

4. Come and Take the City

5. These People Can Do Nothing without Gunboats

6. The Importance of a Vigorous Blockade

7. Bearding the Lion in His Den

8. We Have No Vessel of Sufficient Speed

9. Every Little Bayou

10. Misfortunes Seldom Come Singly

11. Give Me Wooden Ships and Iron Hearts

12. The Black Devil and the Pup

13. Where the Devil Is the Wind to Come From

14. Heigh-Ho! The Sabine Pass?

15. The Blockade Must Be Kept Up

16. Notwithstanding All Our Watchfulness

17. Anything Is Preferable Than Lying on Our Oars

18. Go Ahead Sir

19. You Had Better Surrender

20. Blockade Running . . . Is at an End

Conclusion

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Maps

Illustrations

Preface

After the Civil War Admiral David Glasgow Farragut wrote, Historians are not always correct; I maintain the conviction that whatever errors may be made by the hands of historians and others, posterity will always give justice to whom justice is due.¹ Since Farragut’s death, historians and the admiral’s peers were extremely just. Many believe he is the greatest man to wear the uniform of the United States Navy. His contemporaries, and historians alike, have written more about the exploits of Farragut’s squadron than any other naval officer during the war. Even before the war ended, men began writing about his actions and achievements.

In the spring of 1862, the Navy Department established the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and it operated along an expanse of over one thousand miles of coastline, from Saint Andrews Bay, Florida, to the Rio Grande. Farragut, the squadron’s first commander, kept this position until the fall of 1864, after the Battle of Mobile Bay. While the blockade was one of the major functions of the squadron, it also importantly served to project force strategically. Not unlike the Greek god Poseidon who struck the ground with his trident to cause earthquakes, tidal waves, and storms at sea, the squadron served similarly as President Abraham Lincoln’s trident to accomplish his military goals. As a power projection asset, the squadron made thrusts up the Mississippi River and into the heart of the Confederacy. It fought battles, supported troop movements, controlled interior waterways, all the while maintaining its blockading responsibilities. Lincoln’s trident had a long reach and a huge influence on the war effort. The Union warships were an overpowering force that the Confederates could not restrain, much as Poseidon’s powers were to his rivals.

While the squadron’s actions were strategically critical to defeating the Confederacy, the disjointed Union efforts in the Western Theater often caused a wasteful use of this superior force. Shown repeatedly, the Union leadership in Washington had no real joint strategy that used the army and naval forces in a joint long-term strategic plan. Both military branches aided each other in common goals, but the absence of an encompassing wartime strategy prevented the Union forces from exploiting their successes. With no clear strategic vision from the Washington leadership, the war in the West was a series of disorganized efforts. Because of this, the history of the squadron and the struggles in the Western Theater saw victories and failures, unfulfilled expectations, and lost opportunities. Clearly, however, without the presence of the greatly superior Union naval forces, the military gains in the West would have likely been impossible. Certainly, the navy’s presence shortened the war, and the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, under Farragut’s leadership, was a major component in attaining victory.

A squadron history is a story of many separate parts, acting in different enterprises over a great expanse. It is a narrative relating the action of men, ships, battles, and leadership, all influenced by many variables. As a command, the squadron, however, interacted well to defeat the Confederates under the leadership of America’s greatest naval commander. Farragut was right, historians are not always correct, but the admiral has certainly received justice in their eyes.

Acknowledgments

An old English proverb states, Gratefulness is the poor man’s payment. For historians, this is an appropriate phrase because we always owe unpayable debts to those who help us. Assistance, encouragement, and support from colleagues, friends, and institutions all shape the final product. The assistance of the staff at the National Archives was key in the completion of this book. Susan Abbott, Mary Ladner, Becky Livingston, and particularly Rick Peuser and Mark Mollan were instrumental in this project. Thanks also go to the staff at the Library of Congress who made many resources available. The staff at the Naval History and Heritage Command, in particular Glen Helm and the library staff, and Chuck Haberlein, Ed Finney, Lisa Crunk, and Robert Hanshew of the photographic division, were superb. The staffs of many other institutions were critical as well. Thanks go to Bill Edwards-Bodmer and Bill Barker at the Mariner’s Museum; Heather Smedberg at the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego; Molly Kodner from the Missouri Historical Society Library; Dr. Jennifer Bryan, Dorothea Abbott, and David D’Onofrio at the Special Collections at the United States Naval Academy, and Tim Salls at the New England Historic Genealogical Society. I would like to thank Robert Clark at the FDR Presidential Library and the staff of the Morgan Library; Ed Frank from Special Collections at the Ned R. McWherter Library, University of Memphis; and David Kuzman and Albert King in Special Collections and University Archives at Rutgers University. John Stinson and Don Mennerich from the Manuscripts and Archives Division at the New York Public Library; Chris Baer at the Eleutherian Mills, Hagley Foundation; Lita Garcia at the Huntington Library; and Nicolette Schneider and Diane Cooten at the Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University, provided important documents and information. Silva Blake from the Historic New Orleans Collection; Melissa Smith from the Manuscripts Department, Special Collections at Tulane University; and Ted O’Reilly at the New York Historical Society aided this project greatly. Special thanks go to Nick Wyman in Special Collections, John C. Hodges Library, University of Tennessee; and Jim Cheevers at the US Naval Academy Museum, who both provided critical Farragut correspondence. Thanks go to the Chicago Historical Society; AnnaLee Pauls at Princeton University; and Erin O’Brien and Amelia Abreu at the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin, for their help. Connie Hammond and the Western Reserve Historical Society Library and Archives, and John Coski at the Museum of the Confederacy, were both extremely helpful. Beth Bigley and Barbara Firich and the Interlibrary Loan staff at the Prince William County Library helped me throughout the writing of this manuscript and I cannot thank them sufficiently for their assistance. Thanks also go to Skip Theberg and John Cloud at NOAA for their help with historic maps. Others who helped include John Koster, Ed Cotham, Stauffer Miller, and Jim Delgado. I appreciate the special assistance and patience of Joseph Powell, Dan Waterman, Dawn Hall, and Jon Berry at the University of Alabama Press. I would like to give special thanks to Bill Still, Bob Holcombe, Steve Wise, Bill Thiesen, Kevin Foster, Scott Price, and Chris Havern for reviewing the manuscript. Their help has definitely made the final product better. Last, and most important, is the help, patience, assistance, and support I received from my wife, Susan. Without her, I am not sure this book would have ever seen publication.

