Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, May 30, 1864

My constant application has left me no time for several days to jot down occurrences and make remarks.

Mr. Sanford was very pertinacious and determined in his scheme of going out in the Niagara, and represented that Mr. Seward favored it. I am inclined to think Seward fell into the arrangement without much thought. This is the best view for Seward. Sanford is . . . fond of notoriety; delights to be busy and fussy, to show pomp and power; and to have a vessel like the Niagara bear him out to his mission would have filled him with delight, but would not have elevated the country, for Sanford's true character is known abroad and wherever he is known, which is one of obtrusive intermeddlings, – not that he is mischievously inclined, but he seeks to be consequential, wants to figure and to do.

The consul at Bermuda having written us that the Florida was there on the 14th inst., I wrote Mr. Seward that the Niagara would be directed to cruise and get across in about thirty days, consequently Mr. Sanford had better leave by packet steamer. Mr. Seward writes me today that he concurs with me fully.

The army movements have been interesting for the last few days, though not sensational. Grant has not obtained a victory but performed another remarkably successful flank movement. Sherman is progressing in Georgia.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 39

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 28, 1861

On dropping in at the Consulate to-day, I found the skippers of several English vessels who are anxious to clear out, lest they be detained by the Federal cruisers. The United States steam frigates Brooklyn and Niagara have been for some days past blockading Pass á l’outre. One citizen made a remarkable proposition to Mr. Mure. He came in to borrow an ensign of the Royal Yacht Squadron for the purpose, he said, of hoisting it on board his yacht, and running down to have a look at the Yankee ships. Mr. Mure had no flag to lend; whereupon he asked for a description by which he could get one made. On being applied to, I asked “whether the gentleman was a member of the Squadron?” “Oh, no,” said he, “but my yacht was built in England, and I wrote over some time ago to say I would join the squadron.” I ventured to tell him that it by no means followed he was a member, and that if he went out with the flag and could not show by his papers he had a right to carry it, the yacht would be seized. However, he was quite satisfied that he had an English yacht, and a right to hoist an English flag, and went off to an outfitter's to order a facsimile of the squadron ensign, and subsequently cruised among the blockading vessels.

We hear Mr. Ewell was attacked by an Union mob in Tennessee, his luggage was broken open and plundered, and he narrowly escaped personal injury. Per contra, “charges of abolitionism,” continue to multiply here, and are almost as numerous as the coroner's inquests, not to speak of the difficulties which sometimes attain the magnitude of murder.

I dined with a large party at the Lake, who had invited me as their guest, among whom were Mr. Slidell, Governor Hebert, Mr. Hunt, Mr. Norton, Mr. Fellows, and others. I observed in New York that every man had his own solution of the cause of the present difficulty, and contradicted plumply his neighbor the moment he attempted to propound his own theory. Here I found every one agreed as to the righteousness of the quarrel, but all differed as to the best mode of action for the South to pursue. Nor was there any approach to unanimity as the evening waxed older. Incidentally we had wild tales of Southern life, some good songs curiously intermingled with political discussions, and what the Northerners call hyphileutin talk.

When I was in the Consulate to-day, a tall and well-dressed, but not very prepossessing-looking man, entered to speak to Mr. Mure on business, and was introduced to me at his own request. His name was mentioned incidentally to-night, and I heard a passage in his life not of an agreeable character, to say the least of it. A good many years ago there was a ball at New Orleans, at which this gentleman was present; he paid particular attention to a lady, who, however, preferred the society of one of the company, and in the course of the evening an altercation occurred respecting an engagement to dance, in which violent language was exchanged, and a push or blow given by the favored partner to his rival, who left the room, and, as it is stated, proceeded to a cutler's shop, where he procured a powerful dagger-knife. Armed with this, he returned, and sent in a message to the gentleman with whom he had quarrelled. Suspecting nothing, the latter came into the antechamber, the assassin rushed upon him, stabbed him to the heart, and left him weltering in his blood. Another version of the story was, that he waited for his victim till he came into the cloak-room, and struck him as he was in the act of putting on his overcoat. After a long delay, the criminal was tried. The defence put forward on his behalf was that he had seized a knife in the heat of the moment when the quarrel took place, and had slain his adversary in a moment of passion; but evidence, as I understand, went strongly to prove that a considerable interval elapsed between the time of the dispute and the commission of the murder. The prisoner had the assistance of able and ingenious counsel; he was acquitted. His acquittal was mainly due to the judicious disposition of a large sum of money; each juror; when he retired to dinner previous to consulting over the verdict, was enabled to find the sum of 1000 dollars under his plate; nor was it clear that the judge and sheriff had not participated in the bounty; in fact, I heard a dispute as to the exact amount which it is supposed the murderer had to pay. He now occupies, under the Confederate Government, the post at New Orleans which he lately held as representative of the Government of the United States.

