On this day in 1861…… In Virginia, Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, CSN, began to study and experiment with projectiles and rifled guns – including armor-piercing bolts. Captain George Hollins, CSN, captured the side-wheel steamer St. Nicholas on the Potomac River. Captain Samuel Francis DuPont, USN, of the Blockade Strategy Board recommended that two ports, one [...]
150 years ago today, Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, Naval Constructor John Luke Porter, and Chief Engineer William Price Williamson completed the report on Confederate homefront ironclad design. The Panel would ultimately recommend that the salvaged Merrimack be transformed into an ironclad. Porter and Williamson had arrived in Richmond the day before, Porter bringing with him [...]
Taken from the September 1861 edition of Southern Literary Messenger: A Magazine Devoted to Literature, Science and Art, “Unknown Heroes,” written by William Howard Perrigo, is a timeless poem. This poem, fitting to the time period in which it was written and is certainly relevant today as many continue to make the ultimate sacrifice. UNKNOWN [...]
Hello all. I just wanted to take a moment to quickly introduce myself as I am now one of the new contributors to Civil War Connections. While I have chosen to spend my summer serving as an intern at The Mariners Museum, I am also a 6th grade United States history teacher in York County, Virginia. I would like [...]
Many argue with the notion that the Civil War was the first “modern” war. There were certainly many technological advances and innovations unlike any previous war: photography, railroads, submarines, ironclads, telegraphs, and advances in weaponry such as the repeating rifle and minié ball. In early June 1861, Thaddeus S.C. Lowe sent the first telegraphic transmission [...]
On this day in 1861, Chapters 48 & 49 of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations appeared in serial form in Harper’s Weekly. Harper’s also reprinted a poem from Punch magazine with the British view of the American war. O JONATHAN and JEFFERSON, come listen to my song; I can’t decide, my word upon, which of you [...]
Upon scrolling through the June 1861 edition of the Southern Literary Messenger: A Magazine Devoted to Literature, Science, and Art, I stumbled upon a poem that was likely written just before the onset of the war, but to me, shows the struggle of women during the war. “Fallen” was a submission written in early 1861 [...]
On this day in 1861, CSS Teaser, commanded by Lieutenant Robert Randolph Carter, CSN, was assigned to help defend the James River at Jamestown Island. This former steam tug was armed with one 32-pounder banded rifle and detailed to observe Union naval operations at the mouth of the James River.
On June 15 in 1861, the Rifled Sawyer gun on Fort Calhoun (otherwise known as the Rip Raps Battery) shelled Confederate batteries at Sewell’s Point. The venerable old frigate USF United States has now become the CSRS Confederate States after the Federal abandonment of Gosport Navy Yard. The frigate was organized as a school ship [...]
Update! Here’s a picture from today’s observance. Our buddies JVQ and Bill Finlayson were on hand to dedicate the monument. Here’s Bill with a rubbing of his great-great (and maybe another great) uncle’s tombstone. James Lawrence Taylor was wounded on the 10th and died on the 11th. He’s buried in Brooklyn.
