Drewry's Bluff

[JPK Huson 1863]

I know I've seen another photo similar to this one of sunken obstructions at Drewry's Bluff, do I remember this one particularly?

As ever, I like putting photos together with the History involved, super learning tools although fatally intriguing enough to send you down rabbit holes of side-tracking all the heck all over the place. It's just really, really helpful. These obstacles would have been faced by the ships which steamed down to tackle Fort Darling's guns, seems amazing to see them in a quiet river.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Oh, and one more. I think this is one which has been shown frequently?

I just came across a website on another ship I was trying to track down, which apparently ended it's career as a sunken obstacle elsewhere. This does make me wonder which ships would have met their fate being used this way here, who would we be viewing?

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Ah. I did see where Donna mentioned one of the ships I'd been thinking about, the CSS Kanawha- Confederate Hospital ship sunk as an obstruction. Must have been a tough decision for the navy with that, as far as I can see the Confederacy was a little low on hospital ships. There are a few of these 'sunken wreck' photos elsewhere which identify the ship now under water, an ignoble way to have to fight the war, huh?

 

[Blessmag]

Oh, and one more. I think this is one which has been shown frequently?

I just came across a website on another ship I was trying to track down, which apparently ended it's career as a sunken obstacle elsewhere. This does make me wonder which ships would have met their fate being used this way here, who would we be viewing?

View attachment 15139

I'd like this one in color-HINT Zuzah

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Yes, I think about that all the time, with a lot of these old photos. I'm personally pretty visual, so tend to do that thing where I'll find photos then look up the information, it seems to stick better for me. Boy, when you bump into them colorized it's a little shocking how present-day it all becomes.

 

[Michael O'Neil]

Hi JPK.

If you ever chance across an image of the Port Royal I'd much appreciate you posting it up. My ancestor was on her during the Drewry's Bluff engagement and I've posted the letters he wrote about the expedition elsewhere. I've got the illustrations one of which you've included and I've scoured all the photos I can find of the James River in case she's in the background with what I reckon is only one inconclusive possibility in the distance.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Hi Michael, and sure! That's awfully cool, to have those. ( I have a grgrgrandfather, 6th US Cav, battles I'd kind of salivate over WITH horses, gee whiz, and the 2 letters we have? Talks about how much he missed pot pie and how much the 'fellows' kick up when they go to town. Pot pie- from a trooper who had seen places like Brandy Station and Fairfield. * sigh * ). I'm also looking for the transport the 50th PA almost perished on, rounding Hatteras, can't find her anywhere, so do know how you feel.

It's become an addiction, finding photos, frequently not listed as ships or navy. Also frequently misnamed, which makes belonging here awfully handy. Talk about an education and people who don't mind annoying questions.

I'll tell you who might have one ( ' Port Royal' is like anything containing Grant, in a search engine, plays Holy Heck in it because there are so many photos of the PLACE, ' Port Royal ). Robert Gray has one hundred bazillion photos, and Andy Hall seems to always be able to 'poof' know exactly where to go to find something obscure. Oh, and Ted posts an awful lot, not specific to the Navy, just seems to REALLY navigate CW photographic sites well. I personally think she sounds familiar, will go poke around in my still messy documents.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

It sounds as if the Port Royal would have looked a lot like the Mendota? There are an awful lot of photos of her, if you tool around looking at gunboats, gee whiz- it does just make you wonder if it always was THE Medota always, always in front of the camera every, single time a photographer pointed the camera at water? There's a thread somewhere on how often the Tyler has been misidentified, I'm guessing it's a common affliction.

Here's a gunboat of that class ( I think? ) tied up at Charleston, not identified.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Oh, and this is off Mound City. The Port Royal was all the heck all over the place, but you probably know that. It's just that you never, ever know where you might come across some group she's be part of. She did a lot of coastal patrol, what must have been some yawningly awful Blockade duty, participated in actions from Florida to Virginia- really active.

The only ship which was named in this photo was the first complete ship on the left, ' Key West', the others not a clue. I think I might not be seeing any side wheels, but of course am not very adept at spotting outlines. Someday.

,

 

[Michael O'Neil]

Hi JPK - thanks for the replies.

