Naval Chronology of the Civil War

Guidebook to
“The Navy in the Civil War”
Map

The Navies in the Civil War

The role played by the Federal and Confederate navies in the Civil War is little-known beyond such salient episodes as the Battle of Hampton Roads (Monitor and Virginia), the Battle of Mobile Bay (occasion of Farragut’s order to “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!”), and, perhaps, the blockade or the passing of the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi. Yet the sailors and marines of both navies played a far more critical role in the war—one that was recognized at the time, but forgotten over the ensuing years. The reasons for this omission are varied, and explained in detail in the article “How the U.S. Navy Won the Civil War” at

The map on which are plotted the 540+ naval episodes described in the following pages shows the majority of episodes involving the navies during the war. Several important points should be remembered. First, note that the Union Navy was heavily engaged in maintaining Federal control of “conquered” areas long after the Yankee armies had moved on; “conquered” did not mean “subdued” in the Confederacy. Without these Navy patrols, there simply would have been no way for the North to actually occupy and control the entire South. Secondly, notice that the incredible reach of the Navy—an ability based on their adoption of shallow-draft gunboats that drew only three feet of water and the ubiquity of landing parties of sailors and marines that, at times, moved up to twenty miles inland from the coasts and rivers. Last, understand that the Civil War was definitely not a “one-navy war.” While very much outnumbered, the Confederate Navy managed some singular successes and was never discounted by its Northern opponents. Southern ironclads were as technologically advanced as Union warships and the Rebels excelled at underwater warfare in the form of mines, obstructions, and submarines. The raiders that Richmond loosed upon the high seas drew scores of Union ships away from the blockade and the front in often vain pursuits literally around the planet.

Chuck Veit
President, Navy & Marine LHA

Guidebook to “The Navy in the Civil War” Map

NOTE: “Map approximate” means the location of an event plotted on the map is as nearly accurate as possible. Also, in the interest of saving space on the map, initial zeros in dates, (e.g., “07”), appear as “7” and year dates, (e.g., “62”), all have the initial “6” removed, so that, for example, “02.12.64” will be “2.12.4.”

