Bluejackets in the Blubber Room: A Biography of the William Badger,1828-1865

By Peter Kurtz

Explores key events in US maritime history from the 1820s to the end of the Civil War through the biography of the sailing ship William Badger

 
Taking a biographical approach to his subject, Peter Kurtz describes three phases of the life of the William Badger, a sailing ship with a long and exemplary life on the sea: first as a merchant ship carrying raw materials and goods between New England, the US South, and Europe; second as a whaling ship; and finally as a supply ship providing coal and stores for the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Beaufort, North Carolina, during the Civil War.
 
Kurtz begins Bluejackets in the Blubber Room by exploring early American shipbuilding and shipbuilders in the Piscataqua region of Maine and New Hampshire and the kinds of raw materials harvested and used in making the wooden sailing ships of the time. After its construction, the Badger became part of the key economic trade between New England, the US South, and Europe. The ship carried raw materials such as timber from New England to New Orleans and subsequently cotton from New Orleans to Spain and Liverpool, England. Using ship logs, sailors’ accounts, and other primary sources, Kurtz delves into both the people and the economics of this critical “cotton triangle” trade.
 
Following service as a merchant ship, the Badger became a whaling ship, carrying its New England–based crew as far as the South Pacific. Kurtz presents a colorful story of life aboard a whaling ship and in the whaling towns ranging from Lynn, Massachusetts, to Cape Leeuwin, Australia. Finally, Kurtz describes the last phase of the Badger’s life as a key player as a supply ship in the Union Navy’s blockade effort. Although not the most dramatic duty a sailor could have, blockade supply nevertheless was critical to the United States’ prosecution of the Civil War and eventual victory. Kurtz examines the decision-making involved in procuring such ships and their crew, notably “refugees” and escaped slaves known as “contrabands.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: University Alabama Press
• Release date: Nov 28, 2012
• ISBN: 9780817386450

Book preview

BLUEJACKETS IN THE BLUBBER ROOM

A BIOGRAPHY OF THE William Badger, 1828–1865

PETER KURTZ

THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PRESS

Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 2013

The University of Alabama Press

Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

Typeface: Caslon

Cover photograph: William Badger, painting by Clement Drew, circa 1830s–40s; courtesy of the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

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

Kurtz, Peter, 1958-

Bluejackets in the blubber room : a biography of the William Badger, 1828-1865 / Peter Kurtz.

        p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

   ISBN 978-0-8173-1779-9 (trade cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8173-8645-0 (ebook) 1. William Badger (Ship) 2. Whaling ships—New England. 3. Whaling—History—19th century. 4. Merchant ships—United States. 5. United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Naval operations. 6. Beaufort (N.C.)—History, Naval. I. Title.

   VM465.K87 2013

   973.7′58—dc23

                                                                                                                    2012024178

Dedicated to my father, Richard Langdon Kurtz, for being my mentor and for our mutual love of history; and to my mother, Nancie Kurtz, for her love and encouragement

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART I THE OCEAN

1. The Building of Great Ships

2. The Master of Badger's Island

3. The Wreck of the William Badger

4. The Town That Made Shoes

5. The Bonney Journal

6. The Bliss Journal

7. Deck Wallopers and Blubber-Room Hands

PART II THE HARBOR

8. Unfit for Service

9. Hampton Roads Coal Hulk

10. Contrabands of War

11. The Capture of Beaufort

12. The Sound of the Last Trumpet

13. Wartime Storeship

14. The Scandal

15. The Fort Fisher Campaign

16. The Last Watch

Appendix: Post–William Badger Profiles

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Preface

In 1828, the Duke of Wellington, hero of Waterloo, became prime minister of the United Kingdom. In South America, Uruguay gained national independence. Japan suffered its second-worst natural disaster in 1828, when the Siebold Typhoon killed ten thousand people. On May 26, 1828, in Nuremburg, Germany, a mysterious child named Kaspar Hauser made headlines when he appeared out of nowhere, walking the streets in a daze. In the United States, Andrew Jackson defeated John Quincy Adams in one of the bitterest presidential elections in American history. Jackson's candidacy established a new political party: the Democratic Party.