Believe me I really do appreciate how lucky I was finding my ancestor's pension - 100 pages of genealogical gold including his letters. As for an image of the Port Royal, I was convinced there would be one given all the images taken on the James River but no joy so far only illustrations and on them the only thing that seems to differentiate her from similar ships is a deeper grating below the main side wheel cowlings. I have done a bit of research on her and in the Statistical Data of U.S. Ships and Wiki she's given as (all feet) - Length 209 x Beam 35, however her launch info in the NY Newspapers prior to having engines and machinery fitted is given as Length 205 x Beam 38 so take your pick? I did try and establish her final fate but couldn't pin it down - see post elsewhere:

http://www.civilwartalk.com/threads/auction-of-ships-boston-october-3-1866.70818/#post-429316

The Mendota and Agawam are both given as Length 205 x Beam 35 and are by far the closest in design and as you said it's nearly always the Mendota named in the images. Even on Wiki the image for the Agawam is in fact the same image as the Mendota so yet again take your pick? As for the one inconclusive possibility a link to the image is here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gunboat_on_James_River_-_NARA_-_528993.jpg

Somehow the side wheel cowlings look wider than those on the Mendota and Agawam raising the possibility that it's not one of these two? The ship in the foreground is the Aroostook - the same as your images earlier. As for your wreck images, I've seen somewhere that the blockages were the CSS ships Virginia, Patrick Henry and Jamestown but don't quote me on that because I'd need to do some digging through files for credits.

Finally as regards this campaign I did suggest the possibility that there was another ship involved based upon the cover of the Harper's Weekly which show 6 ships and not the 5 usually mentioned tied in with what my ancestor said in one of his letters - not sure which is the Port Royal but see post:

http://www.civilwartalk.com/threads...-was-another-boat-involved.81643/#post-608268

And you're definitely right about the search term "Port Royal" - I always try and add "gunboat", "steamer", etc just to try and reduce the number of hits.

PS another great image site is Shorpy.com - you're allowed to download the hi-res files and get great quality 10 x 8 prints.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Ha! That's an awesome photo, thanks! Also thanks for the reply, although you have no idea how often this kind of thing sends me down 7 rabbit holes of satisfying investigations. I don't know enough about how ships were assigned where, but given that the photo does contain the Aroostook, doesn't it just make sense that the Port Royal would have been THE gunboat sidewheeler still in company, the same one as at Fort Darling?

Yes, I tend to also add search options most specific to folks who know what they're talking about, like sometimes the full description of what the Port Royal was, in the off chance some professional WAS discussing her in a post somewhere. I'm a flat 'enthusiast' ( Mike's description of who is who here in CivilWarTalk is perfect, we all fit somewhere, I choose that since just can't lay a claim to the others at this point.....) , you learn a vast amount anyway, entering words in search engines this way.

There always seem to be contentions 150 years later, on various points regarding 'whatever', during the war- the eyewitness accounts written at the TIME ( as opposed to the men swapping letters in newspapers post wars ) I'd have to feel would be pretty darn conclusive. There's a hugely helpful member here whose ancestor served with Henry Walke on the Carondelet- gosh, another gold mine, can't imagine! I'll stalk those threads also, just can't beat them word for word, for a ring side seat to History. Anyway, if your ancestor wrote about 6 ships, there would be 6 ships.

Ok, so armed with the information on which ships have what specs, ( which I had to go look up, also helpful, do not, however, have it down yet ) I'll keep an eye peeled, it'll actually be one of those things which becomes a 'thing', since yes, there just plain SHOULD be one. That much service, attached where she was, for THAT long- make zero sense the Port Royal isn't somewhere, albeit incorrectly identified or not identified at all.

 

[Michael O'Neil]

I'll keep looking too - if there's one thing I am then it's persistent!

As for my ancestor's letters he didn't actually state how many ships were involved however there was a line in his letter dated 12 May 1862 in which he says "In connection with the Galena and Chippewa ascended the James River within forty miles of Richmond." So he says Chippewa which isn't mentioned anywhere in the official records for this campaign so why would he have included her especially when writing only days later? It was this reference in addition to the Harper's Weekly cover that got me thinking maybe there was another ship involved? I appreciate he might have made a genuine mistake and you shouldn't expect the cover to be 'photographically' correct but it seems odd to show 6 ships? Anyhow I reckon I made a genuinely plausible case for the Chippewa's involvement from her log between 30th April and 11th May 1862.

As for my ancestor he was transferred to the hospital ship Ben Morgan in Hampton Roads and it was on board her that he died. I've tried to find an image of her but with no joy also but I did find a good painting done of her when she was the Mediator as she was before being re-named.

Anyhow we live to search haha!

PS if you ever need to do any NY research a great site for newspapers is the Old Fulton site - an awesome piece of work and you can have great fun with search terms!!!

http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

 

[John Hartwell]

Google has this rather cartoonish depiction of USS Port Royal at the bombardment of Ft. Darling:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Bombardment_of_Fort_Darling,_Drewry's_Bluff,_Virginia,_15_May_1862.jpg

And another here:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h82000/h82580k.jpg

Cheers!

jno

 

[AndyHall]

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

So intriguing, thank you. Have a question, how were the sunken ships then raised to remove them? Sheer manpower, dragging from the banks? I'm just thinking of the dynamics involved, hoisting something that heavy from the surface, right? Two ships, working together with the sunken ship between them? I hate to be dense, have just been wondering. I've had to haul a large, wet dog ( You don't want to know. Not the rocket scientist of the dog kingdom. ) over the edge of your basic motor boat, smaller scale of course, same principal. You tip, even if awkwardly trying to keep weight in the center.

