February 24, 1862: Franklin Buchanan given command of C.S.S. Virginia

Franklin Buchanan

Captain Franklin Buchanan was a long service veteran of the U.S. Navy. Of his 62 years, 45 had been spent in service to the U.S. Navy. A native of Maryland, Buchanan had resigned his commission when he thought his home state was about to secede. When Maryland failed to secede, Buchanan had tried to withdraw his resignation, only to be declined. It was with some sense of bitterness then that Buchanan had sought employment with the new Confederate Navy, a service with few commands suitable for such a senior officer.

On this day 150 years ago, Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory notified Buchanan that he had been given command of the new ironclad C.S.S. Virginia as well as the various small gunboats of the Confederate James River Squadron. Mallory had extremely high hopes for the new ironclad:

C.S. Navy Department, Richmond, February 24, 1862.

SIR: You are hereby detached from the Office of Orders and Detail and will proceed to Norfolk and report to Flag-Officer Forrest for the command of the naval defenses, James River.

You will hoist your flag on the Virginia, or any other vessel of your squadron, which will, for the present, embrace the Virginia, Patrick Henry, Jamestown, Teaser, Raleigh, and Beaufort.

The Virginia is a novelty in naval construction, is untried, and her powers unknown, and the Department will not give specific orders as to her attack upon the enemy. Her powers as a ram are regarded as very formidable, and it is hoped that you may be able to test them.

Like the bayonet charge of infantry, this mode of attack, while the most distinctive, will commend itself to you in the present scarcity of ammunition. It is one also that may be rendered destructive at night against the enemy at anchor.

Even without guns the ship would be formidable as a ram.

Could you pass Old Point and make a dashing cruise up the Potomac as far as Washington, its effect upon the public mind would be important to the cause.

The condition of our country, and the painful reverses we have just suffered, demand our utmost exertions, and convinced as I am that the opportunity and the means of striking a decided blow for our Navy are now for the first time presented, I congratulate you upon it, and know that your judgment and gallantry will meet all just expectations.

Action—prompt and successful action—now would be of serious importance to our cause, and with my earnest wishes for your success, and for the happiness of yourself, officers, and crew,

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

S. R. MALLORY, Secretary of Navy.

Mallory admitted that the Virginia was "untried" and a "novelty," but he dreamed of the ship steaming up the Potomac to attack Washington, DC. In fact, the Virginia drew too much water to ever sail up the Potomac and was too unseaworthy to leave the sheltered waters of the Chesapeake. The new Confederate sea monster was effectively limited to the deep but sheltered waters of Hampton Roads.

February 23, 1862: Watching for the Merrimack

On this day 150 years ago, Captain Gershom J. Van Brunt wrote to his friend and commanding officer, Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough. Goldsborough was away with the Burnside Expedition, and had been away longer than planned, so Van Brunt was forwarding some fresh clothing for Goldsborough. Van Brunt was the captain of the U.S.S. Minnesota, normally Goldsborough's flagship, but the big, deep-draft steam frigate had been left behind because she could never have made it over the bar at Hatteras Inlet, and because she was needed to watch for the appearance of the C.S.S. Virginia (which Union men persisted in calling the Merrimack).

U.S.S. MINNESOTA,
Hampton Roads, February 23, 1862.

My DEAR GOLDSBOROUGH: I have this moment learned that the Eastern State is to leave for Hatteras this evening, and I only write this to tell you that we are all well on board and anxiously expecting the long-looked-for Merrimack. We are told that she came out of dock on Monday last and is everything they expected to make her; in other words, a complete success. We are all ready, and the sooner she gives us the opportunity to test her strength the better.

I send you your trunk containing clean clothes for you and Case. There have been several arrivals of troops here within a few days (about 4,000), all of which have been immediately sent to Newport News, as General Wool believes a combined attack will be made upon that point.

I send you all the late papers with your mail, which will give you all the glorious news from the West. I think it rather unfortunate that the Western victory came so immediately after yours, as it had a tendency to throw yours in the shade; however, you will give them some more glorious news soon. I see by last accounts from Hatteras that you are again preparing to be off. If there is anything I can do for you here, it will give me pleasure if you will inform me.

I hope Henry [Van Brunt] executed his mission to Washington to your satisfaction.

Please remember me affectionately to Case and Rowan, and believe me, my dear Goldsborough,

Your friend, truly and affectionately,

VAN BRUNT.