1

The Hydra of Secession

The Collision between the Federal and State Governments

Like a Mississippi River flood, the idea of disunion inundated the populace of the South. Sectionalism, slavery, economic rivalry, and cultural differences drove the talk of states’ sovereignty and secession. On 20 December 1860, South Carolina led the way by seceding from the Union. The seizure of public property by state governments only served to sharpen the division between those in the South seeking reconciliation and the prominent secessionists known as the Fire-Eaters who waged a vigorous campaign against remaining under the federal flag. In January 1861, more than two weeks before Louisiana’s ordinance of secession, and when it appeared that other states in the Deep South would secede, Governor Thomas O. Moore led his state to the inevitable split. He called for the state militia units to muster and seize Forts Jackson and St. Philip guarding the approaches to New Orleans on the Mississippi River. Also looming as necessary acquisitions were the federal arsenal in Baton Rouge, the arsenal and barracks in New Orleans, and Fort Livingston protecting Barataria Bay and Forts Macomb and Pike guarding entrances to Lake Pontchartrain.¹

Moore set his militia in motion to prevent a collision between the federal troops and the people of the State. On 10 January, Major Paul E. Théard, with seventeen officers, four musicians, and 151 men, boarded the steamer Yankee and dropped seventy miles down the Mississippi to Fort St. Philip. There they roused the fort’s keeper, Henry Dart, to surrender. With only a force of a dozen slaves Dart turned over the keys and replied to Théard that he had no objection in the world to his occupying the fort. Théard and his men then steamed across the river and called on the single ordnance sergeant there for the surrender of Fort Jackson. With only a protest, his keys passed to the militia representing the state of Louisiana.²

Other states captured the federal government’s assets as well. On 5 January, before the ordinance of secession passed in Alabama, the state’s militia seized Fort Morgan in Mobile Bay. It was not until the eighteenth that they took possession of Fort Gaines across the bay. Along the Gulf Coast the federal government’s maritime assets, however, were few. The states seized only six revenue cutters and eight US Lighthouse Service tenders, and a few lightships, none of which would serve effectively as warships.³

One Gulf Coast federal asset never fell into Confederate hands—Fort Pickens, Florida. This fort, constructed on the western end of Santa Rosa Island and unoccupied for years, was considered dilapidated. Pickens was one of three forts built to protect Pensacola Harbor. Another, Fort McRee, sat across the deep-water channel directly west of Fort Pickens. Northward was Fort Barrancas on the mainland. Some considered this fort to be the only structure in good condition in the area. The navy yard, just east of Fort Barrancas, was the most important naval installation on the Gulf Coast. Unfortunately for the United States Navy, the Confederates would capture this facility.⁴

The commandant of the navy yard was Captain James Armstrong. A Kentuckian, Armstrong was one of the most senior officers in the navy. His distinguished career included action in the Frolic against the British in the War of 1812. A captain by 1841, he was the commanding officer of the East India Squadron in 1855 and commanded the squadron when the US warships attacked the Chinese barrier forts near Canton in 1857. A resolute and active officer, he had served in the navy for half a century and held positions afloat for twenty-three of those years. In October 1860, the Navy Department put him in charge of the Pensacola Navy Yard, the reward for years of honorable service.⁵

On 3 January 1861, the Navy Department, aware that the yard was in danger, sent a message to Armstrong for him to be vigilant to protect the public property. Yet the department would delay in sending any reinforcements to this important facility. Armstrong did not receive this message until 9 January—a day before Florida seceded and well after events were out of control. The officers and men in the yard believed the federal government had deserted them. Indeed, Armstrong remained uninformed of the events outside the gate. Without this information he did not wish to abandon the post or destroy public property on rumor alone.⁶

With men performing military drills in the streets and the talk of secession on the lips of all, Armstrong initiated discussions concerning the defenses of the area’s federal facilities with Lieutenant Adam J. Slemmer, in command of Company G, First US Artillery, then at Fort Barrancas. With the news of Florida’s secession on 10 January, Armstrong began to assist Slemmer in defense of the harbor. They realized that with the few defenders available, they could not hold all the forts. On the tenth Armstrong had the boats of the screw gunboat Wyandotte and store ship Supply, along with those available in the yard, transport field pieces, men, ammunition, and equipment from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens, thought to be the more defensible point. The commanding officer of the Supply, Commander Henry Walke, received orders to move his vessel near the yard and to continue loading a cargo destined for Veracruz.⁷

Fort McRee still held an immense arsenal. Lieutenant Henry Erben Jr. volunteered to destroy the guns and powder to keep this material out of Southern hands. He took a boat crew and met the ordnance sergeant’s wife at the fort’s door. She refused to turn over the keys, so the tars broke down the door. The small party rolled twenty-two hundred pounds of powder out of the magazines, knocked out the barrelheads, and dumped the powder in the bay. Before leaving, they spiked the guns and destroyed other property the enemy might use.⁸

The navy yard was not readily defendable, and a lack of any significant force handicapped Armstrong. Having arrived only ten weeks earlier, he found himself in an impossible position. Armstrong also failed to realize that Commander Ebenezer Farrand and others were doing everything in their power to counteract Armstrong’s efforts to save the yard. Farrand, a New York native but a Southern sympathizer with nearly forty years of naval service, continued during these days to interfere and countermand Armstrong’s orders. Armstrong sent the marines to guard the gates, and Farrand not only had them unload their guns but also told them not to shoot them until someone came and got him. One of the army officers claimed that Armstrong was anxious to aid the army but was old and weak and greatly excited. Farrand and other officers contrived to give him false counsel, arguing that to destroy the yard and its property was an outrageous act and that to resist the state authorities would evolve into a bloody conflict.⁹

