February 7, 1864 – Admiral Dahlgren Attacks Jacksonville

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.

February 7, 1864 – Admiral Dahlgren Attacks Jacksonville 

Historical Event:  On February 7, 1864 Admiral John Dahlgren and five powerful Union warships supported the landing at Jacksonville by General Truman Seymour and 7,000 Union troops.  The admiral’s stated purpose was three-fold:  to close the port to Blockade Runners, to free and recruit Black men for the army and navy, and to “engineer Florida’s return” to the Union.

The troops were borne up the St. John’s River by USS Ottawa and USS Norwich.  The USS Mahaska, USS Water Witch and USS Dai Ching escorted and provided fire support for the operation. The Union move would culminate in the Battle of  Olustee, a railroad depot 50 miles southwest of Jacksonville.  There on February 20 Confederate General Joseph Finnegan and his 5,000 men thoroughly defeated the Union, forcing Seymour to retire upon Jacksonville – thus ending the campaign to “engineer Florida’s return” to the Union.

Game Connection:  Admiral John Dahlgren is represented in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas by USN Card 31 – John Dahlgren.    Due to the scale of the map, Jacksonville itself is not individually represented, but is included in the St. Augustine site.   The USS Ottawa was an Unadilla-class “90 Day Gunboat;”  the lead vessel for which that class is named is represented by USN Card 17 – USS Unadilla.

Union amphibious assaults on Confederate ports are a major part of the Northern player’s strategy, allowing the Federals to turn the sea into a front line, from which to strike the Confederacy.   Naval forces must be present to allow the army to land, as they must clear the port of Confederate warship and can duel with any Confederate defending the port. Taking ports not only reduces places for Blockade Runners to unload cargo, but also hurts Confederate production – and moves the North one step closer to restoring the Union.

November 15, 1863: Five crewmen on USS Lehigh Each Earn Medal of Honor

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, 

November 15, 1863: Five crewmen on USS Lehigh Each Earn Medal of Honor

Historical Event:  On this day in 1863, the mighty Federal ironclad USS Lehigh was driven aground off Sullivan’s Island by heavy fire from Confederate batteries at Fort Moultrie in Charleston Harbor.  Thanks to the courage and dedication of her crew, and the aid of the captain and crew of USS Nahant, the ironclad, though battered, was rescued and lived to fight another day.  Five members of her crew received the Medal of Honor for their courage under fire in that action.

Game Connection:     The USS Lehigh is represented in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas by a special counter and card (USN Card 22).  Ironclads play a vital role in Union attacks on fortified ports, engaging both Rebel batteries and Confederate warships.

No ship in U.S. Naval history has had more crew members receive the Medal of Honor for a single action than the ironclad monitor USS Lehigh.  Among the five was one with a name he had – and did – live up to:  Seaman Horatio Nelson Young.

When John Dahlgren (USN Card 31) took over command of the Union the fleet opposite Charleston from Samuel Francis DuPont (USN Card 54) in the summer of 1863, he brought with him an exceptionally powerful new ironclad monitor: the USS Lehigh (USN Card 22).  Mounting a 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbore and an 8-inch (or 150-pound) Parrott Rifle inside a turret protected with 11 inches of armor, USS Lehigh was one of the lead ships in Dahlgren’s repeated attempts to knock out Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, two of the most important of the man guardians of Charleston Harbor.  

The ironclad engaged with Forts Sumter and Moultrie many times between September 1 and late November, including engaging in an almost daily duel over a three week period.  On November 15 the ship was so badly pounded that she was driven aground – and it was for freeing her while under deadly fire the next morning that Seaman Young and four other crewman were honored with the nation’s highest decoration.  The sailors risked their lives under fire in a small boat that brought hawsers over from USS Nahant – hawsers that were repeatedly cut by Rebel shot and shell.

 Sent back to Port Royal for repairs, the Medal of Honor ship returned to duty off Charleston in January, where she continued to pound away at Rebel batteries and forts until the city succumbed to Sherman’s advancing armies.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders – and their “Yankee Guns”

 Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  Those ships carried a wide variety of weaponry, but among the most popular, at least on the Union side, were the storied Dahlgren smoothbores.  These mighty weapons which could hurl a 130-pound shot almost a mile were the mainstay of the fleet, and along with Parrot Rifles and other big cannons are represented in the game by the “Yankee Guns” of USN Card Number 3.