Ha! Live to search- funny! Thanks for the NY link, I KEEP bumping into that maddening Masons site, which takes you down a bazillion rabbit holes of pretty much nothing when you type what you're looking for as far as NY and Civil War in the search engine. The only way to avoid it is to have specific sites- the Yates County is very good, and growing from the looks of it. The only drawback to it is that if you wish to contribute photos yourself, say, of your own ancestors, they have really stringent requiements. Understandable of course, I'm just not able to meet them, so my Yates County CW ancestors can't make an appearance.

Well, and now there's another couple of ships to add to the list of elusive photos. Oh dear.....

 

[AndyHall]

So intriguing, thank you. Have a question, how were the sunken ships then raised to remove them? Sheer manpower, dragging from the banks? I'm just thinking of the dynamics involved, hoisting something that heavy from the surface, right? Two ships, working together with the sunken ship between them?

All of the above, plus dynamite.

Usually the goal is clear the obstruction to navigation, which is not necessarily the same thing as removing all the parts of the wrecked vessels. Blasting to disarticulate and flatten what's left might have been part of the process. But mostly it would be working with divers and barges with heavy lifting gear to rip out the big stuff and scatter the rest. If these wrecks weren't removed until 1871, six years after the end of the war, there would have been little of value besides iron scrap.

 

[AndyHall]

Jamestown was a very large civilian coastal steamer, about 250 feet long on deck, and 1,300 tons. She was apparently a sister ship (or near as dammit) to another seized steamer, C.S.S. Patrick Henry (above). After being renamed C.S.S. Thomas Jefferson, Jamestown participation in the actions around Hampton Roads in March/April 1862, before being sunk as an obstruction at Drewry's Bull on May 15, 1862.

Of particular note is the mention in Silverstone that Jamestown had two vertical beam engines, of 50-inches diameter and 10-foot stroke. This description matches the visible parts of the wreck, that show a pair of walking beams, one for each engine, close together between the wheels (below).

__________

The nearer set of wheels are from Northampton, a much smaller, a 405-ton steamer launched at Baltimore in 1860 and originally registered at Norfolk.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

SO wierd to look at the model, then this high res ( ? ) shot, makes the photo look like someone's model also- so clear! I'm really chuffed with myself, following all that, thank you. Progress and threatens to be awfully interesting progress. Boy, for all that's above water then, any sailor would know there's a LOT of ship remaining as obstuction underneath, ok. It's also extremely odd to think of these perfectly fine ships of war being put to use as a whole lot of rocks, pretty much. One day an expensive, beautifully maintained and dangerous war machine, the next just moldering fish houses. I'd love to read some thoughts on what some of the men thought as those ships went down.

I'd been assuming a lot of the 'obstructions' were raised rather than cleared, dynamite being the difference, huh? Interested folks would have brought home some fresh fish for dinner those evenings, there's an underwater slaughter. So it sounds like the sucken ships were cleared and/or scattered only as far as would have been required to allow traffic to pass unimpeded, there's no doubt some debris still buried down in the silt of the passing years? Boy, dynamite usage was previously pretty unsupervised, wasn't it? My grandfather had a sign company in Tamaqua, PA. He liked large booms, Dad has hysterical stories of Grandpop overdoing the dynamite when blowing holes to erect billboards- still some impressive craters around the edges of Tamaqua thanks to unregulated dynamite and Grandpop. Scuse the off-thread, can never hear 'dynamite' without thinking about Grandpop, wonder how many people can say that?

Funny, hadn't thought of divers from 150 years ago, well, less of course, but still- there's an intrepid lot of folks, the sole airline that fragile thing trailing off to the surface. Must have been kind of cool, though, to be one of the early divers, if one had the stuffing to climb into one of those suits and tromp around the bottom of a body of water.

 

[Mark F. Jenkins]

Wasn't about those ships, but from a one-time sailor's perspective on the sinking of some other ships for a similar purpose (the so-called "Stone Fleet" that was sunk, intending to block the channels of Southern harbors... unsuccessfully)... Herman Melville's poem "Stone Fleet."

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Ha! Exactly, thank you! Trust Melville to tug the heartstrings allowably, for men! That's a heck of a poem, thank you.