In this situation, Armstrong felt the defense of the yard was useless, but his instructions were to be vigilant to protect the public property. Armstrong could only muster thirty-eight marines and about seventy ordinary men who were there to take care of laid-up ships. Armstrong claimed thirty of them were very ordinary. At the yard, more than 150 mechanics and laborers had not received pay for some time. Armstrong believed they were with trifling exception, disaffected to the Government, and not to be depended on. The guns in the fort lay on rotten carriages and were unusable. The guns of the saluting battery were not even on gun trucks but on skids and had no ammunition. The other guns in the yard were all unmounted. Erben pleaded with Armstrong to destroy everything in the yard so it would not fall into enemy hands. Armstrong, however, could not overcome his instruction to protect the government’s property, and according to Erben looked dazed. Armstrong did fail to use the naval vessel at his disposal and even ordered Lieutenant Commander Otway H. Berryman of the Wyandotte to not fire a gun unless it may be actually necessary in defense of the vessel under your command. During a meeting at 8:00 P.M. on the eleventh, Farrand and Erben had a fight over the former’s continuing efforts to hand the yard over intact. Farrand became very violent and tried to bully or intimidate Erben. Armstrong interceded to keep the men apart, but by this point, knew he would fail to save the yard. The twilight tour of his long and distinguished career was not to be completed. He sat there with his face buried in a handkerchief and he was crying like a child.¹⁰

Armstrong’s greatest concern was starting civil war. Still three months before the attack on Fort Sumter, the seizure of federal assets by the state governments thus far occurred without bloodshed. Armstrong later said, I thank God that my duty did not justify me in inaugurating a civil war!¹¹

On 12 January, in great irony, Colonel William H. Chase, who supervised the building of Fort Pickens, led seven companies of Alabama and Florida troops to Pensacola. They captured the magazine, which sat outside the yard. Accompanying Chase was a delegation of commissioners appointed by the governor to ask for the yard’s surrender. With the troops thought to number over five hundred surrounding the yard, Armstrong struck the yard’s flag at 12:30 and surrendered the facility. Lost to the Union were valuable workshops, warehouses, barracks, a substantial pile of coal, ammunition, and unmounted guns, as well as an excellent dry dock. Even though it was a second-rate navy yard, it was the only naval facility on the Gulf Coast.¹²

Armstrong faced a court-martial for the loss of the yard. The department charged him with neglect of duty and disobedience of orders. For the charge of neglect of duty, the court concluded that he could have used the guns on the rotten carriages and the naval vessels to defend the yard. They considered him culpable for failing to take precautionary measures to defend the yard and believed he could have resisted. The court found that he did not take the ordinary and proper measures for the defense of the facilities, and that he had failed to destroy public property. The court based the disobedience of orders charge on the issue that he neglected to send forces to cooperate with Slemmer or have the Wyandotte help with the defense. The court found Armstrong guilty and suspended him from duty for five years with loss of pay for two and a half years.¹³

Holding Fort Pickens

The election of Abraham Lincoln only fused the Floridians into greater action against the federal government. They began forming additional military units, and the governor authorized the raising of regiments. Troops came by land and by water to reinforce the forces outside Fort Pickens’s walls. The stakes for holding the fort grew every day.¹⁴

The retention of Fort Pickens kept the Confederate forces from complete control of the harbor. Despite the loss of the navy yard, the possession of this single fort created a stalemate. On 24 January 1861 President James Buchanan sent the screw sloop Brooklyn with a company of artillery comprising eighty-six men. Both sides, trying to keep the situation from deteriorating, determined to call a truce while negotiations continued. On 29 January the Brooklyn dropped anchor in the harbor after the armistice. The troops on board, therefore, did not land. Other vessels also arrived during the truce to augment the fort’s garrison should it be necessary.¹⁵

On 6 February Captain Henry A. Adams, the commanding officer of the frigate Sabine, arrived at Pensacola, making him the senior officer. A War of 1812 veteran, he had served in the navy for nearly forty-seven years. His peers thought highly of him, calling him the soul of honor. His half brother was a prominent Louisiana planter. Adams’s instructions were the most stringent kind and ordered him to avoid anything that would bring on a collision. Eight days after Lincoln’s inauguration, the president issued an order to reinforce Fort Pickens. About three weeks later, on 1 April, the Navy Department sent Adams orders directing the landing of troops to reinforce Fort Pickens. Lieutenant John L. Worden memorized the instructions to pass them orally. Worden traveled through the seceded states and recited them to Adams on the twelfth. These orders changed the earlier instructions that directed him not to land troops unless state forces attacked the fort.¹⁶

On the night of the twelfth, Adams ordered the company of artillery from the Brooklyn, under the command of Captain Israel Vogdes, and the 115 marines of the vessels in the harbor to land. Officers and seamen went along to protect the boats. The Confederates, caught by surprise, did not contest the landing. This act nullified the truce and left the garrison nearly three hundred strong. This movement occurred on the same day the Union forces attempted unsuccessfully to reinforce Fort Sumter. With the shots fired in Charleston Harbor, the war was officially underway. Additional forces got underway to Pensacola—transports and the side-wheel frigate Powhatan, under the command of Commander David Dixon Porter. Secretary of state William Seward had persuaded the president to send this expedition without the knowledge of the secretaries of navy or war. Within a few days of the initial landings, the Atlantic arrived with 450 additional troops who landed immediately. The transport Illinois followed. The naval force protecting this federal asset included the Wyandotte, Brooklyn, the sloop St. Louis, and the frigate Sabine. By the twentieth, 690 men occupied the fort with more men awaiting transportation ashore. This effectively secured the fort from all but a large-scale assault.¹⁷

At least thirty-one sailors went ashore as part of the fort’s defenses. The sailors, however, became surly and began growling with dissatisfaction at being used as soldiers. On 1 February a group of them refused to march to supper, complaining about a lack of bread. An army contingent formed in arms before them and when they still did not obey, they were bucked and gagged. The remaining sailors also mutinied and asked for the same treatment, hoping to persuade the army officers to concede. They lashed these men to posts. After finding this would not sway the officers, they all gradually gave in and returned to their duty.¹⁸

