Ironclad Waters

By Paul Francis Brown

On April 7th 1863. The Union Navy steamed toward Charleston Harbor with nine ironclad ships intending to intimidate the city and its citizens into surrender. Instead, the Confederate Batteries on Fort Sumter and other points along the shore dealt the Union an embarrassing rebuke. Loss of life was limited to one sailor but loss of face for the North was beyond measure. Who was to blame for such an embarrassing turn? Was it Gustavus Fox? The ambitious but unremarkable Assistant Secretary of the Navy, who selected Charleston to appease his desire for revenge, or was it Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont? The aristocratic naval hero of the North's first stunning naval victory at Port Royal.

From the opening shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter to the confrontation at Hampton Roads between the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac, both historic events in Civil War history that Gustavus Fox personally witnessed. To DuPont's heroic capture of Port Royal. This book chronicles the events and the personalities that led to the Union Navy fiasco at Charleston Harbor. A fiasco driven by the pride and ego of powerful men who blindly planned an attack on Charleston Harbor for the wrong reasons. An ambitious, overreaching plan, born of flawed men and their motives and destined to fail from untested and untried technology. History has long told the story of what happened to the Union Navy at Charleston Harbor that day in April 1863. This book goes a step further and explains why the fiasco at Charleston Harbor happened. This book takes a fresh look at a long ago battle at Charleston Harbor, a mission that was attempted to end the war with a Union victory but instead exemplified Confederate resolve.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Francis Brown
• Release date: Jan 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386913818

Book preview

Prologue

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ON TUESDAY, APRIL 7TH 1863 JUST AFTER NOON, as the last remnants of the morning haze evaporated in the ascending sun and the ebb tide subsided, Admiral Samuel Francis DuPont stood on the deck of his flagship and scanned the coast. As he looked at the array of fortified gun batteries defending the harbor he most likely contemplated how well his iron vessel would withstand what surely was to come. DuPont, a fastidious man of faith and discipline offered a silent prayer to his creator, gave the command for the flotilla to proceed and went below deck.

With the long anticipated signal given, the nine hastily built ships of the Union Navy weighed anchor and steamed over the sandbar. The iron armada included the USS New Ironsides, an 18 gun ship that could deliver a punishing broadside at its enemy and move by steam propulsion or sail. The ship had been launched the previous year and now served as DuPont's flagship.  On this day, the sails were stowed to give less of a target for the Confederate shore batteries that waited patiently to erupt with cannon fire. Seven monitor style vessels, resembling the cheese box on a raft of their prototype, the USS Monitor, accompanied the flagship.

Although the Monitor had foundered and sunk off the coast of South Carolina the previous New Year's Eve during a storm, the ship's heroic performance against the Merrimack at Hampton Roads had occasioned the design and construction of a new series of ironclads. These Passaic Class Ironclads rode low in the water and carried two Dahlgren cannons mounted in an armored revolving turret. Each ironclad commanded by the finest Union Navy captains available contained a crew of approximately 75 to 80 men and cost over $500.000 each to build. The iron flotilla was completed by a most unusual looking vessel, the USS Keokuk. Approximately 40 feet shorter and 200 tons lighter than the Passaic Class ships, the Keokuk was partially plated with 4 inches of iron rather than the 5 inches used to cover the hulls of the Passaic class vessels. Outfitted with two stationary gun turrets, a higher profile and sloping sides, the Keokuk clearly looked unique among all the vessels assembled that morning.

With a construction cost approaching $5 million (1863 dollars) and over 1000 sailors to man the assembled squadron, the invading flotilla represented a serious investment. The mission had been in the planning stages for well over a year and had been conceived at the highest levels of the Navy Department. Chief architect of the plan was Assistant Navy Secretary Gustavus Vasa Fox, an overly ambitious naval operative. According to Fox and his plan, the ironclads would steam into Charleston Harbor with impunity, impervious to the cannon fire of the Confederate batteries. Once the flotilla had cleared the last remaining batteries of Fort Sumter, the ironclads were to draw within firing range of the city of Charleston, aim their guns and force the city into surrendering. Fox's plan then was to have Charleston secured by Federal troops and then the ironclads would be withdrawn and dispatched to Wilmington, Mobile, and Pensacola, repeating the same scenario and forcing the southern ports to fall like dominoes resulting in the total collapse and defeat of the Confederacy.

But the defeat of the Confederacy did not begin that day at the reckoning of the ironclads, nor did the first domino in Fox's plan fall. Rather, the Admiral and all his captains and men were dealt a mortifying rebuke. Instead of arriving at the docks of Charleston, the ironclads were assaulted with a vicious and sustained bombardment and flushed out with the receding tide, battered and broken. As the ironclad flotilla approached Fort Sumter in a single line formation, a punishing and precise convergence of cannon fire from the guns at Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, Morris Island and Cummings Point scattered the vessels into a stunning display of chaos and confusion.

