Seaman Benjamin H. Gray

[CSA Today]

Benjamin H. Gray enlisted at age twelve for service as a seaman in the Confederate Navy, Wilmington Squadron. Wilmington was an important center of naval activity to defend the Cape Fear region, and where three ironclads were eventually built: CSS North Carolina, CSS Raleigh, and the unfinished CSS Wilmington.

Gray was assigned in the Spring of 1864 to the ironclad ram CSS Albemarle, constructed ...at Edwards Ferry, Near Scotland Neck. Under command of Captain John W. Cooke, he served as a powder boy carrying bags of gunpowder from the lower magazine to the gun deck. Gray was following a tradition of black crewman aboard Confederate fighting vessels. Launched at Charleston in August 1862, the CSS Chicora's crew included three enlisted Negroes. Dr. Edward Smith, dean of American Studies at American University, estimated that by February, 1865, 1150 black seamen were in service in the Confederate Navy which amounted to about 20% of total naval personnel.