Composer Franz Schubert and painter Francisco Goya died in 1828. Jules Verne, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, and Dante Gabriel Rosetti were born that year. So was Joshua Laurence Chamberlain of Maine. Chamberlain grew up to be president of prestigious Bowdoin College, located in Brunswick, Maine, and he was later elected governor of that state. But he is most famous for his gallant defense, in July 1863, of a rocky hill called Little Round Top at a small college town in Pennsylvania named Gettysburg.

Only seventy-six miles west of Brunswick, on the Piscataqua River that separates Maine from New Hampshire, another player in the American Civil War began life in 1828. Unlike Joshua Chamberlain, however, the ship William Badger received no honors for her struggle to preserve the Union. In fact, she warrants only a brief paragraph in the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. A footnote buried in a forgotten file in a dusty corridor of the National Archives, the William Badger nonetheless shares with Chamberlain a life of color and achievement.

The William Badger sailed—then merely floated—for thirty-seven years. She started life as a merchantman in the lucrative cotton triangle between New England, the southern cotton ports, and Europe. She was later sold and converted into a whaleship. During her last years she served as a floating commissary in the Union navy's blockade of Southern ports during the Civil War, housing one of the largest concentrations of African Americans of any ship during the war. Her deck was trod by staunch Christians and suspected rapists, by escaped slaves and the kin of the political elite, by blubber hunters and rats. More than once, she touched the seamy fringes of scandal. Her name even crossed the desk of Abraham Lincoln's first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin. The William Badger's history helps illuminate a fascinating period of mid-nineteenth-century maritime activity, when sturdy square-rigged sailing ships canvassed the oceans and U.S. coastal waterways.

In the days before digital electronics, telecommunications, and air travel, ships were the only conduits between international and coastal commercial centers. They carried valuable cargoes of mail, cotton, coal, coffee, salt, lumber, and textiles. They worked independently as floating fisheries. They ferried hungry yet hopeful immigrants to new continents. And they sometimes functioned as weapons of war. Some of these ships were built to serve as merchant vessels, and others were built to work as whalers. Frequently merchant ships were converted into whaleships and entered a much stranger, more dangerous world. Only a few, like the William Badger, managed to function as merchantmen, whalers, and naval vessels during the American Civil War.

Many books have been written about the nautical world of the nineteenth century. Most of the best of these were written long ago and, although crucial to an understanding of that dizzying period, are dated and/or serve primarily as reference works.

Obed Macy and Alexander Starbuck were two of the earliest nonfiction writers to explore the profession of whaling. Macy wrote The History of Nantucket in 1835. It is, as the title suggests, a history of his island home and gives a concise overview of Nantucket's importance in the development of whaling. Starbuck's The History of the American Whale Fishery, first published in 1876, has achieved classic status and is a sort of bible of whaleships, their home ports, captains, and oil quotas. But it is chiefly used as a reference work today. Judith Lund's more recent Whaling Masters and Whaling Voyages Sailing from American Ports: A Compilation of Sources (2001) is another excellent reference work. And in the fictional world, novelist Herman Melville devoted much of his epic Moby-Dick (1851) to an engrossing and literary discussion of whaling and whales.

Other notable books on whaling—despite their age and antiquated writing style—include Alpheus Hyatt Verrill's The Real Story of the Whaler: Whaling Past and Present (1916); Clifford Ashley's The Yankee Whaler (1939), written by a whaleman and offering perhaps the best overview of the physical characteristics and mechanics of a whaleship; Samuel Eliot Morison's The MaritimeHistory of Massachusetts (1921); and Edouard Stackpole's The Sea-Hunters: The New England Whalemen during Two Centuries, 1635–1835 (1953). The best recent book on whaling is Eric Jay Dolan's Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2007), which views the whaling profession through a modern lens and thoroughly explores the socioeconomic aspects of whaling. Like Melville, Dolan doesn't ignore the biology of the mammal itself.

In the literature of the Civil War navies, there has been a tendency to, unfortunately, glorify the same subjects, almost to the point of cliché. Hence bookshelves are stacked with discussions of ironclads, blockade-runners, and the most sensational of the sea battles. There's a reason there are so few books concerning Civil War naval logistics and the Union blockade: the work was, more often than not, mind-numbingly tedious. As one bluejacket humorously noted in a letter he wrote home, We have not much to do at present and I don't know what I should do if we did not have our pig and kittens to play with.¹

As for general works on the naval Civil War, one of the earliest accounts is Admiral David Dixon Porter's seminal The Naval History of the Civil War (1886). Porter, however, was not a professional writer, and his account is, not surprisingly, very biased. Ivan Musicant's more recent Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War (1995) is a well-written general history, while Michael J. Bennett's Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War (2004) concentrates on the Federal Navy. Unfortunately, both offer limited insight into blockade life and logistics.