After dinner I went in company of some of my hosts to the Boston Club, which has, I need not say, no connection with the city of that name. More fires, the tocsin sounding, and so to bed.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 240-2

John M. Forbes to Congressman Thomas Dawes Eliot*, July 4, 1861

Boston, July 4,1861.

My Dear Mr. Eliot, — I have yours of 2d, and note the doubts of Mr. Welles as to the safety of intrusting commissions to our merchant sailors. This is natural at first sight, but a little reflection must convince him that it is entirely unfounded.

During our two wars with England, when most of our merchant ships were of 200 to 400 tons and none above 700, our best commodores and captains came from the merchant service, and showed no inaptitude for carrying frigates into action. Look over Cooper's “Naval History” and see who won the laurels then!

If history were wanting as a guide, we should on general principles come to the same confidence in the skill and gallantry of our merchant sailors. I would make no invidious comparisons with our navy; but the crisis is a great one, and the navy can well afford to face the truth. It has glorious men and glorious memories, but they are so closely interwoven with those of our merchant marine that to lower the one it is almost inevitable that you lower the other. If I make a comparison, it is partly in the hope of making suggestions that will tend to raise the navy to its highest point of efficiency.

Let us for a moment examine the training of the two services now. Leaving out the Annapolis school as only just beginning to act upon the very youngest grade of commissioned officers, the youths intended for the navy have been selected at a very early age, with generally very insufficient education, from those families who have political influence, and from those young men who have a prejudice against rough sailor life. Under our system of promotion by seniority these young men live an easy life in the midshipman's mess, the wardroom, or on shore, with little responsibility and little actual work until, at the age of from forty to sixty, they get command of a vessel; they feel that they are in the public service for life, and that the ones that take the best care of their lives and healths are the most sure of the high honors of their profession! Considering their want of early training, of active experience, and of stimulus, it is only surprising that they are on the whole so fine a body of men.

Compare this training with that of our merchant officers. Taken from a class of young men, with somewhat fewer advantages and education, but all having access to our public schools, they are sent to sea to fight their own way up. Those who are capable soon emerge from the mass of common sailors (most of them common sailors for life), and are tried as mates, etc. They are chosen for their daring, their vigilance, their faculty for commanding; and those who prove to have these qualities soon get into command. In nine cases out of ten, the young American-born sailor who is fit for it gets command of a vessel by the time he is twenty-five years old, an age when our naval officers have, as a rule, had but little experience in navigating vessels, and but little responsibility put upon them.

Instead of the little vessels which our heroes of the old wars commanded, you will find these same merchant captains in command of vessels ranging from 700 tons (a small ship now), up to 1500 and 2000 tons, some as large as our seventy-fours, many as large as our first-class frigates! It is idle to talk of such men not being able to manœuvre sloops-of-war or frigates, either in action or in any circumstances where seamanship and daring are needed.

So much for a comparison of the training of the two services; now for one or two suggestions for raising the navy. First, let us go on with the naval school and carry its scientific requirements and rigid discipline as high as West Point. To go further back still; I would have the candidates for the school recommended, not by members of Congress, but by the boards of education of the different States, and taken from those who have proved themselves the best scholars in our public, schools, — at least a majority of them; leaving the minority to come from those more favored by fortune who use the private schools.

Once in service, I would have our navy actively employed in surveying foreign seas and making charts, as the English navy is doing to a considerable extent. Then let the President have some discretion to promote those who by gallantry or science distinguish themselves. Finally, a more liberal retiring list, and if possible some higher honors in the way of titles as a stimulus to our officers.

Perhaps there is not time for the reform of the service, but it is the time for beginning the organization of our volunteer navy. Do you note that the only privateer that we know has been taken has been by sailing brig Perry, though another is reported by the Niagara? I could say almost or quite as much in favor of half clipper ships, in comparison with the ordinary sloop-of-war, as I have said of our merchant sailors. Until we become converted to European ideas upon standing armies and navies, we cannot think of giving up our land or sea militia, and, if we give up privateering, we must have a substitute with all its strength and more.

Yours truly,

J. M. Forbes.

_______________

* Chairman of the Naval Committee of the House of Representatives.— Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 221-4

Mobile to be attacked -- Burnside Expedition

NEW YORK, Jan. 25. – A letter dated aboard the frigate Niagara off Ship Island the 11th gives as rumors that Mobile may soon be attacked.

A letter from Hatteras Inlet says the loss of the New York won’t seriously interfere with the efficiency of the Burnside Expedition, there being a good supply of material aboard other vessels.