The inventor of the Dahlgren gun is also in the game: Captain (later Admiral) John Dahlgren,  (USN Card 31, which bears his name), as are many of the ships he armed and later commanded.  Dahlgren chaffed at the bit for years, being told he was too valuable in Washington and was a desk not blue water sailor – a jibe he proved wrong after taking over the South Atlantic Squadron from Samuel Francis DuPont (USN Card 54) off Charleston in 1863.   Although known as the “father of naval ordnance” he showed himself every bit the sea salt of his contemporaries, becoming one of the first five admirals of the U.S. Navy.  (David Glasgow Farragut – who appears on the “Damn The Torpedoes” card (USN Card 1) was the first, and DuPont, as well as David Dixon Porter – who appears on USN Card 2 were among the others in the first crop of those elevated to flag officer status).   Each of these admirals, by the way, owed their successes at least in part to Dahlgren the guns he invented, produced and saw installed on their ships.

September 6, 1863 – Rebels Evacuate Battery Wagner

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, 

September 6, 1863 –   Rebels Evacuate Battery Wagner

            Historical Event:   On this day in 1863 Confederate General Pierre Toussaint Beauregard bowed to the inevitable and ordered the evacuation of Battery Wagner on Morris Island, long viewed by both sides as the key to his defense of Charleston.  The final decision was made following an intense close-in 36-hour bombardment by Union naval forces under Rear Admiral John Dahlgren. The fort’s commander reported that this “terrible bombardment” had killed more than 100 of the defenders and left “nearly all guns disabled.”  He added in his report to Beauregard that “repetition of today’s fire will make the fort almost a ruin,” and in an obvious plea for permission to withdraw asked “is it desirable to sacrifice the garrison?”

            Battery Wagner had withstood numerous previous bombardments and attacks – included the famous if ill-fated charge in July led by the 54^th Massachusetts, which was depicted in the movie Glory.    

            The fall of Morris Island emboldened Dahlgren to send the ironclads USS Weehawken and USS Patapsco to bombard nearby Sullivan’s Island and Fort Sumter – whose defenses had been so reduced by the Union Navy and siege batteries as it was left with but one working cannon – which was fired but once a day in salute at the morning flag raising.  On the night of September 8-9 Dahlgren sent a force of 500 sailors and marines in small boats to storm the ruins – but they were repulsed by 350 defenders.

            Game Connection:  As it was in the Civil War, Charleston is a vital port for Blockade Runners and is the lynchpin of the Confederacy’s Atlantic Coast in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas.  Confederate General Beauregard is represented in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas by CSN Card 88, and his engineering talents that proved so vital to defense of Charleston are depicted in the card’s ability to place an additional Battery free of charge on the turn the card is played.  His nemesis in 1863, Rear Admiral John Dahlgren, is represented by two cards: USN Card 31 – which bears his name, and USN Card 3 – “Yankee Guns,” homage to his talents in designing, producing and using the Union’s big guns – some of which also bore his name.

            Destroying Confederate Batteries in preparation for an Assault is one of the primary jobs of the Union Navy in the game, just as was in the war, and many of Dahlgren’s ships are represented in the game, perhaps most notable among them USN Card 26 the USS New Ironsides – first in a new class of warship, and one which historian Shelby Foote says at the time was “the most powerful battleship in the world.”

USS Powhattan: From Porter to Dahlgren, From First Shots to Last

The Ships of Rebel Raiders    - The Men o’War

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

USS Powhattan: From Porter to Dahlgren, From First Shots to Last

When Fort Pickens in Florida was threatened by Secessionists in early April, it was the powerful USS Powhattan (USN Card 21)  which was dispatched to ward them off.  President Lincoln tried to recall her from that mission and send her instead to show the flag at Fort Sumter, but Lt. David Dixon Porter set sail before the change in orders could reach him.   That was probably fortunate for him and his ship,  for although this modern sidewheel steam frigate 16 guns – including ten 9-inch and one 11-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and five 12-pounders – it would have been no match for the massed batteries in Charleston Harbor – guns which would pulverize Sumter that month and ward off fleets of ironclads over the next four years.

Porter (USN Card 2) went on to other fronts (notably commanding the mortar boats at New Orleans, as depicted on his card for Rebel Raiders),  while USS Powhattan went on without him to Charleston, where she chased down blockade runners (catching several prizes) and battered the defenses of Fort Fisher over Christmas, 1864.  Her guns later supported the landing and assault which led to Fisher’s capture three weeks later.

After the war, USS Powhattan took on another Dahlgren – Rear Admiral John Dahlgren, the designer of the guns she carried.  He chose her as his flagship for the South Pacific Squadron, and sailed aboard her to Valparaiso to guard American shipping and interests during the Chincha Islands War.  Dahlgren appears in Rebel Raiders twice – once on a card with his name (USN 31) and as the inspiration for USN Card 3 “Yankee Guns.”