By far the best discussion of the Union blockade is Dr. Robert M. Browning Jr.'s From Cape Charles to Cape Fear: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War (1993) and his companion book, Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the Civil War (2002). Both are fine, comprehensive studies of the North and South Atlantic blockading squadrons and have filled a gaping hole in Civil War scholarship.

Books that concentrate on the maritime abilities of African Americans during the war include Steven J. Ramold's Slaves, Sailors, Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (2002) and David S. Cecelski's The Waterman's Song: Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina (2001). Both helped me understand the vital roles that blacks played during the naval conflict. Joseph P. Reidy of Northern Illinois University, one of the leading scholars on African American Civil War sailors, has published several articles on the subject that are particularly illuminating, as they offer a modern assessment of statistical data and the role of blacks in the Federal Navy.

While nineteenth-century merchant vessels have received less attention than whalers and Civil War blockaders—particularly merchant ships built prior to the romantic clipper era—several writers have produced valuable scholarship on these workhorses of the seas. Maine native William Armstrong Fairburn spent a lifetime researching the commercial history, construction, and commerce of American sailing vessels for his massive work Merchant Sail (1945–55), with special emphasis on his home state (including the Piscataqua River). Carl C. Cutler also spent years rummaging through yellowed customs records and newspaper listings to produce his exhaustive reference work, Queens of the Western Ocean: The Story of America's Mail and Passenger Sailing Lines (1961), a companion to his Greyhounds of the Sea: The Story of American Clipper Ships. Robert Greenhalgh Albion established himself as the dean of the New York sailing packet lines with his books Square Riggers on Schedule: The New York Sailing Packets to England, France, and the Cotton Ports (1938) and The Rise of New York Port (1815–1860) (1939). However, the latter two books deal strictly with packet vessels and only lightly touch on regular traders or transient vessels like the William Badger. Fairburn's six-volume work, on the contrary, is almost too encyclopedic for digestion.

So why write a book about an old ship that only a handful of people have ever heard of and even fewer could care anything about? Unlike most maritime subjects, the William Badger experienced no mutinies or revolts—like the Bounty or the Amistad. Although she indirectly provided inspiration for one of the most famous shipwreck poems in American literature, she herself was never wrecked—like the fictional Hesperus, the Pequod, or the non-fictional Nantucket whaleship Essex. Of sturdy, meat-and-potatoes full-rig design, she lacked the sleek beauty and speed of the illustrious clipper ships that fascinate so many aficionados of pre-steam shipping lore. And since she never slithered through any blockades or fired any mortars, and was clad in wood rather than iron, even Civil War naval historians pay her scant notice.

My interest in the William Badger began only after discovering that one of my ancestors served on her. Like so many other journeys, it was a personal connection that provided the impetus. Initially, I was only interested in details about my relative. But I soon discovered that the vessel he served on had a much more intriguing biography. I wanted to know more.

There was mention of her in official Civil War correspondence. She did not fight in any battles. But somehow her connection to a tiny coastal town in North Carolina, and her frequent association with coal—the substance that fueled the Northern and Southern navies—suggested more than a little relevance. After discovering she had earlier furrowed the seas during the Golden Age of whaling, I located a first mate's whaling journal. And where did her name come from? Who was William Badger? Writing this book was like fashioning a chunk of gold from a few flakes; there was very little to begin with. But it soon became apparent the Badger (as I often refer to her in this book) was less a hunk of wood, iron, copper, and rigging than an eyewitness to a changing society.

While there have been copious adventure stories devoted to the profession of whaling, few if any have focused on the crucial role of the whaling agent. After all, whaling was a business. The bottom line for men like Andrews Breed and Benjamin Beal Howard was a sweet and handsome cargo of sperm or whale oil, or a clean and dry cargo of whalebone, delivered in timely fashion to the wharves of Boston or New Bedford.

