It has been 109 years since the R.M.S. Titanic, at one point, deemed the “unsinkable ship,” struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Of the 2,205 passengers and crew members aboard, only 704 souls survived that fateful night. Passengers came to travel aboard the ship from all over the world, including approximately 300 from America. The Widener family was among this group of Americans.

The Union flotilla steamed downriver after its repulse at Drewry’s Bluff to City Point, Virginia. Commander John Rodgers, the flotilla’s leader, recognized that his ships, USS Monitor, USS Galena, USS Naugatuck, USS Port Royal, and USS Aroostook, were needed to support Major General George B. McClellan’s operations against Richmond.

Just as the smoke cleared from the scene of the first Confederate victory at Big Bethel, onto the battlefield rapidly marched what would become one of the most colorful, daring, and poorly disciplined units of the Army of the Peninsula: Coppens’ Battalion.

USS Monitor was the strangest warship many sailors had ever seen. While all the enlisted men were volunteers, as soon as some arrived on board, they immediately deserted to “parts unknown.” When the ironclad was repaired in the Washington Navy Yard, the sailors were granted liberty. Many did not return. Not only was Monitor unseaworthy, it was also very uncomfortable, prompting many to desert.

On June 28, 1861, the Union’s first charge of Confederate piracy since the Civil War erupted took place in the Potomac River when the passenger steamer St. Nicholas was captured.

In the 1910s, Brown's Grove was the only excursion steamboat and amusement park combination entirely owned and operated by African Americans.