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Ironclads

Part IV– The Union Ironclads :   USS Passaic – The Giant Monitor

First in a class that would bear her name, USS Passaic (USN Card 28) was one of the few Navy ships – and perhaps the only ironclad – which President Abraham Lincoln himself visited.  A week later she and the USS Monitor (USN Card 19) were caught in a storm off Cape Hatteras.  She survived only by bailing, pumping and throwing overboard all of her shot;  USS Monitor was less fortunate, foundering and going to her grave beneath the stormy waves.

With her mighty guns (an 11-inch and a 15-inch Dahlgren) the USS Passaic was a powerful addition to Samuel Francis DuPont’s (USN Card 54) South Atlantic Blockading Squadron of Charleston.  In addition to capturing a blockade runner, the outgoing cotton-laden Glide,  (a rarity for the lumber ironclads) she took part in DuPont’s abortive April 1863 assault on Charleston Harbor.  After repairs she rejoined the squadron and was chosen by its new commander, John Dahlgren (USN Card 31) as his flagship.  He directed the attack on Fort Moultrie from her pilot house.  When her sister ship USS Lehigh (USN Card 22) was driven aground (see my blog post from yesterday) the USS Passaic offered covering fire and help pull her to safety.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Ironclads

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

  

Part IV– The Union Ironclads :   USS Lehigh- The Medal of Honor Ironclad

No ship in U.S. Naval history has had more crew members receive the Medal of Honor for a single action than the ironclad monitor USS Lehigh.  Among the five was one with a name he had – and did – live up to:  Seaman Horatio Nelson Young.

When John Dahlgren (USN Card 31) took over command of the Union the fleet opposite Charleston from Samuel Francis DuPont (USN Card 54) in the summer of 1863, he brought with him an exceptionally powerful new ironclad monitor: the USS Lehigh (USN Card 22).  Mounting a 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbore and an 8-inch (or 150-pound) Parrott Rifle inside a turret protected with 11 inches of armor, USS Lehigh was one of the lead ships in Dahlgren’s repeated attempts to knock out Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie, two of the most important of the man guardians of Charleston Harbor.  

The ironclad engaged with Sumter many times between September 1 and late November, including engaging in an almost daily duel over a three week period.  On November 16 the ship was so badly pounded that she was driven aground – and it was for freeing her while under deadly fire that Seaman Young and four other crewman were honored with the nation’s highest decoration.

(See the photo below, courtesy of the Naval Historical Society, which shows the numerous dents on her turret from that fight).

Sent back to Port Royal for repairs, the Medal of Honor ship returned to duty off Charleston in January, where she continued to pound away at Rebel batteries and forts until the city succumbed to Sherman’s advancing armies.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Ironclads

Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

Part IV– The Union Ironclads :   USS Roanoke  The “Acme” Ironclad – A great idea that worked – in theory

“Great ideas that work – in theory” is the motto emblazed on the crates of the Acme Company from which Wile E Coyote of Looney Tunes orders strange devices in his never-ending efforts to catch The Roadrunner.  If Acme made an ironclad, it would have been the USS Roanoke (USN Card 20 in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas).

Originally built as a steam frigate in 1855 and successful in catching blockade runners early in the war, she was chosen for a pilot conversion program and rebuilt not just as an ironclad but as a massive triple-turreted ocean-going ironclad.  The decision to do so was made by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles (USN Card 29), whom Chief of Steam Engineering Benjamin F. Isherwood convinced 10 days after the Monitor vs Virginia (USN Card 19 vs CSN Card 70) clash that reconstructing USS Roanoke into a seagoing ironclad would be faster and cheaper than designing a new vessel from the keel up.

USS Roanoke was the first ship to ever have a third turret.  Each had a pair of matching guns (Dahlgren 15 and 11 inch guns and 150-pounder Parrot rifles (Yankee Guns - USN Card 3 and John Dahlgren, USN Card 31). Each turret had 11 inches of armor.  She had belt armor as thick as 4.5 inches in some parts, plus 1.5 inches of deck armor.  This added so much weight, however, that she displaced about 6,400 tons – half again what she had displaced as steam frigate (and she was a big, modern frigate to begin with – and when initially launched sank and had to be refloated).

As the Brooklyn Navy Yard neared completion of the project, the Navy decided to add a ram – making it not only an ocean-going ironclad monitor, but one that could also ram its prey.   Unfortunately, all of this weight made her too slow to do so – and while she could briefly push ahead in good conditions at 8.5 knots, her best sustainable speed was only 7 knots – slower than she had been as a steam frigate.