Perhaps a more important point in the Gulf to preserve was Fort Jefferson at the entrance of the Gulf of Mexico. At the beginning of 1861, the fort had no garrison, and there were concerns that the Confederates would try to take this fortification as well. In January, Lieutenant Tunis A. M. Craven in the gunboat Mohawk steamed there to protect this important point. The warship Crusader, under the command of Lieutenant John N. Maffitt, later the famous Confederate blockade running captain, also arrived to insure the safety of the federal property. Saving this fort became crucial in the early months of the war. This was the only base in the Gulf that could serve the logistical needs of a blockade.¹⁹

The Early Blockade

A week after shots fell on Fort Sumter, Lincoln declared his intention to blockade the Southern states. Lincoln’s call for a blockade was an ambitious undertaking. The entire southern coast was 3,549 stature miles and included 189 entrances. The Gulf Coast from the southern end of Florida to Brownsville, Texas, was sixteen hundred miles. A low sandy coast with an occasional bluff dominated almost the entire length. In April 1861 the US Navy had only ninety vessels on its rolls—only forty-two in commission. The navy designed and built most of its ships for deep-water operations. Now they would find it difficult to carry out a close blockade of the shallow southern coast. The main strength of the US Navy was its five steam frigates. Although formidable warships, they could not perform effectively as blockaders because of their deep drafts. In addition, naval appropriations had languished for several years and the navy was not in a state of readiness to fight a war. At the outbreak of conflict the navy had only three vessels ready for service on the Atlantic coast. Many of the naval vessels were laid up in ordinary or were on foreign stations. It would be some time before the service could assign to stations any significant number of warships to make a blockade effective.²⁰

Winfield Scott, general in chief of the US Army, envisioned the navy and armies acting in unison. He proposed to defeat the South by a massive blockading effort and pressure from a huge army at many points. The press dubbed it the Anaconda Plan, because it reminded one of a large snake that kills its victim by constriction. The navy, however, was in no way ready to participate in this comprehensive plan. In 1861 the navy would be hard-pressed to blockade a single major port in the South.

The navy’s situation worsened as the other Southern states left the fold of the Union and events uncontrollably rushed headlong toward a broader war. Only one day after Lincoln’s proclamation of the blockade, the United States Navy suffered the shattering loss of the Norfolk Navy Yard. The capture of Norfolk included the loss of not only the navy’s largest yard and logistical base but also about $8 million in property. This included three thousand pieces of ordnance, of which three hundred were Dahlgren guns, the navy’s most modern. This weakened a navy that was already far from strong.²¹

The Gulf Coast would present some special problems to implementing and maintaining a blockade. It would also present challenges to the Southern states to leverage these difficulties to their benefit. Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Galveston, Texas, were the only major maritime commercial centers on the coast connected to the interior by rail. Between these widely spaced ports were many smaller passes, inlets, and sounds that offered refuge for seaborne communication. The west coast of Florida had several small inlets but no large cities, and only Cedar Key and Saint Marks had railroad connections. The Texas coast, in particular, had numerous entrances. Aransas Pass, Matagorda, San Luis Pass, Sabine, and Corpus Christi provided access to the interior. The lack of railroads in the Gulf Coast states, however, would present a logistical problem the South could never overcome.²²

New Orleans was the great entrepôt of the South. It was the South’s largest city, the country’s second leading port, and one of the most important industrial centers. The city’s exports illustrate its importance to the South. From 1860 to 1861 the port shipped over two million bales of cotton, or nearly 48 percent of all cotton shipped from the South. Situated between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, it lay about ninety-five miles above Head of Passes where the Mississippi split into five channels. The river looked like a long arm with five fingers. The five passes were Pass a Loutre, Northeast, Southeast, South Pass, and Southwest Pass.²³

The blockade of the Gulf Coast began during the chaos of the first month of the war. The current naval organization would not be sufficient to administer a blockade of the South. The Navy Department divided into three parts: the Home Squadron, responsible for all areas of the Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean; the West India Squadron, responsible for the Caribbean; and the newly formed Atlantic and Gulf squadrons, which had a dividing line at Cape Florida. The limits of the Gulf Squadron, however, also extended to Cuba.²⁴

Forging a Blockade

Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s secretary of the navy, worked in Washington to forge a navy from the limited resources at hand. His full beard gave him a patriarchal look and earned him the name King Neptune. A native of Glastonbury, Connecticut, Welles had an extensive background in politics and journalism. He served as editor of the Hartford Times and later as the head of the navy’s Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. Well connected politically, Welles marshaled support for Lincoln during his election, and Lincoln appointed him as his secretary of the navy. Some considered Welles peculiar, but wise, patient, intelligent, and strong willed. Charles A. Dana wrote of the secretary that his wig made him appear that he was an old fogy originated. But he also believed there was nothing decorative about him; there was no noise in the street when he went along; but he understood his duty, and did it efficiently, continually, and unvaryingly. Welles would select officers who would carry out instructions. If they did not, he would select others who would.²⁵

Welles’s alter ego, and assistant secretary of the navy, was Gustavus Vasa Fox. Born in Saugus, Massachusetts, in 1821, Fox had a naval background. He had received a midshipman’s appointment in 1838 and served in the navy until 1856, when he resigned his lieutenant’s commission to accept a position with a textile mill in Massachusetts. Fox married the daughter of Levi Woodbury, a former secretary of the navy, secretary of the treasury, and associate justice of the Supreme Court. Another of Woodbury’s daughters was married to Montgomery Blair, who served as Lincoln’s postmaster general, which made Blair and Fox brothers-in-law. During the Fort Sumter crisis, Blair arranged for Fox to lead the relief expedition. Lincoln later recognized Fox’s talents and appointed him chief clerk of the department. Fox later filled the newly created post of assistant secretary of the navy. In this role, Fox held a position similar to the modern chief of naval operations. Welles and Fox complemented each other. Each contributed assets to the partnership and each man’s strengths reinforced the other’s weaknesses.²⁶