In a matter of hours, the long planned assault came to a conclusion and the daring capture of Charleston had dissolved into an unorganized retreat which Admiral DuPont later characterized in an official Navy report as a sad repulse. The ironclads performed poorly under the circumstances at Charleston Harbor that day. Their difficulty in maneuvering in the narrow, obstacle laden channel along with their slow rate of fire proved the sturdy iron ships unequal to the crippling barrage dealt out by the Confederate batteries exceeding a ratio of thirty five to one.  The monitors while for the most part absorbing the terrible blows were substantially weakened. Sterling mechanisms were damaged often making the ships un-maneuverable in the narrow channel and bolts securing the iron plates were sheared off, exposing the ships to fatal vulnerabilities. The Keokuk, suffering the most egregious damage withdrew from the range of the guns and foundered.

Less than four hours from when Admiral DuPont signaled the engagement to begin, he called a hasty retreat from the smoky turmoil to the safety of the outer harbor. Later that evening, after the flotilla had anchored offshore, Admiral DuPont signaled all of his captains to the flagship for a conference. With their eyes still burning from the cordite smoke and their ears ringing from the sound of the cannon balls hitting the ironclad hulls, the captains provided a bleak assessment to DuPont. Another attempt to take Charleston the following day would not be attempted.

Chapter One

Old Navy

Man marks the Earth with ruin, his control stops with the shore

The Dark Blue Sea

Lord Byron

IN A BYGONE ERA OF SAILING SHIPS AND DISTANT LANDS, Gustavus Vasa Fox joined the navy and went to sea. With the same motive as Ishmael, little money in his purse and nothing of interest on shore, he went to sea. Although lacking the maturity of Ishmael and little reason of spleen or circulation to be seeking a cure, he nonetheless went to sea. To be precise, the year was 1838 and young Mr. Fox was granted appointment as a midshipman, which placed him in a far better circumstances that that which would have befallen a volunteer such as Ishmael. A thorough read of Herman Melville's Moby Dick demonstrates that Ishmael, Starbuck, Queequeg and all the other crew aboard the fictional Pequod, including Captain Ahab himself were a collective group of misfits, unsuitable to live peacefully among the land dwellers, therefore they went to sea. The young Mr. Fox, in contrast, was no misfit. To him, the sea was a calling, a vocation and he heard the call loud and clear.

The young man's given name, Gustavus Vasa, was likely influenced by the reform movement occurring in Massachusetts at the time of his birth. It could be reasonably thought that Fox was named in honor of Gustavus Vassa, a freed African slave and hero of the 18th century British abolitionist movement. At the time of his birth in 1821, Boston was emerging as the epicenter of the American anti slave movement. Fox's father, Jesse Fox, a doctor and fledgling entrepreneur like most men of this time and place held anti slavery beliefs and chose a name for his son that would resonate the social morality found throughout New England abolitionists and religious revivalists. Gus Fox however preferred to claim King Gustav I, the unifier of Sweden who ruled 300 years earlier as his namesake, for he certainly thought of himself a leader of men and after all, it was better to be namesake of a king than a former slave.

Gus's desire to go to sea was due to a lack of interest in the other typical vocations available to him at the time such as a farmer, merchant or minister? Gus's father Jesse, a religious man had hoped his son would become a minister but Gus felt no particular pull in that direction. Farming and business appealed even less to the young man's adventurous nature. Dr. Fox knowing his son to be physically strong and courageous despite his immaturity eventually acquiesced and agreed to help his son follow his adventure of a life at sea, but not as an enlistee. Instead, Dr. Fox utilized his political connections with Daniel Webster and former President John Quincy Adams, both members of the Massachusetts Congressional delegation to secure appointment as a navy midshipman.

A midshipman nomination was soon granted to Gus but presidential approval was necessary to secure the appointment. One last obstacle to overcome was Dr. Fox's political affiliations as a member of the fledgling Whig Party, a party born in opposition to the policies of current President Andrew Jackson. Dr. Fox then turned to an old family friend Levi Woodbury to guarantee Gus's appointment. These presidential appointments were typically granted as political favor. The system for appointment was desultory and often made without regard to the appointee's age, education or fitness for sea duty. The novice sailors were then thrown into a system that offered no standardized training and sent to sea immediately.  Woodbury, a former Governor of New Hampshire and current Secretary of the Treasury in Andrew Jackson's cabinet succeeded in getting President Jackson's signature on the appointment by telling the president he was seeking the appointment for an old family friend. The fact that Dr. Fox was a Whig was not brought up. These family/political alliances would continue many years later when young naval officer Gustavus Fox married Levi Woodbury's daughter Virginia.

On May 2, 1838, Gus Fox, not yet seventeen years of age reported to Commander John Percival, Captain of the newly launched twenty gun sloop of war, Cyane. The ship was being fitted out with provisions at the Boston navy yard when Fox arrived. Watching from the dock he took care to stay clear of the stevedores unloading the supply wagons and he noticed the ship's carpenters finishing up last minute repairs. The activity surrounding him indicative of a seagoing vessel preparing for a long voyage at sea. Fox boarded the ship. The young midshipman, short in height but with broad shoulders and a barrel shaped torso was obviously well suited for the physical demands of a life at sea. This stout appearance, accompanied with his dark hair and equally dark eyes would lead those who knew him not, to think he was a brooding brute, someone not to be crossed. As Fox took in the activity around him he concentrated on exhibiting a deadpan expression lest he betray the conflicting emotions of excitement and fear welling up