In addition, the weight made the ship so unsteady that as her captain lamented in order to fire the guns he had to “secure them with pieces of timber to prevent them fetching away.” (Three of the six guns dismounted because of the recoil the first time they were fired). When the guns fired, moreover, the ship would roll so dangerously as to “preclude the possibility of firing her guns at sea.”

The turrets were also so heavy that, even with additional boilers added just to power them, they took five minutes to make a full rotation.

Having built a massive monster that was slow, unsteady, unsafe and useless in combat, the Navy sent her to Hampton Roads to defend the harbor, where she sat out the remainder of the war.

The Ships of Rebel Raiders - The Ironclads

 Rebel Raiders on the High Seas is a strategic game of the Civil War which focuses on the role of the navies on the rivers, along the coasts and on the oceans.  While most ships are represented by generic counters for Ironclads, Blockade Runners, Gunboats, Screw Sloops and, of course Raiders, there are cards and corresponding counters for many individual vessels.  This series presents those cards and offers a glimpse into the history of these storied ships.

 Part IV– The Union Ironclads : USS Monitor – Pulling Its Punches vs. CSS Virginia

The ironclad USS Monitor is of course represented in Rebel Raiders  (by USN Card 19) as is its opponent in the classic duel at Hampton Roads, CSS Virginia (CSN Card 70).

So much has been written on those ships and their epic if inconclusive battle, but what is often lacking from accounts is WHY that duel was so inconclusive.  The answer, as historian James McPherson points out in his recent book, War Upon the Waters, is that neither ship was properly prepared to fight the other.

The Union Navy distrusted John Ericsson, who designed and built the USS Monitor, because in 1844 a gun he had invented exploded during a trial on the USS Princeton – killing the secretaries of BOTH the Army and the Navy.  When Ericsson told them the pair of 11-inch Dahlgrens aboard his new warship could handle a powder charge of 45 pounds they balked – and issued an order that no more than 15 pounds of powder be used.   As a result, the 170-pound projectiles fired by the USS Monitor’s guns hit with far less force – merely cracking the armor on the CSS Virginia, rather than punching through it  (as later tests with a full charge demonstrated).

The CSS Virginia, however, was equally unprepared for the fight – instead of iron bolts or solid shot, she loaded up with only explosive shell – the perfect weapon to blow apart and set afire the wooden warships of the type she had encountered the previous day.   When these shells struck the Union ironclad, they did only superficial damage (except for fragments that entered through viewing slits and other openings (one such fragment temporarily blinded  USS Monitor’s commander, Lt.  John Worden who was peering through the slit in the pilothouse when it hit).

This day 150 years ago in Rebel Raiders’ History

-Dedicated to Civil War episodes, battles, people and ships that also appear in my game, GMT’s Rebel Raiders on the High Seas,  

July 18, 1863 – Glory: Admiral Dahlgren & the 54^th Mass. at Battery Wagner

            Historical Event:  The gallant charge of the 54^th Massachusetts, so poignantly portrayed in the movie Glory, took part on this day in 1863.  Rear Admiral John Dahlgren sent his ironclads and gunboats of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron close in to support the attack on Battery Wagner on Morris Island in Charleston Harbor.  His ships  at times came as he notes in his memoirs within 300 yards of the fort.   

            To support the attack Dahlgren sent in ten ships:  six ironclads (USS Montauk, USS Ironsides, USS Kaatskill, USS Nantucket, USS Weehawken and USS Patapsco) and four gunboats (USS Paul Jones, USS Ottawa, USS Wissahickon and USS Seneca).

            Here, from his Memoirs, is Admiral Dahlgren’s account of what he witnessed that day:

            “The ironclads battered Wanger almost out of shape, and in the afternoon of that day the flag monitor ‘Montauk’ lay only three hundred yards from the sea-face of the work; not a gun was fired from it; not a head visible to my glass as I stood with other officers outside, watching the first symptom of renewed resistance.

            “Our column came up, but it was too dark to discern objects from the vessels, and after a fierce and resolute effort the column fell back with a loss of 1,500 men.

            “The assault could derive no aid from the fire of our guns, because it was impossible to distinguish our troops from the enemy.”   (Italics are Dahlgren’s).

            Game Connection:    John Dahlgren, one of the first admirals ever created for the U.S. Navy, has his own card (USN Card 31) in Rebel Raiders on the High Seas, and the revolutionary weapons he created (among them the Dahlgren gun) are also represented (USN Card 3 – Yankee Guns).  Both are important cards for a Union player who will need to send his fleets of ironclads and gunboats to destroy the batteries at Charleston to help clear the way for an assault – hopefully one that will end more fortuitously than the gallant but doomed charge made by the 54^th on this day, 150 years ago.