The resignation of some of the navy’s senior officers left holes in the ranks. With less choice for command assignments, Welles, despite his reservations, felt compelled to appoint the senior officers to command positions. Captain Hiram Paulding, the detailing officer, persuaded Welles to appoint Captain William Mervine to command the Gulf Squadron. Mervine, born in Philadelphia in 1791, received his midshipman’s appointment in 1809. During the War of 1812, he served on Lake Ontario on several vessels. He made lieutenant just after the war ended, rose to commander in 1834, and made captain in 1841. During the Mexican War, he served in the Pacific Squadron and landed the marines who captured Monterey, California. Mervine, like most of his peers, had seen much sea duty. He had served afloat around the world in the Mediterranean, West India, and in the Home Squadron and Pacific Squadron, the latter he commanded from 1855 to 1857. His long career included duty on seventeen different warships. One of his peers considered him a very old man for his age, while another wrote they had given command to the thickest-headed fellow we have who will blunder day in and day out.²⁷

Welles began ordering ships to the Gulf, and, on 7 May, he instructed Mervine to establish an effective blockade of the ports from Key West to the Rio Grande. He reminded the new flag officer that to have a lawful and binding blockade required an adequate force stationed at the entrance of each port, and that all neutral vessels must receive warning of the blockade. He instructed the officers to write this notice in the ship’s muster roll, making a note of the latitude that they received the warning. For some months the blockaders continued to warn vessels off that had not received notice of the blockade. Vessels currently in port had fifteen days to leave with or without cargo. It would take some time before official orders to establish the blockade would reach the Gulf. On 14 May, Lieutenant Craven, now commanding the Crusader, issued orders for a blockade at Key West after reading about the president’s proclamation in a newspaper. A day earlier Pensacola received notification of the blockade.²⁸

Mervine was ready to get underway, but his flagship, the 3,425-ton screw frigate Colorado, was not. On 22 May Mervine hoisted his flag on the 3,220-ton side-wheel frigate Mississippi. At 5:15 P.M., as the flag arose to the foremast, a thirteen-gun salute broke the silence, and the guns in the Boston Navy Yard returned the honor. Bad fortune, however, followed the new flag officer. The following day while steaming down the bay, the ship developed engine trouble. An examination found the engine sabotaged and the damage concealed. Compelled to return, this delayed Mervine for four more days.²⁹

Mervine would have plenty of other matters to fret over. In addition to having only one vessel for every one hundred miles of coastline, logistical concerns became paramount. Welles initially purchased a ship to carry one thousand tons of coal to Key West and attached it to the squadron. He had no solutions for fresh water or food, suggesting Mervine should engage his earliest attention to this problem.³⁰

One of Mervine’s first duties was to issue a circular to his squadron. Pensive of the country’s state, he believed a small number of disaffected political aspirants caused it. He urged his men to show prompt and energetic actions, untiring vigilance and devotion to duty in order to crush the hydra of secession. On 26 May he had a vessel off Mobile, Alabama, and at New Orleans on the same day. On 7 June Mervine and the Mississippi arrived in Key West. Once there, one of his first orders put Apalachicola, Florida, under a blockade.³¹

Welles issued instructions to Mervine the next week stressing the importance of the blockade of the Mississippi River. The secretary asked Mervine to keep this a priority and not to let any vessel enter or exit the river. He suggested that the warships might maintain a good coast guard duty at the less important points and included Mobile and Galveston as key ports to watch. Union warships cruised along the coast for some months before actually placing some of the ports under blockade. Welles also suggested that Mervine take prizes and sink them as obstructions to harbors or on the bars. This, however, was not possible unless a prize court condemned the vessel as a legal prize.³²

The early focus by Mervine was the major ports of Pensacola, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston. At 2:00 P.M. on 26 May, the Brooklyn arrived at Pass a Loutre, and the following day Commander Charles H. Poor issued notice of a blockade. Neutral vessels had fifteen days to leave port. The Powhatan arrived on the thirty-first, but there were five passes to guard and only two warships. The presence of the two warships, however, began to slow the trade. Before the war, steamships were tied up to the dock two or more deep, but not so after May. The city still maintained passenger service up the river and small steamers and sailing vessels carried on a coastwise trade, but the foreign trade effectively ended.³³

The blockade of the Mississippi River was difficult at best. With only a couple of vessels, they could not watch every pass. Off the passes, there was often a dense fog so thick that lookouts could not see the length of the ship. Escapes were common in this weather. Conning the warships from aloft was sometimes the only way to steer them. Above the fog, lookouts could spot the smoke of steamers. Later Union warships captured the blockade running steamer Magnolia off New Orleans in this way. Making this duty more difficult was the fact that the deep-draft ships had to lie far from the inlets, able to see the lighthouse only on a clear day. Additionally, there were no provisions made for fuel. With no supply of coal nearby, the vessels had to rely on wind power for propulsion. The Powhatan, off Southwest Pass, had not received a supply of coal since she went into commission nearly two months earlier.³⁴

The intricacies of the blockade became clear to Commander Poor of the Brooklyn. He warned that if he captured too many vessels for violating the blockade, he would soon have too few men for his warship after sending the prizes away with portions of his crew. Additionally, several immigrant packets arrived short of provisions and water. He found himself in the delicate position of keeping his own ship provided with these items. If he shared his provisions, it would reduce his time on the blockade. If he sent them to New Orleans, there would be a shortage of food due to the blockade. Poor also found that with a number of vessels still in Pensacola, the Brooklyn remained alone for days to watch all five passes.³⁵

Other complications arose due to natural causes. Some large vessels cleared New Orleans but could not leave the river due to low water on the bar. Some of these were United States flagged ships with legitimate cargoes. Forced to wait, many New York insurance companies and several foreign consuls made the ship owners’ plight known to the Navy Department. Welles instructed Poor to be lenient. To assist the vessels, Poor assured them that he would be lenient if he were satisfied that the masters had made every exertion to get their vessels to sea. By the end of May one British vessel had already waited for two months for higher water. Poor allowed tugs to tow the vessels over the bar. Later, as the vessels cleared, Poor and Porter of the Powhatan began to notice that a number of American-owned ships had shifted their registry to English ownership or sold their ships to English parties, allowing them to pass as neutrals.³⁶