Gen. Foster’s brigade would soon move towards Roanoke Island as circumstances should decide.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, February 1, 1862, p. 2

The Rebel Steamers Lately Engaged Near Fortress Monroe

(From the New York Tribune)

THE MERRIMAC.

The Merrimac was originally one of the five war steamers authorized to be constructed by congress during the session of 1844-5.  They were to be first steam sloops of war, and were built as follows.  The Merrimac at Charlestown; Wasbash, Com. Dupont’s flag ship, which did such good service at Port Royal, at Philadelphia; the Minnesota at Washington; the Roanoke at Norfolk, and the Niagara at Brooklyn. – The Minnesota and the Roanoke were lying in Hampton Roads.  These five vessels were equal to any steam war vessels in the world, except iron clad vessels.  The spar deck of the Merrimac was 281 feet long and 52 feet broad in her original condition and she drew 23 feet of water.  She rated about 4,000 tons burden.  Her frame was of [live] oak, filled in solid, and caulked 14 feet out from the kelson.  Forward the ship had 10 live oak breast hooks, fastened through and through with copper under the water and iron above; aft she had seven breast hooks.

The engine was of 800 horse power, with a 2 bladed propeller 14 feet in diameter, so fitted as to be raised to the deck and lowered to its beaming at pleasure, enabling the vessel to be used with our without steam power.  She rated as a 40 gun frigate, but could carry as much as a 90 gun ship of the old style. – She carried 24 9 inch shell guns, with 2 pivot guns of 8 tons, each throwing 100 pound shells, mounted fore and aft.

The Merrimac was the first of the five to be completed, being launched in 1856.  She was soon after put in commission, and continued in the service until April 1861, when she was lying at the Norfolk Navy Yard, in need of some slight repairs.  But for the imbecility of those in charge, she might have been removed before the rebellion actually broke out in Norfolk.  Under the management of Com. Macauley, however, she and the ship of the line Pennsylvania where scuttled and sunk, while at the same time the Navy Yard and its 2,500 cannon were abandoned to the rebels.

Since then the Merrimac has been raised, placed upon the dry dock, and covered with an entire slanting roof or railroad iron.  This additional weight nearly broke her down upon the dry dock, and they found almost as much difficulty in launching her as was found in launching the Great Eastern.  Owing to a mistake in calculation, on being launched she was found to sink four feet deeper than before, so as to take in water.  So she was again taken out, being hogged in the operation and otherwise so strained that the Southern newspapers pronounced her a failure, and it is more than probably that with no opposition she would never dare to go to sea.  She is probably a very good moveable floating battery.  Above the water’s edge she is said to present nothing but her roof of railroad iron, with a smoke stack rising a few feet above it.  From the accounts which we have of the fight, her rate of speed is very moderate.  She mounted 10 100-pound Armstrong guns, which are reported to have mashed through iron mail as thick as that of the Warrior and Black Prince, but which do not appear to have made any impression on the Monitor.

THE YORKTOWN, OR THE PATRICK HENRY

The Yorktown, called by the rebels the Patrick Henry, is a steamer of 1,400 tons, which was built by Wm H. Webb for the line between New York and Richmond, in 1859.  She has two decks and is built of oak, with copper and iron fastenings.  She has two marine beam engines, of 350 horse power, and four water-tight compartments.  Her dimensions are, length 251 feet, breadth 34 feet, depth 18 feet.  She is described by a reporter who went up on the Express, under a flag of truce, on Thursday last, as mounting six rifled guns, one of which is an Armstrong gun, and is being much more formidable than her consort, the Jamestown.

THE JAMESTOWN

The Jamestown was formerly the consort of the Yorktown in the Richmond line.  She was built in 1852 by J. A. Westervelt, and her dimensions are slightly smaller than those of the Yorktown.  She draws but eight feet of water three feet less than the Yorktown.  She has a vertical beam engine, of 260 horse power.  The same reporter saw her also last Thursday, and says that she was worked with double engines, and had a sharp iron prow at her bow projecting some three feet at the water line, intended to run down wooden vessels, and that she carries 2 23 pound rifled cannon, Parrot style, fore and aft, the guns being furnished with telescopic sights.  The vessel looked trim, and the officers wore a profusion of gold lace, while the marines and sailors were smart and active in appearance.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 15, 1862, p. 2

From Ship Island

NEW YORK, Feb. 14.

The gun boat Massachusetts arrived tonight from Ship Island 4^th.  She has a valuable cargo of coffee, cotton &c., taken from prizes.  The Niagara was cruising in Texan waters.  Troops are in excellent health.  Capt. Marcy of the Vincennes had died from injuries by the recoil of a gun

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 17, 1862, p. 1