Flag-Officer L.M. GOLDSBOROUGH.

The Union squadron in Hampton Roads was built around five large wooden warships. There were two big 50-gun steam frigates, the Minnesota and the Roanoke, which had been near sisters to the Merrimack before that ship was burned, scuttled, and subsequently converted into an ironclad. There were also two large 44-gun sailing frigates, the Congress and the St. Lawrence. These were older ships with smaller guns than the steam frigates, but they were still considered powerful vessels. The St. Lawrence had smashed and sunk the Confederate privateer Petrel with only a partial broadside earlier in the war.

A third sailing warship, the 24-gun sloop-of-war U.S.S. Cumberland, was the fifth major Union vessel in Hampton Roads. The Cumberland had started life as a 50-gun sailing frigate commissioned in 1842. During the years 1855 to 1857, the Cumberland was taken in hand and converted to a sloop-of-war. During this process, the Cumberland had been razeed, cut down by one deck, and rearmed with fewer, but much heavier cannon. Her 32-pounder guns were replaced by 9-inch Dahlgren guns capable of throwing 90-pound shot. Thus, while only rated a sloop, the Cumberland was in fact a more powerful warship than either the Congress or St. Lawrence.

The Union forces in Hampton Roads believed, or rather hoped, that these five ships with a total of 212 heavy guns would be able to contain the C.S.S. Virginia with her ten heavy guns.

February 22, 1862: The Diary of John B. Jones

After returning from Jefferson Davis' second inaugural, Confederate war clerk John B. Jones penned this dismal entry in his diary:

February 22d.—Such a day! The heavens weep incessantly. Capitol Square is black with umbrellas; and a shelter has been erected for the President to stand under.

I walked up to the monument and heard the Inaugural read by the President. He read it well, and seemed self-poised in the midst of disasters, which he acknowledged had befallen us. And he admitted that there had been errors in our war policy. We had attempted operations on too extensive a scale, thus diffusing our powers which should have been concentrated. I like these candid confessions. They augur a different policy hereafter, and we may hope for better results in the future. We must all stand up for our country.

Mr. Hunter has resigned, and taken his place in the Senate.

February 22, 1862: The Inauguration of Jefferson F. Davis

On this day 150 years ago, Jefferson F. Davis was sworn into office as the President of the Confederate States of America. Davis had previously served as the provisional president, but had won overwhelming re-election under the permanent Confederate Constitution and thus was sworn in a second time, delivering his second inaugural address in less than a year:

Jefferson Davis' Second Inaugural Address

Virginia Capitol, Richmond, February 22, 1862

Fellow-Citizens: On this the birthday of the man most identified with the establishment of American independence, and beneath the monument erected to commemorate his heroic virtues and those of his compatriots, we have assembled to usher into existence the Permanent Government of the Confederate States. Through this instrumentality, under the favor of Divine Providence, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary fathers. The day, the memory, and the purpose seem fitly associated.

It is with mingled feelings of humility and pride that I appear to take, in the presence of the people and before high Heaven, the oath prescribed as a qualification for the exalted station to which the unanimous voice of the people has called me. Deeply sensible of all that is implied by this manifestation of the people's confidence, I am yet more profoundly impressed by the vast responsibility of the office, and humbly feel my own unworthiness.

In return for their kindness I can offer assurances of the gratitude with which it is received; and can but pledge a zealous devotion of every faculty to the service of those who have chosen me as their Chief Magistrate.

When a long course of class legislation, directed not to the general welfare, but to the aggrandizement of the Northern section of the Union, culminated in a warfare on the domestic institutions of the Southern States--when the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established.

Whatever of hope some may have entertained that a returning sense of justice would remove the danger with which our rights were threatened, and render it possible to preserve the Union of the Constitution, must have been dispelled by the malignity and barbarity of the Northern States in the prosecution of the existing war. The confidence of the most hopeful among us must have been destroyed by the disregard they have recently exhibited for all the time-honored bulwarks of civil and religious liberty. Bastiles filled with prisoners, arrested without civil process or indictment duly found; the writ of habeas corpus suspended by Executive mandate; a State Legislature controlled by the imprisonment of members whose avowed principles suggested to the Federal Executive that there might be another added to the list of seceded States; elections held under threats of a military power; civil officers, peaceful citizens, and gentle-women incarcerated for opinion's sake--proclaimed the incapacity of our late associates to administer a Government as free, liberal, and humane as that established for our common use.