The Confederates Take the Offensive

Nearly as soon as the warships began taking their stations off the passes, word reached the Union that the Confederates were preparing to strike. Mervine heard that preparations were underway to reinforce the bows of tugs with railroad iron for ramming. He asked Welles for more ships, as well as more light-draft steam vessels to patrol the smaller inlets and shoal water prevalent along the entire southern coast. He noted that his deep-draft and larger ships could not stop the coasting trade because his ships were too large to chase them into shallow water.³⁷

Validating the difficulty of maintaining the blockade, Mervine reported to Welles of the escape of the Confederate cruiser Sumter. Purchased in 1861 by the Confederate government as the Habana, workers converted her into a cruiser in New Orleans. Renamed the Sumter, the 187-foot, 437-ton screw steamer with only a top speed of nine knots, was the only ocean-going steamer found suitable in New Orleans for this service. Her commanding officer was Commander Raphael Semmes, who armed her with four 32-pounders and one 8-inch gun in pivot. After many aggravating delays, Semmes had her ready to sail. Dropping down to the Head of Passes, he could see the Powhatan blockading Southwest Pass. Communicating by telegraph, he learned that the Brooklyn was at Pass a Loutre. On Sunday morning, 30 June, Semmes received word that the Brooklyn had steamed from her station to chase a suspicious vessel. Up came the Sumter’s anchor, and as one contemporary put it, the weasel was awake.³⁸

Just as the Sumter approached the mouth of the river, lookouts spotted the Brooklyn heading back to her station. Commander Poor ordered his warship toward the suspicious vessel. Both the Brooklyn and Sumter were equidistant from the bar, but Semmes had the four-knot current of the Mississippi River in his favor. As he passed out, Semmes put his helm closer to the wind, and the Brooklyn had to clew up and furl her sails. A terrible squall then hid the Sumter from view. Poor pursued for three-and-a-half hours before giving up the chase, fearing to leave his station completely open. Once Semmes realized the Brooklyn was no longer in pursuit, he sent his men in the rigging to give three hearty cheers for the flag of the Confederate States.³⁹

Within three days, Semmes took his first prize off Cuba, the Golden Rocket of Bangor, Maine. A seven-month cruise would net the Sumter seventeen more vessels. Mervine realized the critical lapse and began immediately sending several of his warships in search of the cruiser, further weakening the blockade.⁴⁰

The escape of the Sumter alarmed the shipping industry and the Navy Department. Welles again suggested sinking hulks in the inlets using prizes or purchased vessels. He instructed Mervine that no more privateers or commerce raiders must be permitted to make their way in the Gulf, and that the mouths of the Mississippi River must be watched with sleepless vigilance. Welles suggested Mervine send any of his inefficient vessels north for repair and that the department was sending vessels as quickly as it could procure and arm them. The escape of the Sumter, however, only exhibited the real difficulties of the blockade.⁴¹

Welles was becoming increasingly critical of Mervine. The escape of the Sumter was bad, but when the Confederates took possession of Ship Island off the coast of Mississippi under the nose of the flag officer, it did not go without comment from Welles. In early July the rebel steamers Oregon and Swain disembarked troops and artillery on Ship Island. On the eighth Commander Melancton Smith, passing by the island on the 1,155-ton former merchant screw steamer Massachusetts, observed the lighthouse unlit. The following morning he spotted tents and men constructing four batteries. He opened fire after the Confederates fired from two of the batteries, but all the shots fell short. Since the machinery of the Massachusetts was above the waterline, he decided to withdraw.⁴²

Four days later, while at anchor near Ship Island, the Confederate side-wheel steamer Oregon and the screw steamer Arrow converged on the Massachusetts. Smith fired the first shot, and both Confederate steamers then opened on the Union blockader. The Confederates tried to lure the Union ship toward the shore batteries on Ship Island, but the ploy did not work and they withdrew.⁴³

Days later, Mervine contemplated an expedition to Ship Island. The escape of the Sumter, however, frustrated his plans when the Niagara and Crusader went in search of the cruiser. On the thirteenth of August, the Powhatan arrived off the Mississippi after recapturing the Sumter’s prize schooner Abby Bradford. The Powhatan’s commanding officer, David Porter, zealous, but always looking for glory, asked the senior officer of the Mississippi, Captain William W. McKean, if he could search for the Sumter, claiming that he had gained valuable information from the prize crew. McKean would not authorize the pursuit. Porter, therefore, steamed to Pensacola to ask Mervine. Mervine, though, still hoped to attack Ship Island, and now with the Powhatan this was more plausible. Mervine reportedly said, Why, man alive . . . I was just going to send for you to come up and help me capture Ship Island. Porter told Mervine that the Sumter would do more harm than the enemy on Ship Island would. Porter successfully argued his case and Mervine acquiesced. Porter was off before he [Mervine] had a chance to change his mind. Porter complained of being delayed an extra three hours listening to the old gentleman’s twaddle and later blamed these delays for not capturing the Sumter.⁴⁴

A Strategic Guide

Days before the Sumter escaped; Welles attempted to devise an overall strategy and to offer solutions to a range of potential problems for pursuing the war. He created a Commission of Conference, also referred to as the Blockade Strategy Board. Before this board met, the Navy Department had no strategic plan and addressed every problem as it arose. The Blockade Strategy Board was the only board that met during the war that approached, in character, that of a general staff. The idea for the creation of this board originated with Professor Alexander Dallas Bache, the superintendent of the United States Coast Survey. Organized on 27 June 1861, the board consisted of Bache; chief engineer of the Army Department of Washington, John G. Barnard; and two naval officers, Captain Charles H. Davis, who acted as recorder and secretary; and Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont, who served as chair.⁴⁵

From July to September, the Blockade Strategy Board met frequently at the Smithsonian Institution. Poring over charts and studying hydrographic, topographic, and geographic information, its members developed strategies and devised methods to render the blockade more effective. The board accumulated the information necessary to establish logistical bases on the Atlantic coast. In six major reports and four supplementary ones, the board recommended points the navy could seize as coaling stations and naval bases. The board also prepared a general guide for all blockading operations the Navy Department conducted throughout the war.⁴⁶

