First Battle of Fort Fisher

147 years ago on this day, Union Admiral David Dixon Porter and Major General Benjamin Butler teamed up against Confederate Major General Ro...

First Naval Engagement at Mobile Bay

Mobile Bay and the City of Mobile, Alabama, are seldom written or talked about in Civil War Naval History except in connection with the famo...

Dinner Party Talk that Changed the Civil War

In this rendering, President Abraham Lincoln has finished reading the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet. Sitting immediately to Linco...

BOHR Watercolor Contest at HRNM

American poet Amy Lowell once wrote: " Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the...

CSS Sumter Escapes-Again

Commander James Palmer, commanding officer of the steam sloop USS Iroquois , received word in mid-November 1861 that the Confederate cruiser...

The Blockade comes to Florida

I think historians of the Civil War Navies have established that blockade duty was boring, drudgery, tedious, taxing, (fill in your favorite...

Full Speed....er...Ahead?

Photo by Margot Kline A few months ago, we posted a short series of stories about a marker denoting the Knoxville area birthplace of histor...

Ward Room (and dogs) of USS Miami

For Friday, we present this image that is the subject of a make your own caption contest on the Hampton Roads Naval Museum's Facebook pa...

New Images of USS Cumberland & CSS Florida Wrecks

USS Cumberland , starboard side USS Cumberland , bow looking forward CSS Florida , from top  CSS Florida , starboard side The Hampton Roads...

Welles considers torpedo attack on CSS Virginia

As the Union Army commanders dithered over attacking Confederate-held Norfolk and Portsmouth, the Union Navy reeled under the attack of CS...

Updates and Admiral's Row: Week of 21 November 2011

On This Day: 21 November 2011: Coming from our friends at the Museum of the Confederacy :  On this day in 1861, CSA forts McRee, Barrancas, ...

Union Navy Fends Off Mine Attacks in Hampton Roads.

Early in the Civil War, it wasn’t the electrically-triggered torpedoes set up in long and deadly water ranges that later so troubled Union N...

Artillery Duel at Pensacola Bay

Artillery engagement on Pensacola Bay on 22-23 November 1861. Santa Rosa Island, Ft. Pickens, and Union batteries on the island are in the ...

Hampton Roads Surface Navy Association Talk: Steam and Iron

Last month (October 19, 2011), I had the fortunate opportunity to speak at the Hampton Roads Surface Navy Association meeting and luncheon ...

USS Hartford Stern Emblem

Stern emblem of the Hartford today (HRNM) During a recent trip to HRNM's collection storage, my coworker and fellow CWN 150 blogger...

Ode to Civil War Naval Engineers and Firemen

 USS Pensacola 's engineers (center and right) talk to one of Pensacola 's line officers (at left) Attempting to cold crank the boi...

New Guest Blogger: John Grady

It is my pleasure to welcome aboard the newest guest blogger of the Civil War Navy Sesquicentennial, John Grady.  Grady is an accomplished h...

The Navy Strikes at Belmont

With Leonidas Polk's Confederate army straddling the Mississippi in the autumn of 1861, local Union commander Brig. General U.S. Grant p...

The Confederate Navy at Port Royal

Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall and his mosquito fleet saw their share of action during the Battle for Port Royal. Tattnall had a reputation fo...

New Port Royal Commemorative Events

Our friends at the South Carolina Civil War 150th pointed out to us some other commemorative events coming up in the upcoming week. Here i...

Brother Against Brother at Port Royal

Percival Drayton was born in the South, but remained loyal to the Union when war came. This resulted in a situation that is often reference...

Storms off the South Carolina coast

The morning of 3 November 1861 off the coast of Port Royal, SC was stormy, both literally and figuratively. The coast was still being brushe...

Navy Leadership at Port Royal

As described in our previous post, this week we will be highlighting the Battle of Port Royal.  This was an historic event for the United St...

Port Royal Week for CWN 150 Bloggers

We are less than a week away from commemorating the sesquicentennial anniversary of the battle of Port Royal. Although we are a few days aw...

Drawings of a Mad Man/Genius-John Ericsson's Monitor Concept

Ericsson first drew a traverse sketch of his idea and then drew over it with a long view. As one can see Ericsson "showed his work"...

CWN 150 Updates

Farragut Statue Undergoing Much Needed Restorations (Dnainfo/Mary Johnson) FARRAGUT STATUE CHECKUP AND CLEANING Augustus Saint-Gaudens, scul...