October 1859
10.18.59 / EXPED / 1st Lt. Israel Greene and 86 United States Marines under the command of U.S. Army Col. Robert E. Lee attack John Brown’s men at Harper’s Ferry, capturing him and rescuing his hostages.
January 1861
1.12.1 / OTHER / A force of Florida and Alabama militia under the command of William Henry Chase, the man who had overseen the construction of the forts around Pensacola before he had retired, headed for the Naval Yard. At a pre-arranged time, secessionist naval officers forced the Marine guards at the gate to allow the rebel force to enter the facility. Chase and his officers met with Captain James Armstrong, commander of the base, who surrendered the facilities. Marine Captain Josiah Watson was summoned to Armstrong’s office and was ordered to have his men surrender their weapons. The Marines were not in favor of surrendering their weapons and accouterments and did so only after much persuasion and direct orders from Armstrong. Eventually they stacked arms. The militia forces gathered on the parade deck after securing the Marines in a warehouse. They had been advised to lock them up prior to lowering the U. S. flag. Chief William Conway was ordered to lower the flag. However, when he was chastised by one of the sailors for giving consideration to obeying that order he refused to do so. The militia raised a flag that was described as “a yellow rag with one star”, which was replaced a few days later with a flag fashioned from a U.S. flag. The blue field with stars was removed and replaced with a blue field with one large white star.
For his action, Chief Conway was later honored for his refusal to lower the national colors. Conversely, two months later, Commodore Armstrong was court-martialed for surrendering the Navy Yard. He was convicted of neglect of duty, disobedience of orders, and conduct unbecoming an officer. He was suspended from duty for five years with loss of pay for half of that period.
The next day, the Marines and sailors were permitted to leave on the U.S.S Supply which had been transferring supplies from the Yard to FortPickens before the takeover. Captain Watson and his wife departed for Mobile to take the land route to WashingtonDC, while his men went aboard the USS Supply bound for Washington. Army Lt. Slemmer’s family was permitted to gather their belongings and board the ship also. That same day, a deputation requested Lt. Slemmer to surrender FortPickens, which he adamantly refused to do. Lt. Slemmer was in charge of the Army troops that were maintaining forts McRee, Barrancas, the advanced redoubt around the naval yard, and FortPickens opposite the yard on Santa Rosa Island. He had pulled his troops to Pickens on the 10th, when militia troops threatened McRee. With the USS Wyandotte, the USS Brooklyn, and the USS Macedonian standing by, there was enough force to prevent an armed attempt to take the fort.
President Buchanan and Florida Senator Stephen Mallory reached an agreement on January 21, 1861, to prevent bloodshed. As long as the Federal government did not land troops on Santa Rosa Island to reinforce FortPickens, no attempt would be made by the militia to take the fort by force. The situation stayed amiable enough for the occupants of the fort to get supplies from the naval yard stores, and even go into town for supplies, mail and to use the telegraph. The same agreement covered the re-supply of FortSumter in CharlestonHarbor.
April 1861
4.12.1 / OTHER / After a flurry of contradictory orders, the Marines of the USS Brooklyn, USS Sabine, USS Wyandotte, and the USS St. Louis, numbering about one hundred-twenty were ordered to go ashore to bolster the defenders of FortPickens. In his exuberance to be the first ashore, Marine drummer George Gardner stepped overboard when he thought they were in shallow water. Surprised to be in over his head, he held his drum tight, used it as a float and as he kicked his way to shore.
4.17.1 / SUPPORT / USS Powhatan (Lt D. D. Porter) covers the landing of a thousand soldiers to garrison Ft Pickens in Pensacola harbor, and the Marines are sent back to their ships—until 23 April, when the fort’s commander, anticipating an attack, hastily summoned them ashore. The Marines stayed for a month helping to improve the defenses of the garrison. Until May 27th, they pitched in, each man having to fill and place forty sandbags a day.A reporter from the New York Times present for the early days there reported:
“The Marine Guard of the Wyandotte gunboat has been sent ashore on RosasIsland to do picket guard for the tired-out garrison there. Let me here name one bright spot in the Navy. It is the Marine Corps. Extra loyalty in trying times seems to be a characteristic--I had nearly said peculiarity--of Marines everywhere… America should call them ‘National’ because when every other branch of the country’s service has black spots in it, the Marines loom out in moral grandeur--true, irreproachable and brave. I am delighted to see the papers, and to learn from private letters that the corps at home is just as its representatives are here. Oh, that we had ten thousand Marines!”
4.20.1 / OTHER / Federal forces abandon Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, VA, burning the facility to deny its use to the Confederates. USS Pennsylvania, Germantown, Raritan. Columbia, and Dolphin are burned to the waterline and USS Delaware, Columbus, Plymouth, and Merrimack burned and sunk. USS Cumberland, Pawnee, and tug Yankee escape. USS Constitution (Lt George Rodgers) is towed from the NavalAcademy at Annapolis, MD into Chesapeake Bay to prevent her capture by the rebels. Four days later, carrying midshipmen from the Academy, she heads for Newport, RI, arriving on 9 May. This will be the home of the Academy throughout the war. Despite the destruction, the Yard provided the Confederates with a drydock and a large number of guns—which soon appeared in the batteries and fortifications along the coast and rivers. They were also able to salvage the hull and engines of the Merrimack—which soon became the ironclad Virginia.
4.21.1 / OTHER / Steamers Baltimore, MountVernon, Philadelphia. and Powhatan are seized off Washington, D.C. and armed for the defence of the capital. Confederate Navy officers erect batteries across the river at Aquia Creek--terminal point of railroad connection with Richmond.
May 1861
5.10.1 / OTHER / USS Niagara (Capt. William W. McKean) blockades Charleston, SC.
5.18.1 / OTHER / Confederate President Jefferson Davis commissions schooner Savannah (Capt. Thomas H. Baker) as the first privateer ("a private armed vessel in the service of the Confederate States on the high seas against the United States of America, their ships, vessels, goods, and effects, and those of their citizens during the pendency of the war now existing”)
5.19.1 / BOMBARD / Rebel batteries at Sewall’s Point, VA are engaged by USS Monticello (Capt. Henry Eagle) and USS Thomas Freeborn (Cdr Ward).
5.24.1 / EXPED / Cdr Rowan (USS Pawnee) leads an amphibious expedition from the Washington Navy Yard and occupies Alexandria, VA under cover of USS Thomas Freeborn, Anacostia, and Resolute. Navy Lt R. B. Lowry, in charge of the landing party, raised the U.S. flag over the Customs House. This is the first landing of Federal troops in Virginia.
5.26.1 / OTHER / USS Brooklyn (Cdr Charles H. Poor) blockades New Orleans and mouth of Mississippi River.
5.26.1a / OTHER / USS Powhatan (Lt D. D. Porter) blockades Mobile, AL.
5.27.1 / OTHER / USS Union (Cdr John R. Goldsborough) blockades Savannah, GA.
5.29.1
(29-1) / BOMBARD / The Confederate batteries at Aquia Creek engage the ships of the new Potomac Flotilla: USS Thomas Freeborn (Cdr Ward), USS Anacostia (Lt Napoleon Collins), and USS Resolute (Act’g Master William Budd); They are joined on the evening of May 31 by USS Pawnee (Cdr Rowan).
June 1861
6.8.1 / OTHER / USS Mississippi (Flag Officer Mervine) blockades Key West, FL
6.27.1 / EXPED / Lt J.C. Chaplin of USS Pawnee lands a party at Mathias Point, VA to interdict Confederate forces which had been firing at Union vessels in the Potomac. After erecting earthwork fortifications, he is ordered to return to his ship in face of overwhelming enemy forces. USS Freeborn provides support.
MoH: J. Williams
July 1861
7.7.1 / OTHER / USS Resolute (Act’g Master William Budd) picks up two floating torpedoes (mines) in the Potomac River. This is the earliest known use of torpedoes by the Confederates—which will account for 53 Union vessels by the end of the war. (Map approximate)
7.21.1 / SHIP2SHIP / First ship-to-ship combat of the war takes place in Oregon Inlet, NC as USS Albatross (Cdr Prentiss) engages CSS Beaufort (Lt R. C. Duvall). Albatross’s heavier guns force Beaufort to withdraw.
7.21.1a / OTHER / Major John Reynolds, USMC leads the Marine battalion from the Washington Navy Yard at the Battle of Bull Run. His force includes 12 officers and 353 enlisted men, most of which were in uniform less than three weeks. They fought against Stonewall Jackson’s troops on Henry House Hill. There, along with the Red-Shirted Fire Zouves from New York, and another militia unit, they assaulted and fell back from the hill twice before having to retreat when the other units ran. Jackson’s physician upon treating the wounded noted that the Union troops drove the Virginians back into the woods, yet all dead and wounded Union troops lay outside the wood line, however he found Marine dead and wounded inside the wood line, proving they advanced further against Jackson than anyone. Casualties were nine dead Marines, 19 wounded and 6 missing. The Marines fought a rear guard action at the Sudley-New Market road and Warrenton Turnpike intersection for nearly an hour, allowing retreating soldiers to retreat to WashingtonCity. The Confederates also had a naval battery at Manassas.
