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re: 150 years ago this day...
Posted on 11/17/13 at 5:42 am to BadLeroyDawg
Posted on 11/17/13 at 5:42 am to BadLeroyDawg
Tuesday, 17 November 1863
There had been several attempts to tackle the Western jewel of the Confederate States of America, the state and former republic of Texas, but none so far had succeeded very well or lasted very long. Another such strike was made today, and this time considerably greater force was being employed. The USS Monongahela was the escort gunboat for a fleet of troop transporters. They, in turn, were carrying more than a thousand Federal soldiers as they traveled toward Aransas Pass, Texas. The immediate target was the Confederate garrison guarding this pass from Mustang Island. After a preliminary softening-up barrage from the ships' guns, an amphibious landing was made. The defenders, trapped, had no solution but to surrender, and the first day went well for the Union.
The USS Mystic, under Acting Master William Wright, assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, seized the schooner Emma D. off Yorktown, Virginia. The same day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox wrote Rear Admiral S.P. Lee praising the effectiveness of the squadron: "I congratulate you upon the captures off Wilmington. Nine steamers have been lost to the Rebels in a short time, all due to the 'fine spirit' of our people engaged in the blockade. It is a severe duty and well maintained and Jeff Davis pays us a higher compliment than our own people when he declares that there is but one port in 3500 miles (recollect that the whole Atlantic front of Europe is but 2900 miles) through which they can get in supplies."
Nearly a hundred prisoners captured by General William Woods Averill in his engagement with the Confederates at Pocahontas County, Virginia, arrived at Wheeling, West Virginia this morning, and were committed to the Athenaeum. There was scarcely a whole suit of clothes in the party, and many of them were without shoes. Judging from the fact that a fall of snow was lately announced in the vicinity of where the fight took place, these shoeless Rebels must have suffered terribly from the cold.
The schooner Joseph L. Gerity, on a voyage from Matamoras to New York, with a cargo of cotton and six passengers, was seized by those six travelers, who overcame the captain and his crew; and after keeping them in confinement for eight days, set them adrift at sea in a small boat, in which they eventually landed on the coast of Sisal. After the crew and captain were put in the boat, the captors hoisted the Confederate flag and fired a salute with pistols, declaring that they would carry the vessel and her cargo into Honduras and sell them for the Southern cause.
There had been several attempts to tackle the Western jewel of the Confederate States of America, the state and former republic of Texas, but none so far had succeeded very well or lasted very long. Another such strike was made today, and this time considerably greater force was being employed. The USS Monongahela was the escort gunboat for a fleet of troop transporters. They, in turn, were carrying more than a thousand Federal soldiers as they traveled toward Aransas Pass, Texas. The immediate target was the Confederate garrison guarding this pass from Mustang Island. After a preliminary softening-up barrage from the ships' guns, an amphibious landing was made. The defenders, trapped, had no solution but to surrender, and the first day went well for the Union.
The USS Mystic, under Acting Master William Wright, assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, seized the schooner Emma D. off Yorktown, Virginia. The same day, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox wrote Rear Admiral S.P. Lee praising the effectiveness of the squadron: "I congratulate you upon the captures off Wilmington. Nine steamers have been lost to the Rebels in a short time, all due to the 'fine spirit' of our people engaged in the blockade. It is a severe duty and well maintained and Jeff Davis pays us a higher compliment than our own people when he declares that there is but one port in 3500 miles (recollect that the whole Atlantic front of Europe is but 2900 miles) through which they can get in supplies."
Nearly a hundred prisoners captured by General William Woods Averill in his engagement with the Confederates at Pocahontas County, Virginia, arrived at Wheeling, West Virginia this morning, and were committed to the Athenaeum. There was scarcely a whole suit of clothes in the party, and many of them were without shoes. Judging from the fact that a fall of snow was lately announced in the vicinity of where the fight took place, these shoeless Rebels must have suffered terribly from the cold.
The schooner Joseph L. Gerity, on a voyage from Matamoras to New York, with a cargo of cotton and six passengers, was seized by those six travelers, who overcame the captain and his crew; and after keeping them in confinement for eight days, set them adrift at sea in a small boat, in which they eventually landed on the coast of Sisal. After the crew and captain were put in the boat, the captors hoisted the Confederate flag and fired a salute with pistols, declaring that they would carry the vessel and her cargo into Honduras and sell them for the Southern cause.