Onboard a whaleship, the anxiety of sailors to appease the whaling agent and to justify their grueling labor and separation from home with financial recompense was often reflected in a journal. Journals and logbooks offer the best opportunity for modern readers to get a glimpse of the isolated, often brutal world of the whaleman. They not only offer a daily snapshot of the esoteric world onboard a nineteenth-century whaleship, but many times they can reveal the psychology of the writer himself. A logbook and a companion journal exist for the first voyage of the William Badger, and a journal exists for the second. But it's important to note the differences between a whaling journal and logbook.

Logbooks were almost always kept by the first mate, and they became the property of the whaling company at voyage's end. Logbooks assisted owners and agents in determining the success or failure of a whaling enterprise. They were the official record of a voyage, intended to provide the owners and agents with an exact record of the voyage, including the number of whales sighted and killed, weather conditions, latitude and longitude, behavior of the crew, and anything out of the ordinary that might have happened. As such, logbooks have very little editorializing and color and make for fairly dry reading.

Journals were often replications of the logbook, and the two are sometimes indistinguishable. However, journals were not turned over to the ship's agent or owner at the voyage's end, so they frequently included personal information not found in the logbook. The most interesting whaling journals read like diaries, and they were kept not only by the first mate but by anyone onboard ship: greenhand, officer, or even the master himself. Unlike logbooks, journal narratives jump around more, since daily entries are not required. Journals often reveal a sailor's feelings of homesickness, his shipboard demeanor and attitudes toward crewmates, his frustration, loneliness, and occasional exhilaration. Unlike a logbook, a journal could include sketches, letters, and sentimental verse, and it is distinguished by its first-person, singular voice. All of these characteristics are found in the two journals kept aboard the William Badger.

The William Badger's biography also permits one to tap into unexplored corners of Civil War history. There have been enough books on Civil War blockade-runners and the Monitor and Merrimac to fill the blubber room of the largest bark. Little has been written, however, about the colliers and contrabands, or about officers like Samuel P. Lee, who were saddled with the responsibility of not only overseeing the mind-boggling logistics of running a wartime blockade but also maintaining decency and order in a multiethnic and cultural chaos. It is my hope that Bluejackets in the Blubber Room will illuminate some of these shadowy nooks in naval and maritime literature.

This book will appeal to a wide range of readers: students of the Civil War, aficionados of whaling history, and anyone who enjoys reading about the sea. I wanted Bluejackets in the Blubber Room to contain the analysis and attributions that an academician would expect, but I also wanted it to grow organically and read like a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. The book profiles a ship in the manner that most biographies profile a person. I discuss everything from the wood that's pounded into the ship's hull to the men that brought her to life, prosecuted her voyages, and holystoned her decks. I don't know of many books that focus on a single vessel throughout her life. Nor am I aware of many that cover several different periods of nineteenth-century maritime history rather than concentrating on just one.

The William Badge was only one of hundreds of ships of her kind. They played a significant role in pre-Civil War maritime commerce, when cotton was still king. Many of them later traded bales of cotton for kegs of oil, their decks eventually mired in brine, blubber, and blood. But once the American Civil War started, only a few did not end up as so much kindling and metal scrap. The William Badger was one of them.

Acknowledgments

My gratitude goes out to the following people for their assistance, influence, instruction, and encouragement:

Dr. Robert M. Browning Jr., author and chief historian, U.S. Coast Guard, for reviewing the Civil War sections of my manuscript, sharing his expertise and knowledge, and offering encouragement and many helpful suggestions.

Michael Dyer, maritime curator, New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, for reviewing the accuracy of my whaling passages, providing insight into the George Bliss journal and Henry M. Bonney logbook, guiding me to the Charles Batchelder file, sharing his sharp analysis of whalers' appreciation of Moby-Dick, and excavating the only known image of the William Badger.

Laura Pereira, librarian, New Bedford Whaling Museum Research Library, for cheerfully providing me with valuable materials and alerting me to Stuart C. Sherman's unique book The Voice of the Whaleman.

Paul O'Pecko, Susan Filupeit, and Carol Mowrey, G. W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport, for their kindness and help while I dug into the Henry M. Bonney journal, Carl C. Cutler Papers, and Boston Shipping News and for patiently answering my many naive questions (and providing sharpened pencils).

Dr. Judkin Browning, Appalachian State University, for guiding me to the James Rumley diary and John A. Hedrick letters, reviewing my manuscript, and his advice and encouragement.

Diane Shephard, Lynn Museum and Historical Society, and Lisa Kulyk-Bourque, Lynn Public Library, for materials on Andrews Breed and photocopies of old Lynn newspaper articles.