For proof of the sincerity of our purpose to maintain our ancient institutions, we may point to the Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws enacted under it, as well as to the fact that through all the necessities of an unequal struggle there has been no act on our part to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press. The courts have been open, the judicial functions fully executed, and every right of the peaceful citizen maintained as securely as if a war of invasion had not disturbed the land.

The people of the States now confederated became convinced that the Government of the United States had fallen into the hands of a sectinal majority, who would pervert that most sacred of all trusts to the destruction of the rights which it was pledged to protect. They believed that to remain longer in the Union would subject them to a continuance of a disparaging discrimination, submission to which would be inconsistent with their welfare, and intolerable to a proud people. They therefore determined to sever its bonds and establish a new Confederacy for themselves.

The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it was ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve in spirit, as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition, and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogeneous in interest, in policy, and in feeling.

True to our traditions of peace and our love of justice, we sent commissioners to the United States to propose a fair and amicable settlement of all questions of public debt or property which might be in dispute. But the Government at Washington, denying our right to self-government, refused even to listen to any proposals for a peaceful separation. Nothing was then left to do but to prepare for war.

The first year in our history has been the most eventful in the annals of this continent. A new Government has been established, and its machinery put in operation over an area exceeding seven hundred thousand square miles. The great principles upon which we have been willing to hazard everything that is dear to man have made conquests for us which could never have been achieved by the sword. Our Confederacy has grown from six to thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed memories and material interests, will, I believe, when able to speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South. Our people have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve to perpetuate by arms the right which they could not peacefully secure. A million of men, it is estimated, are now standing in hostile array, and waging war along a frontier of thousands of miles. Battles have been fought, sieges have been conducted, and, although the contest is not ended, and the tide for the moment is against us, the final result in our favor is not doubtful.

The period is near at hand when our foes must sink under the immense load of debt which they have incurred, a debt which in their effort to subjugate us has already attained such fearful dimensions as will subject them to burdens which must continue to oppress them for generations to come.

We too have had our trials and difficulties. That we are to escape them in future is not to be hoped. It was to be expected when we entered upon this war that it would expose our people to sacrifices and cost them much, both of money and blood. But we knew the value of the object for which we struggled, and understood the nature of the war in which we were engaged. Nothing could be so bad as failure, and any sacrifice would be cheap as the price of success in such a contest.

But the picture has its lights as well as its shadows. This great strife has awakened in the people the highest emotions and qualities of the human soul. It is cultivating feelings of patriotism, virtue, and courage. Instances of self-sacrifice and of generous devotion to the noble cause for which we are contending are rife throughout the land. Never has a people evinced a more determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. Upon the first call the men flew to arms, and wifes and mothers send their husbands and sons to battle without a murmur of regret.

It was, perhaps, in the ordination of Providence that we were to be taught the value of our liberties by the price which we pay for them.

The recollections of this great contest, with all its common traditions of glory, of sacrifice and blood, will be the bond of harmony and enduring affection amongst the people, producing unity in policy, fraternity in sentiment, and just effort in war.

Nor have the material sacrifices of the past year been made without some corresponding benefits. If the acquiescence of foreign nations in a pretended blockade has deprived us of our commerce with them, it is fast making us a self-supporting and an independent people. The blockade, if effectual and permanent, could only serve to divert our industry from the production of articles for export and employ it in supplying the commodities for domestic use.

It is a satisfaction that we have maintained the war by our unaided exertions. We have neither asked nor received assistance from any quarter. Yet the interest involved is not wholly our own. The world at large is concerned in opening our markets to its commerce. When the independence of the Confederate States is recognized by the nations of the earth, and we are free to follow our interests and inclinations by cultivating foreign trade, the Southern States will offer to manufacturing nations the most favorable markets which ever invited their commerce. Cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, provisions, timber, and naval stores will furnish attractive exchanges. Nor would the constancy of these supplies be likely to be disturbed by war. Our confederate strength will be too great to tempt aggression; and never was there a people whose interests and principles committed them so fully to a peaceful policy as those of the Confederate States. By the character of their productions they are too deeply interested in foreign commerce wantonly to disturb it. War of conquest they cannot wage, because the Constitution of their Confederacy admits of no coerced association. Civil war there cannot be between States held together by their volition only. The rule of voluntary association, which cannot fail to be conservative, by securing just and impartial government at home, does not diminish the security of the obligations by which the Confederate States may be bound to foreign nations. In proof of this, it is to be remembered that, at the first moment of asserting their right to secession, these States proposed a settlement on the basis of the common liability for the obligations of the General Government.