After thorough discussion and debate among the board members, they hammered out strategy and organizational changes. Throughout the deliberations, logistical matters continued to receive the board’s attention. The president, the cabinet, and General Winfield Scott discussed and modified the recommendations the board produced. Although not intended for the public, the board’s confidential proceedings began to appear in Northern newspapers in July, undermining the effectiveness of its strategic deliberations.⁴⁷

On 9 August, the board began studying the Gulf Coast. They divided the coast into six regions. Florida comprised three regions. The Florida panhandle, Mobile Bay, and the coast to Mississippi Sound was the fourth; the Mississippi coast, west of Mississippi Sound and the coast of Louisiana to Vermilion Bay, comprised the fifth zone; and the final region was the west coast of Louisiana and the whole state of Texas. The approaches to New Orleans from both above and below garnered extra attention of the board.⁴⁸

The board members believed that New Orleans loomed as the most important port to isolate. To do this, they recommended the acquisition of Ship Island as a logistical base. This would allow the navy to control Mississippi Sound and keep trade from passing along the coast east and west. In the board’s opinion, the use of this island would help them command the entire coast of Alabama and Mississippi. West of Pensacola to Mississippi Sound, only Mobile Bay’s two entrances needed watching.⁴⁹

In a subsequent meeting on 3 September, the board discussed in detail the isolated coast of Florida and the western Gulf. The coast from Vermilion Bay to the Rio Grande was 425 nautical miles in length. On the Texas coast, they considered that Galveston should be the principle focus of the blockade given its roomy harbor. Yet its shallow twelve-foot bar and a shifting channel limited its viability as a port. Most of Galveston’s prewar trade was with New Orleans via shallow-draft vessels. Little foreign trade visited this port. The board felt the other six entrances to Texas needed little attention. Their shallow bars with not one more than nine feet, would limit trade.⁵⁰

The Blockade of New Orleans

The Sumter’s escape had the Union leadership paying extra attention to New Orleans. The possibility of a fleet using New Orleans as a privateering base also existed. The New Orleans Daily Crescent predicted that 750 vessels would fit out as privateers to attack Union shipping. The New York Herald even speculated that Northern ship owners might outfit their vessels if there was a chance they could make a profit. The paper reported that men had offered to furnish vessels, armaments, and crews to engage in the destruction of their neighbors’ ships.⁵¹

Those applying for letters of marque did not come close to the predicted number. Both steamers and sailing vessels began fitting out to go into this trade. The Calhoun, a 508-ton towboat, was the first vessel so outfitted. On 16 May, armed with five small guns, she steamed down the Mississippi to prey on New Orleans’ lucrative commerce and captured the bark Ocean Eagle out of Rockland, Maine. Two days later she captured five more prizes, and on the twenty-fourth added three additional victims. The Music and V. H. Ivy also operated out of New Orleans. The Music, a 213-ton ex-coastal packet steamer, carried two 6-pound cannon and a crew of fifty. The Ivy, a 454-ton towboat, carried a single 15-pound gun and a crew of fifty. These two privateers captured five vessels, the most significant being the Enoch Train from Singapore, with 4,425 sacks of salt on board.⁵²

Dealing with the privateers was difficult with five inlets from which to sortie. Porter made plans to capture the Ivy, noting that each day she came down to the telegraph station near the Head of Passes. He ordered Lieutenant Watson Smith and thirty-five men to go up in small boats to capture the privateer. Leaving at night, they reached the telegraph station and seized the operator in bed, cut the wires, and sent the boats back. Smith and sixteen men hid in the reeds close to the wharf. The Ivy, however, never came down. A mail steamer stopped at the wharf in Pilottown instead. Men of the mail steamer spotted Smith and she fled, raising the alarm.⁵³

With no other force available, the Powhatan and the Brooklyn continued their efforts to stop the privateers and the blockade runners. Porter tried to keep his vessel near the channel at Southwest Pass so that they would run afoul of his ship while passing out. He claimed he kept Powhatan’s nose in the mud, and a short scope of chain. Yet the Powhatan was a slow old thing with something always wrong with her machinery and few tools on board to make the simplest repairs. The Brooklyn also continually touched bottom trying to keep a close blockade. She had to anchor head to stream. With the current streaming past, she could not change position if an enemy attacked. In this position, she also could not bring more than a bow gun to bear on any enemy warship if approached. The officers fretted that a number of small shallow-draft steamers might attack at once, particularly on a foggy night. It was obvious that small and shallow-draft steamers were necessary. Porter wrote to Fox, Hurry up your small steamers that will run on the grass in the dew.⁵⁴

Welles reminded Mervine that the Mississippi should be guarded with great vigilance. The blockaders off New Orleans through 1862, however, captured mostly small sailing vessels. The slow Union warships proved no match for many of the steamers breaking the blockade. It was not until 19 February that they captured the first steamer when the Brooklyn caught the Magnolia coming out of Pass a Loutre. She did so because the 1,150-ton screw steamer and former merchant vessel South Carolina appeared in time to cut off her escape.⁵⁵

After several months, neither Mervine nor the Navy Department realized the magnitude of the Gulf Coast blockade. Mervine had too few vessels, and some of those were looking for the Sumter. The flag officer was also working with vessels that needed repairs and had no repair facilities available. Additionally, a regular supply system was nonexistent. Drinking water for the ships loomed as one of the earliest concerns. All the places where the vessels could obtain water were now under Confederate control. Rather than allow the vessels to leave their stations to procure water, Mervine had to use the side-wheel sloop Water Witch and the schooner Wanderer as tenders to take water to the blockading vessels along the coast.⁵⁶

As of 22 July, Mervine had only fifteen warships, including his flagship, to cover the entire Gulf Coast. Four ships watched New Orleans, Mobile had two vessels off the bay, and Galveston had a single gunboat. Mervine, whose command included all the west coast of Florida, had six of his vessels along this shoreline. With no prospect of getting more blockaders, soon Mervine began to sink prizes of little or no value in the smaller inlets hoping this would close them to traffic.⁵⁷