Carolyn Marvin, Portsmouth Athenaeum, for materials and guidance on shipwright William Badger.

Sandra Rux, Portsmouth Historical Society, for filling in gaps in the biographies of Woodbury Langdon II and Theodore J. Harris.

Dan Blair, for his Beaufort Naval Station scholarship and for a pleasant phone conversation.

Elliott P. Smith, Harvest Moon Historical Society, for his research into the controversial Joshua D. Warren.

Paul Cyr and Robbin Smith, New Bedford Free Public Library, for pointing me in the right directions when I first started my research.

Dr. Martin Gibb, University of Sydney, for sharing his research into Western Australian whaling history.

The helpful personnel at the Portsmouth Public Library, the Naval Historical Center, Cincinnati Public Library, the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State Archives, Library of Congress, and National Archives.

Portsmouth journalist Ray Brighton, for being one of the first to board the William Badger after she disappeared from view.

Diana Preston, for advice on how to research and write historical nonfiction.

Jack Pidgeon, Kiski School, for being a friend and inspiration.

Joseph Peckin' Joe Millar, Kiski School, for his infectious love of Herman Melville, his English instruction, and his good cheer.

Dave Oswalt, history instructor par excellence at Lexington (Ohio) High School.

Arthur Thomas, for being there at the start ("It's always a ship, never a boat").

Joseph Powell, my acquisitions editor, for his enthusiasm in this project and for his gentle prodding.

Dave Schulz, for sharing his own authorship endeavors but mainly for his friendship on the long trail.

Virginia K. Salvia, without whose assistance and encouragement I could not have written this book.

Thanks also to the following people who kindly offered their assistance in various ways: Ben Abernethy, Frank Arre, Denison Beach, Jean Backer, James E. Benson, Jonathan Berry, Jeff Bridgers, Joan Druett, Jacqueline Glass, Amy K. Hotz, Charles Johnson, Chris Killilay, Alva Latta, Wayne Manson, J. Dennis Robinson, Henry F. Scannell, Beth Roll Smith, Dr. Joseph Tomain, and Louisa Alger Watrous.

And most of all for their love and unflagging support: my parents, Richard and Nancie Kurtz, my in-laws, Ken and Carolyn Stanley, my wife, Lynn, and my children, Holly and Nicholas. You are my port on the lee shore.

PART I

THE OCEAN

BADGER'S ISLAND

I am dreaming of a fair green isle

That lies so far away,

Where the sparkling blue Piscataqua

Flows down to meet the bay.

An island like a jewel fair

Upon the river's breast

Where blue waves curl and kiss the shore

And murmur songs of rest.

Where in the springtime soft and fair

The lilac tossed her plume,

And orchard boughs are bending low

Beneath their weight of bloom.

Here daisies nod in summer time,

With buttercups bright hue:

Where rocks and trees and fleecy clouds

Are mirrored in the blue.

The waves by ruder breezes tossed

Are sparkling white with foam,

They dash upon the rocky shore,

Then seek their ocean home.

Here when the quiet stars come out,

And the crescent moon hangs low,

A fleet of phantom ships sail by—

The ships of long ago.

With rattling cordage, straining mast,

And flapping ghostly sail,

With rusty anchors at their bow,

That have held in many a gale.

The sound of toilers at their task

Is faintly heard once more,

And the stately hull of a gallant bark

Stands dark upon the shore.

An aged man with silvered hair,

With feeble steps and slow,

Walks forth to look upon his ships,

The ships of long ago.

Perhaps no other eyes than mine

Those phantom ships can see,

But fancy waived her magic wand,

And gave to me the key

When city lights in Portsmouth burn,

And pale the stars look down,

On William Badger's lonely tomb,

And Kittery's sleeping town.

As long as that fair river flows,

With channel deep and wide,

Her phantom ships shall sail for aye,

Or at her shores shall ride.

And ever when the spring returns

And summer days shall smile,

In fancy I shall roam once more

O'er far off Badger's Isle

That little island fair and green

That lies so far away,

Where the sparkling blue Piscataqua

Flows down to meet the bay.

1

The Building of Great Ships

The state of New Hampshire boasts a mere eighteen miles of Atlantic Ocean coastline. The Piscataqua River separates the state's southeastern corner from Maine and empties into the Atlantic. On the southwestern corner of this juncture of river