1
Posted on 11/19/13 at 5:41 am to BadLeroyDawg
Wednesday, 18 November 1863
As a part of the continuing operations along the Louisiana coast, Union gunboats were frequently under fire from Confederate artillery batteries ashore. One such back-and-forth battle took place at Hog Point, along the Mississippi-Louisiana border, today. Combatants were Captain Thomas A. Faries, Confederate States Army, on land, and the officers and men of the USS Choctaw out to sea. Sailing passed the redoubt the Choctaw fired her bow (front), stern (rear) and side guns, enfilading the shore battery. The extent of damage inflicted was not known, as landing parties were not sent ashore. While all this was going on the Choctaw's sister ships, the USS Franklin and Carondelet, simply stood by and observed.
Another report: Captain Thomas A. Faries, CSA, commanding a
battery near Hog Point, Louisiana, mounted to interdict the movement
of the Union shipping on the Mississippi River, reported an engagement
with the USS Choctaw, Franklin, and Carondelet. "The Choctaw,
left her position above, and, passing down, delivered a very heavy fire
from her bow, side, and stern guns, enfilading for a short time the
four rifle guns in the redoubt."
The merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity, 2 days out of Matamoras bound for New York , was seized by five Southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later a Master in the Confederate Navy. They had boarded the ship as passengers. Hogg landed Joseph L. Garrity's crew "without injury to life or limb" on the coast of Yucatan on 26 November, and sailed her to British Honduras where he entered her as blockade runner Eureka and sold her cargo of cotton. Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool, England, and charged with piracy, but on 1 June 1864, Confederate Commissioner James Mason informed Secretary of State Benjamin that they had been acquitted of the charge. In the meantime, Garrity was turned over to the custody of the U.S. commercial agent at Belize, British Honduras, and ultimately returned to her owners.
Acting Master C. W. Lamson, USS Granite City, reported the capture of the schooners Amelia Ann and Spanish bark Teresita, with a cargo of cotton, both attempting to run the blockade at Aransas Pass, Texas.
The firing on Fort Sumter from the Federal batteries continued. A Confederate mortar battery on Sullivan's Island shelled Gregg and the Cummings Point defenses all day.
General Longstreet made an attack upon the Union outposts, on the Kingston road, near Knoxville, Tennessee, and compelled General Sanders, in command of the forces there, to fall back to the town.
General Averill arrived at New Creek, Virginia. At or near Covington he encountered and dispersed a portion of Imboden's command on their way to reinforce Echols, and captured twenty-five prisoners in the skirmish.
The cavalry belonging to the Union forces under the command of Brigadier General J. C. Sullivan, sent out from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, returned this day, having been up the Valley to near New Market, fighting Gilmore's and White's commands at Mount Jackson, bringing in twenty-seven prisoners, two commissioned officers, ninety head of cattle, three four-horse teams, besides thirty tents and all the horses and equipage of the prisoners; the party was under the command of Colonel Bayard, of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania cavalry. He destroyed a number of tents and a quantity of salt. The men helped themselves to a wagon-load of tobacco, weighing about five hundred pounds. The Union loss was two men killed, three wounded and three missing.
Corpus Christi and Aranzas Pass, Texas, were captured by the National forces under the command of Major General Banks. Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock, the gunboat Monongahela, with a fleet of nine vessels, transports, etc., arrived at the bar and commenced landing troops through the surf on the south point of Mustang Island. This morning at sunrise, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine regiments, Thirty-fourth Iowa, Eighth Indiana, and company F, First Missouri artillery, with a part of the Twentieth Iowa volunteers, were ashore and in column en route up the beach toward Aranzas Pass. About eleven o'clock the Monongahela opened her two hundred-pound Parrott on the enemy's battery, which was planted behind the sand-hills so as to completely cover the channel and southern point of St. Joseph's Island. In the mean time the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine, the two advance regiments, succeeded in getting in the rear of the works within two miles, without being discovered. The armed transport McClellan, Captain Gray, drawing less water than the Monongahela, worked up close on to the battery, soon making it untenable. They abandoned the battery, sought shelter from the sand-hills, until their flag of truce was discovered, when they were permitted to surrender without terms. Their battery consisted of three twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch sea-howitzer. The force of the garrison consisted of one company of regular artillery and two companies of drafted Texan militia, in all, about one hundred and fifty men
As a part of the continuing operations along the Louisiana coast, Union gunboats were frequently under fire from Confederate artillery batteries ashore. One such back-and-forth battle took place at Hog Point, along the Mississippi-Louisiana border, today. Combatants were Captain Thomas A. Faries, Confederate States Army, on land, and the officers and men of the USS Choctaw out to sea. Sailing passed the redoubt the Choctaw fired her bow (front), stern (rear) and side guns, enfilading the shore battery. The extent of damage inflicted was not known, as landing parties were not sent ashore. While all this was going on the Choctaw's sister ships, the USS Franklin and Carondelet, simply stood by and observed.
