The first actual battle of the war in which the navy took part occurred on May 20 and 21, 1861, and resulted in the capture of the Confederate forts that had been erected on the Potomac River at Acquia Creek to shut off communication between Washington and the sea. As the reader will remember, there was but one railroad running from the North to Washington in those days. The authorities of Maryland had decided that they would keep their State neutral during the impending strife, acting, of course, on the theory of State sovereignty then held in the South, and had prohibited the transportation of troops across their State. The Confederates actually believed that this prohibition would prevent the Northern troops coming to the defence of the nation’s capital overland, and that resort to ships would be had in strengthening the forces at Washington. To head off the ships, the Confederates swarmed to the bank of the Potomac River, and there were Confederate fortifications with colors flying, in plain view of Washington itself. The Confederates, in the few weeks following the secession of Virginia, were confident of capturing the national capital.

It is easy to show there was really some basis for the Confederate confidence. While the North groped and discussed, the Confederates were at work collecting material for war. Officers who, like Semmes, had left the service of the nation for that of the State, had gone North—communications being still open—and had purchased arms and ammunition in considerable quantities. They were very near to getting good steamers, too; and a patriot now reads with pleasure the keen words of scorn with which those officers spoke afterwards of the Northern men who were so ready to sell these goods—of the stay-at-home-and-make-money patriots. But the South had not stopped at mere buying. Indeed, all the supplies purchased combined were as a pistol-shot to a torpedo in comparison with what they obtained when the Norfolk Navy Yard was abandoned to them.

It is certain that the whole story of this event will never be told; for it was brought about by officers of the navy, who, after serving honorably for many years under the flag, were not only willing to turn on the flag, as many did with satisfied consciences, but were willing to stoop to the shameful work of pretending to be loyal advisers of the nation’s naval Secretary when they were secretly plotting the destruction of the nation. While yet Virginia had not passed the ordinance of secession these men “lost no opportunity to impress upon the mind of the Secretary of the Navy the importance of doing nothing to offend the State of Virginia.” These naval officers, who were working day and night to overthrow the government, stopped at nothing. The commandant of the navy yard at Washington was one of them. In the midst of his plottings his daughter was married to one of the younger plotters, and the others of the gang were, of course, present at the wedding. “The house was everywhere festooned with the American flag, even to the bridal bed.” And down at the Norfolk Navy Yard one of the Southern officers went to Commodore McCauley, after the Pensacola Navy Yard had been turned over to the Confederates, and said: “You have no Pensacola officers here, Commodore; we will never desert you; we will stand by you to the last, even to the death.” And this was said with the deliberate intent of keeping the commodore from doing anything that might save the nation’s property for the use of the government. One need not search long for words to describe such actions.

Secretary Welles called Capt. Hiram Paulding, an officer of known loyalty, to advise him. Paulding broke up the nest of scoundrels who wore the uniform that they might the more easily betray the flag, but it was then too late to prevent the accomplishment of the object for which they had chiefly labored—the betraying of the Norfolk Navy Yard into the hands of the enemy. Large bodies of Confederate troops were already gathering at Norfolk, although Virginia had not passed her secession ordinances. Commodore McCauley was an old man and no match for the young scoundrels who at Norfolk, as in Washington, held on to their commissions and drew their pay up to the last day possible. They were incessant in their labors to prevent anything being done that would move a ship or a gun from the yard or add a loyal man to its forces.

“Early in April”—note that it was not until April—“the Department began to get very uneasy for the safety of the navy yard.” “The Department was most anxious to get the Merrimac away, but was informed by Commodore McCauley that it would take a month to put her machinery in working order.” No one seemed “to reflect that a few armed towboats with marines on board” could have taken every ship from the yard to an anchorage under Fortress Monroe.