Fellow-citizens, after the struggle of ages had consecrated the right of the Englishman to constitutional representative government, our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided for the posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression.

The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. At the darkest hour of our struggle the Provisional gives place to the Permanent Government. After a series of successes and victories, which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.

To show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic devotion which made reverse to them but the crucible in which their patriotism was refined.

With confidence in the wisdom and virtue of those who will share with me the responsibility and aid me in the conduct of public affairs; securely relying on the patriotism and courage of the people, of which the present war has furnished so many examples, I deeply feel the weight of the responsibilities I now, with unaffected diffidence, am about to assume; and, fully realizing the inequality of human power to guide and to sustain, my hope is reverently fixed on Him whose favor is ever vouchsafed to the cause which is just. With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to thee, O God, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke thy blessing on my country and its cause.

February 21, 1862: Foote presses for advance to Nashville

While Henry W. Halleck sat in St. Louis, prey to his fears of overreaching, Flag-Officer Andrew H. Foote and Brigadier Ulysses S. Grant wanted to press the pursuit of the retreating Confederates up the Cumberland River to Tennessee's capital, Nashville. On this day 150 years ago, Foote expressed his frustration with Halleck's interference:

PADUCAH, February 21, 1862.

General Grant and myself consider this a good time to move on Nashville. Six mortar boats and two ironclad steamers can precede the troops and shell the forts. We were about moving for this purpose when General Grant, to my astonishment, received a telegram from General Halleck not to let the gunboats go higher than Clarksville; no telegram sent to me.

The Cumberland is in a good stage of water and General Grant and I believe that we can take Nashville.

Please ask General Halleck if we shall do it. We will talk per telegraph.

Captain Phelps representing me in the office, as I am still on crutches.

A.H. FOOTE,
Flag-Officer.

General CULLUM,
Cairo.

Even on crutches, Andrew H. Foote was more aggressive than Henry W. Halleck.

February 20, 1862: The U.S.S. Monitor undergoes trials

Plan for the U.S.S. Monitor

On this day 150 years ago, the U.S.S. Monitor was undergoing trials of her machinery en route from her builders' yard to the navy yard. The little warship was a complete revolution in design, yet, amazingly enough, she had only been ordered on October 4, 1861. Only 139 days had elapsed from the placement of that order to the point where the ship was a reality steaming downriver to join the Union Navy. Chief Engineer Alban C. Stimers of the U.S. Navy, submitted the following report on the Monitor's performance during her trial trip.

NEW YORK, February 20, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to report to you that the ironclad steamer Monitor is at the navy yard.

She left Green Point at 2 p.m. yesterday under steam, but in consequence of the engine builders having set the cut-off valves for backing, instead of her going ahead, we made but slow progress, 40 revolutions per minute of the engines and 3½ knots an hour of the vessel being the maximum performance. The effect of this mistake in the cut-off valves was to admit steam to the cylinder after the piston had performed one half its stroke, so that the consumption of steam was equal to running full stroke; whereas the effect was only one-half what was due to that consumption, without expansion.

There was another difficulty: One of the blower engines had a valve come off its stem, so that during nearly the whole trip only one was in operation.

We came to anchor off the navy yard at 7:30 p.m., and towed her in to the wharf with a towboat this morning.

In the operation of weighing the anchor this morning I found that the windlass will require some alterations to make it efficient. This, I think, must detain us several days, but I have not been able to see Captain Ericsson yet this morning.

From what I have seen thus far I think your estimate of her speed being 6 knots an hour will prove very correct, though Captain Ericsson feels confident of 8.

Aside from the foregoing easily adjusted difficulties, everything was perfectly satisfactory.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, ALBAN C. STIMERS, Superintendent.

There remained some minor glitches to be worked out, but the U.S.S. Monitor was nearing completion, and indeed, this same day her commanding officer received orders to bring the little ship to Hampton Roads, Virginia as soon as possible. It remains amazing to me how quickly this new warship was built and placed into active service in just a matter of weeks.