Another report: Captain Thomas A. Faries, CSA, commanding a
battery near Hog Point, Louisiana, mounted to interdict the movement
of the Union shipping on the Mississippi River, reported an engagement
with the USS Choctaw, Franklin, and Carondelet. "The Choctaw,
left her position above, and, passing down, delivered a very heavy fire
from her bow, side, and stern guns, enfilading for a short time the
four rifle guns in the redoubt."
The merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity, 2 days out of Matamoras bound for New York , was seized by five Southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later a Master in the Confederate Navy. They had boarded the ship as passengers. Hogg landed Joseph L. Garrity's crew "without injury to life or limb" on the coast of Yucatan on 26 November, and sailed her to British Honduras where he entered her as blockade runner Eureka and sold her cargo of cotton. Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool, England, and charged with piracy, but on 1 June 1864, Confederate Commissioner James Mason informed Secretary of State Benjamin that they had been acquitted of the charge. In the meantime, Garrity was turned over to the custody of the U.S. commercial agent at Belize, British Honduras, and ultimately returned to her owners.
Acting Master C. W. Lamson, USS Granite City, reported the capture of the schooners Amelia Ann and Spanish bark Teresita, with a cargo of cotton, both attempting to run the blockade at Aransas Pass, Texas.
The firing on Fort Sumter from the Federal batteries continued. A Confederate mortar battery on Sullivan's Island shelled Gregg and the Cummings Point defenses all day.
General Longstreet made an attack upon the Union outposts, on the Kingston road, near Knoxville, Tennessee, and compelled General Sanders, in command of the forces there, to fall back to the town.
General Averill arrived at New Creek, Virginia. At or near Covington he encountered and dispersed a portion of Imboden's command on their way to reinforce Echols, and captured twenty-five prisoners in the skirmish.
The cavalry belonging to the Union forces under the command of Brigadier General J. C. Sullivan, sent out from Harper's Ferry, Virginia, returned this day, having been up the Valley to near New Market, fighting Gilmore's and White's commands at Mount Jackson, bringing in twenty-seven prisoners, two commissioned officers, ninety head of cattle, three four-horse teams, besides thirty tents and all the horses and equipage of the prisoners; the party was under the command of Colonel Bayard, of the Thirty-first Pennsylvania cavalry. He destroyed a number of tents and a quantity of salt. The men helped themselves to a wagon-load of tobacco, weighing about five hundred pounds. The Union loss was two men killed, three wounded and three missing.
Corpus Christi and Aranzas Pass, Texas, were captured by the National forces under the command of Major General Banks. Yesterday afternoon at about three o'clock, the gunboat Monongahela, with a fleet of nine vessels, transports, etc., arrived at the bar and commenced landing troops through the surf on the south point of Mustang Island. This morning at sunrise, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine regiments, Thirty-fourth Iowa, Eighth Indiana, and company F, First Missouri artillery, with a part of the Twentieth Iowa volunteers, were ashore and in column en route up the beach toward Aranzas Pass. About eleven o'clock the Monongahela opened her two hundred-pound Parrott on the enemy's battery, which was planted behind the sand-hills so as to completely cover the channel and southern point of St. Joseph's Island. In the mean time the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Maine, the two advance regiments, succeeded in getting in the rear of the works within two miles, without being discovered. The armed transport McClellan, Captain Gray, drawing less water than the Monongahela, worked up close on to the battery, soon making it untenable. They abandoned the battery, sought shelter from the sand-hills, until their flag of truce was discovered, when they were permitted to surrender without terms. Their battery consisted of three twenty-four-pounders and one eight-inch sea-howitzer. The force of the garrison consisted of one company of regular artillery and two companies of drafted Texan militia, in all, about one hundred and fifty men
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