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.

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 Gunboats

 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 II – The Gunboats: The Mosquito Fleets Swatted:  Du Pont, Port Royal & Roanoke Island

“The Mosquito Fleet” (CSN Card 81) represents the rag-tag little squadrons the South hastily cobbled together to defend their ports from the Union Navy. While Montgomery at Memphis and “Old Buck” at Mobile put up grand if doomed fights (see my blog postings for July 15 and 16, respectively), the Mosquito Fleets at Port Royal and Roanoke Island never even had a chance.

The term “Mosquito Fleet” dates from the Mexican War, when the U.S. Navy formed a “Mosquito Division” of steam gunboats for coastal patrols and close in operations around Vera Cruz.   Its first known application in the Civil War came when a Union naval officer spied Commander Josiah Tatnall’s Rebel Squadron during the attack by the Navy in Port Royal Sound on November 7, 1861.  Tatnall, ironically, had commanded one of the ships of the “Mosquito Division” off Vera Cruz (USS Spitfire).

For the operation against Port Royal Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont  (represented in Rebel Raiders by USN Card 54) had amassed what historian James McPherson in his new book War Upon the Waters describes as “the largest fleet in American history to that time: seventeen warships with 157 guns, twenty-five colliers and supply ships, and thirty-three troop transports carrying 12,000 soldiers and 600 marines.”

(In order to place Du Pont on at least equal footing with the major general commanding the Army units, President Lincoln authorized his promotion to the rank of “Flag Officer,”  thus making Du Pont, the senior captain in the Navy, America’s first de facto admiral - he would eventually be promoted to rear admiral in July 1862.

Commander Josiah Tatnall had far, far less to defend Port Royal.  His small flotilla of six ships, most converted tugs, mounted less than a dozen guns among them – and weak guns at that.   Du Pont pealed off five of his gunboats to drive them back up the Beaufort River while his main battle fleet pounded Forts Walker and Beauregard into submission.

Three months later, another Mosquito Fleet tried to oppose the Union landings at Roanoke Island.  Captain William F. Lynch led eight small gunboats against Commander Stephen Rowan’s 13 much larger Union gunboats.  (These were part of Commander Louis M. Goldsborough’s flotilla that was supporting the landing by General Ambrose Burnside on the island).

Lynch sought to slow the Yankees with sunken hulks (similar to the Hulks, Rafts and Chains of CSN Card 110).  He fought valiantly, but briefly, and after one of his ships was sunk Lynch began to retire from the unequal contest.  Rowan, however, was not about to let him retreat.  He signaled his ships to “Dash at the enemy” and “dash” the Yankee gunboats did, chasing the Rebels up to Elizabeth City and the Dismal Swamp Canal, sinking six of the seven retreating Rebels in the process – thus in effecting “swatting” the mosquitoes by the very swamp from which they had spawned.