7.24.1 / OTHER / The Navy supplies 400 sailors and thirty Marines, with naval cannon and howitzers, to garrison Ft Ellsworth, west of Alexandria, one of the ring of forts guarding WashingtonCity. The seamen remain on station until November, when the need for sailors on the Western Waters becomes acute, and they are replaced by Army troops and transferred to Cairo.
August 1861
8.3.1 / OTHER / John LaMountain makes the first ascent in a balloon from Union ship Fanny at Hampton Roads to observe Confederate batteries on Sewell’s Point, VA.
8.18.1 / SINKING / Confederate privateer JeffersonDavis (Capt. Coxetter) founders on the bar trying to enter St. Augustine, FL, ending a most successful cruise.
8.27.1 / JOINT / Hatteras Inlet was secured as Forts Hatteras and Clark surrendered to Flag Officer Silas Stringham’s warships and Gen’l Ben Butler’s troops. This combined amphibious operation—the first of the war, and including sailors and Marines as well as 900 Army troops—was conducted at the behest of the Navy to close Pamlico Sound to blockade runners and commerce raiders, and involved USS Minnesota, Monticello, Pawnee, Susquehanna, Cumberland, Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, and the tug Fanny.The Marines were the first to enter FortClarkand raise the colors. Thus the first Union victory of the war was a naval one—much needed after the battlefield reverses of the previous four months. MoH: B. Swearer
8.28.1 / EXPED / Cdr Dahlgren, Commandant of Washington Navy Yard, sends 400 seamen to Alexandria, VA to help defend Ft Ellsworth.
September 1861
9.6.1 / JOINT / Gunboats USS Tyler (Cdr J. Rodgers) and USS Lexington. (Cdr Stembel) spearhead Gen’l Grants seizure of strategic Paducah and Smithland, KY, at the mouths of the Tennessee and CumberlandRivers. This operation prevented Confederate movement into the state and saved Kentucky for the Union.
9.10.1 / SUPPORT / USS Conestoga (Lt S. L. Phelps) and USS Lexington (Cdr Stembel) cover the advance of Federal troops at Lucas Bend, MO, silencing a Confederate battery and damaging the rebel gunboat CSS Yankee.
9.14.1 / EXPED / Sailors and Marines from USS Colorado row into Pensacola harbor under cover of darkness, board and burn Confederate privateering schooner Judah, and spike guns at Pensacola Navy Yard.
9.16.1
(16-17) / EXPED / Fortifications and guns in a fortification on BeaconIsland are destroyed by a landing party from USS Pawnee (Cdr Rowan), closing Ocracoke Inlet, NC.
9.17.1 / EXPED / Landing party from USS Massachusetts occupies Ship Island, MS after its evacuation by Confederate forces. ShipIsland becomes the staging area for Union troops operating below New Orleans.
October 1861
10.1.1 / CAPTURE / Confederate naval forces under flag Officer William F. Lynch, CSN, capture steamer Fanny in Pamlico Soundwith Union troops on board. This was the first Southern naval victory in the sounds, and garnered two large rifled guns as well as a large quantity of army stores. (Map approximate)
10.9.1 / SHIP2SHIP / First documented attempt to sink an enemy ship with a submarine in the Civil War. The target was the USS Minnesota in Hampton Roads. The submarine became fouled in grappling hanging from the jib boom (which its occupants thought was the anchor cable). The vessel escaped. A 12 October newspaper report based upon testimony from a Confederate deserter claims the submarine employed an India rubber suction plate to attach to its target and plant a timed bomb.
10.12.1 / SHIP2SHIP / Confederate metal-sheathed ram CSS Manassas (Commodore Hollins) in company with armed steamer Ivy and James L.Day, attacks USS Richmond, Vincennes, Water Witch, Nightingale, and Preble near Head of Passes, Mississippi River. In this offensive and spirited action by the small Confederate force, Manassas rammed Richmond, forced her and Vincennes aground under heavy fire before withdrawing. This action was the culmination of running b attles he two forces had engaged in over the previous month.
10.14.1 / OTHER / Lt A. Murray of USS Louisiana accepts the oath of allegiance to the United States from the citizens of Chincoteague Island, VA, who present a petition claiming their "abhorrence of the secession heresy."