Relief of Mervine

The escape of the Sumter and Mervine’s allowing the capture of Ship Island convinced Welles that he needed a different man to command the squadron. He admonished him, saying that it was a matter of surprise and regret that he allowed Ship Island to be fortified. He accused him of inactivity and indifference and chided him for not making up in activity what he lacked in numbers. He also reminded the flag officer that he had large ships, heavy batteries, and young and willing officers to retake the island. He concluded that there was anxiety in the department and uneasiness in the public mind of his apparent inactivity.⁵⁸

On 6 September Welles relieved Mervine of command. Mervine, in part, was a victim of the early unpreparedness in the Navy Department for the war effort. Mervine had no chance of stopping blockade running with the small number of vessels at his disposal. He was greatly in need of shallow-draft vessels and had reported this need. Some officers in the navy believed that Mervine had professional enemies. This was at least partially true. Porter, who had access to Fox, rarely wrote anything kind about his superiors to Fox. In Mervine’s case he wrote Fox: I might as well be in Siberia. I never hear anything from the flag. I am told there is one out here but I believe he is a myth. Welles believed him an utter failure . . . not wanting in patriotism but in executive and administrative ability. Mervine was indignant about his relief, telling Welles that he had done his best with what the department had assigned him. He asked for a court of inquiry or court-martial to relieve Welles of an implied censure. Welles did not allow a court of inquiry. Welles appealed to Mervine to promote the public interest because he did not have the time or the officers to spare for an inquiry. Ironically, Mervine served out the remainder of his naval career on special duty for courts-martial and other boards.⁵⁹

Captain Andrew Hull Foote, the ex-commandant of the New York Navy Yard and the new flag officer in charge of naval operations on the Upper Mississippi, shaped Welles’s decision for Mervine’s replacement. Welles considered Captains McKean and Charles H. Bell. Welles consulted Foote, and after much hesitation Foote convinced him to choose McKean.⁶⁰

On the evening of 21 September, after receiving his orders to transfer command, Mervine shifted his flag to the 1,517-ton side-wheel steamer Rhode Island and steamed to Southwest Pass. Arriving the next morning, Mervine transferred the squadron papers to McKean and discussed all the unfinished business. At 3:00 P.M. on the twenty-second, Mervine struck his flag, and at the same time McKean hoisted the broad pennant on the mizzenmast of the steam frigate Niagara. When the Rhode Island got underway to sail north, Mervine called all hands to cheer ship and fired a fifteen-gun salute.⁶¹

The new flag officer had served the navy for nearly forty years. He became a midshipman during the War of 1812 and advanced to the rank of captain almost six years earlier to the day of this appointment to command the Gulf Blockading Squadron. Born in Pennsylvania, McKean was the grandson of Thomas McKean, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His cousin was Franklin Buchanan, now a high-ranking Confederate officer. Welles thought highly of McKean due to the speed with which he returned the screw frigate Niagara from Japan after hearing of the secession crisis. His peers believed him a gentleman, sailor + scholar. Yet his old age and bodily infirmities would make it difficult for him to handle the arduous duties of the squadron. Welles’s earliest instructions to McKean emphasized his special attention to blockade the Mississippi and asked him to report frequently and fully to the Department. McKean would, however, inherit most of Mervine’s problems.⁶²

This appointment showed that Welles had put aside the seniority system. The assignments of less senior officers to other squadrons revealed that Welles considered their merit, and the idea that he believed these men would be more active than their seniors. McKean was thirty-eighth from the top of the captain’s list.⁶³

At the end of Mervine’s tenure, several actions negated Welles’s charge that Mervine was inactive. When the Confederates captured the Pensacola Navy Yard, they also acquired a large floating dry dock. With little prospect of ever using this facility for repairing vessels, the Confederates decided to use it to block the channel. They pulled it out of the navy yard basin, but it ran aground on a shoal before reaching a point between Fort Pickens and Fort Barrancas. Realizing the enemy could still raise the dock and place it into a position to block the channel, a Union expedition went to destroy it. On the night of 2 September, Acting Lieutenant Samuel J. Shipley and eleven men reached the dry dock and with combustibles and shells set it on fire. The next morning it was a shapeless mess of ruin, floating upon the water. David Porter believed the destruction was unnecessary, writing that it could have been saved and raised once they got possession of the harbor, and that it was done in a spirit of reckless destruction manifested everywhere throughout the rebellion.⁶⁴

Captain Theodorus Bailey had also shown some of the energy that Welles sought. In August, he had asked to lead an expedition to cut out a schooner lying near the Pensacola Navy Yard. On the night of 3 August, Bailey, the commanding officer of the frigate Colorado, led the expedition in person. The first and second cutters and the gig of the Colorado and the first and second cutters of the Niagara with crews and eight marines started getting ready after dark. As the boats reached the wharf near the schooner, a sentry spotted them and raised the alarm. At 11:35 rockets warned of the Union expedition, and at the sound of the long roll, the guardhouse emptied. Bailey decided that since the element of surprise was gone it would be best to withdraw. At 2:30 A.M. on the fourth, the boats returned to the ship.⁶⁵

A more daring boat expedition occurred less than two weeks after burning the dry dock. On the night of 13 September, a boat expedition consisting of ninety-eight officers and men, including twenty marines in four boats, pulled into Pensacola Harbor and destroyed the schooner Judah, under conversion into a privateer. Bailey, a bold and aggressive officer, planned the whole expedition but did not tell the flag officer until one hour before it was to leave. Bailey did this so that Mervine could hardly say no, and he did assent. Each man carried a Sharps rifle, a sword bayonet, a revolver, and a cutlass. The two launches and the first and second cutter, all under the command of Lieutenant John H. Russell, left the sides of the Colorado at 11:00 P.M. in the pitch dark night.⁶⁶

The expedition’s boats pulled toward the inner harbor with muffled oars. The men had put on white caps as a distinguishing feature so they would not accidentally attack each other in the chaos that might occur when they boarded the schooner. As the boats approached, the schooner tied to a wharf, Russell halted the boats short of the target. He gave some final instructions and finished by saying, The ball will open in a moment, and d—d if you don’t see some Pyrotechnics.⁶⁷

The boats rowed past the