re: 150 years ago this day...

Friday, 24 March 1865

The heavily armed Confederate ironclad Stonewall, commanded by Captain Thomas Jefferson Page, put to sea from Ferrol, Spain, after two previous attempts had been frustrated by foul weather. Page cleared the harbor at mid-morning and attempted to bring on an engagement with the wooden frigate, USS Niagara and sloop-of-war Sacramento, under Commodore Thomas Tingey Craven. The Sacramento was commanded by Captain Henry Walke, who had gained fame as captain of the Eads gunboat USS Carondelet in the Mississippi River campaigns. Craven kept his ships at anchor in nearby Coruna, Spain, and refused to accept the Stonewall's challenge. Page wrote Commander James Dunwoody Bulloch in Liverpool: "To suppose that these two heavily armed men-of-war were afraid of the Stonewall is to me incredible..." However, as Craven explained to Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles: "At this time the odds in her favor were too great and too certain, in my humble judgment, to admit of the slightest hope of being able to inflict upon her even the most trifling injury, whereas, if we had gone out, the Niagara would most undoubtedly have been easily and promptly destroyed. So thoroughly a one-sided combat! did not consider myself called upon to engage in." Craven was subsequently courtmartialed and found remiss in his duties for failing to engage Stonewall. Serving as President of this court was Vice Admiral David Glasgow Farragut and sitting as a member was Commodore John Ancrum Winslow who had sunk the wounded Confederate raider Alabama. The court sentenced Craven to two years suspension on leave pay. Secretary Welles refused to approve what he regarded as a "paid vacation" for an officer who had been found guilty and so, instead, he restored Craven to duty.

Published by the New York Times, December 18, 1865

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Dec. 6, 1865.

GENERAL ORDERS No. 68. -- At a Naval General Court-Martial, convened at the Navy Department, in the City of Washington Nov. 7, 1865, Commodore THOMAS T. CRAVEN, of the navy, was tried on the following charge and specification, viz:

Charge -- Failing to do his utmost to overtake and capture or destroy a vessel which it was his duty to encounter.

Specification -- In this: That on or about the 24th day of March, 1865, the said Commodore THOMAS T. CRAVEN, commanding the United States steamer Niagara, and having under his control the United States steamer Sacramento, then lying off Corunna, on the coast of Spain, and a vessel of the enemy, known as the Stonewall, being at that time on its way out of the Bay of Corunna, as was plainly seen by and well known to him, did fail to use any exertions or make any effort whatever to overtake and capture, or destroy the said vessel of the enemy, as it was his duty to have done, but did remain quietly at anchor for more than twenty-four hours after having seen said vessel on its way out of the Bay of Corunna, his pretext for this failure in duty being that "the odds in her (the Stonewall's) favor were too great and too certain to admit of the slightest hope of being able to inflict upon her even the most trifling injury;" and that, had he gone into an engagement, "the Niagara would most undoubtedly have been easily and promptly destroyed;" and, as subsequently stated by him in an official letter addressed "to the Hon. H.J. PERRY, Charge d'Affaires, Madrid," and dated March 25, 1865, "with feelings that no one can appreciate, I was obliged to undergo the deep humiliation of knowing that she (the Stonewall) was there -- steaming back and forth -- flaunting her flags and waiting for me to go out to the attack. I dared not do it! The condition of the sea was such that it would have been perfect madness for me to go out. We could not possibly have inflicted the slightest injury upon her, and should have exposed ourselves to almost instant destruction; a one-sided combat, which I do not consider myself called upon to engage in." GIDEON WELLES.

Secretary of the Navy.

NAVY DEPARTMENT, Oct. 20, 1865.

A skirmish occurs near Dannelly's Mills, as well as Evergreen, Alabama, in the Mobile Campaign.

Federal troops scout in search of Confederates, through the swamps, from Bayou Boeuf to Bayou Chemise, Louisiana.

An affair begins about 7 miles west of Rolla, Missouri, on the Springfield Road, where partisan guerrillas dressed in Union garb surprise and capture a band of Yankees taking a breather along the road. The Union officers are attacked in the nearby house they went into to get a drink of water, firing through the window and killing a mounted guerrilla; the rest take off with their Yankee prisoners.

A skirmish breaks out near Moccasin Creek, North Carolina.

The CSS Stonewall embarks from the port of Ferrol, Spain, as the two wooden US frigates, USS Niagara and USS Sacramento fail to challenge her. The commanding Union Naval officer, Commodore T. T. Craven will later be court martialed for his lack of action.

Troops from the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia prepared to break out of the siege lines at Petersburg, Virginia. They had chosen Fort Stedman as the best breakout site because it could cut Grant’s supply line at City Point and enable to Confederates to join General Joseph E. Johnston in Virginia.

Major General William T. Sherman wrote to Grant, “I think I see pretty clearly how, in one more move, we can checkmate Lee, forcing him to unite Johnston with him in defense of Richmond, or, by leaving Richmond, to abandon the cause. I feel certain if he leaves Richmond, Virginia leaves the Confederacy.”

President Abraham Lincoln's party arrived at City Point late this evening. The Lincolns’ son Robert, serving on Lieutenant General Hiram U. Grant’s staff, reported his family’s arrival to Grant.

Full report: President Lincoln visited General Grant at City Point, Virginia, arriving at this all important water-supported supply base at 9 p.m. on board the steamer River Queen. Accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln and his son Tad, he was escorted up the James River by the USS Bat, Lieutenant Commander John S. Barnes in charge. Two days later Barnes accompanied Grant and the President on a review of part of the Army of the James. General Horace Porter, serving on Grant's staff, later recalled: "Captain Barnes, who commanded the vessel which had escorted the President's steamer, was to be one of the party, and I loaned him my horse. This was a favor which was usually accorded with some reluctance to naval officers when they came ashore; for these men of the ocean at times tried to board the animal on the starboard side, and often rolled in the saddle as if there was a heavy sea on; and if the horse, in his anxiety to rid himself of a sea-monster, tried to scrape his rider off by rubbing against a tree, the officer attributed the unseaman-like conduct of the animal entirely to the fact that his steering-gear had become unshipped...Navy officers were about as reluctant to lend their boats to army people, for fear they would knock holes in the bottom when jumping in, break the oars in catching crabs, and stave in the bows through an excess of modesty which manifested itself in a reluctance to give the command 'Way enough!' in time when approaching a wharf."