However, on March 31st, 250 seamen were ordered from the New York Navy Yard to Norfolk, and fifty seamen were transferred to the revenue cutter Harriet Lane, which was sent to Norfolk. “On April 11th Commander James Alden was ordered to take command of the Merrimac and Chief Engineer Isherwood was sent to Norfolk to get the ship’s engines in working order.” “On the 14th the work was commenced, and on the 17th the engines were in working order—so much for the commandant’s assertion that it would take a month to get the ship ready to move.” These quotations are from Admiral Porter’s “Naval History of the Civil War.” But he does not say McCauley was disloyal. McCauley had merely believed the wilful lies of those under him.

It is cheering to read that “the disloyalty did not at that time extend to the mechanics,” and that “they worked day and night” to get the ship ready. “Then forty-four firemen and coal heavers volunteered for the service of taking the Merrimac out.” At this Commodore McCauley, mindful of his orders to do nothing to excite the suspicions of hostile intent, said “that next morning would be time enough.” Next morning, there being a good head of steam on, word was again sent that she was ready, but he replied that he had decided not to send her out. “He gave as a reason the obstructions that had been placed in the channel, and when the anxious Alden told him they could clear away the obstructions he merely ordered the fires drawn. He had become utterly demoralized, and his demoralization was infectious.”

At about this time came Captain Paulding in the Pawnee from Washington with a regiment of Massachusetts volunteers. His instructions were to “save what he could and act as he thought proper.” When he arrived the Southern officers had just resigned, and the mechanics, being citizens of Virginia, had been induced to leave the yard in a body. It was reported that thousands of Virginia militia were coming to reinforce the Confederates gathering about the yard. The report was due to a trick of William Mahone, afterwards a noted practical politician of the State. He was president of the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad, and ran empty cars up the line, loaded on a mob sent there for the purpose, and brought them back “with every man yelling with all his might.” This was on April 19, 1861. The next day Confederate troops did arrive, and the demoralization in the yard was completed. It was the most disgraceful panic in the history of the nation, for it was a panic that came on when not a gun had been fired, and the only overt acts of war were the robbing of a government powder magazine and the sinking of a few hulks (Mahone did this also), so that the government officers would think the channel was being obstructed.

“The broadside of the Germantown, which was all ready for sea and only waiting a crew, would have saved the navy yard against attack, overawed Norfolk and Portsmouth, and prevented the channel from being obstructed by the Confederates.” So says Porter. Elsewhere he adds, that the “five heavy guns on a side on board the Pennsylvania” with fifty good seamen on board, “could have bid defiance to 5,000 Confederates in arms and held Norfolk and Portsmouth.”

Nevertheless, “after the arrival of the Pawnee had made the yard doubly secure, the shells were drawn from the Pennsylvania’s guns, and the guns spiked.” Every other gun in the yard, afloat and ashore, except 200, was spiked. Men with sledge-hammers ran about the yard, vainly trying to knock the trunnions from the guns in store. Others soaked the decks of the ships and the buildings with tar and turpentine. Others laid a mine in the dry dock—put twenty-six barrels (2,600 pounds) of powder there. Only the Pawnee and the Cumberland, which were full-manned, escaped the work of the destroyers.

“It was a beautiful starlight night, April 20th, when all the preparations were completed. The people of Norfolk and Portsmouth were wrapped in slumber, little dreaming that in a few hours the ships and public works which were so essential to the prosperity of the community would be a mass of ruins, and hundreds of people would be without employment and without food for their families. The Pawnee had towed the Cumberland out of the reach of the fire, and laid at anchor to receive on board those who were to fire the public property. Commodore McCauley had gone to bed that night, worn out with excitement and anxiety, under the impression that the force that had arrived at Norfolk was for the purpose of holding the yard and relieving him of responsibility, and when he was called at midnight and informed that the torch would be applied to everything, he could hardly realize the situation, and was chagrined and mortified at the idea of abandoning his post without any attempt to defend it.

“At 2.30 A.M., April 21st, a rocket from the Pawnee gave the signal; the work of destruction commenced with the Merrimac, and in ten minutes she was one vast sheet of flame. In quick succession the trains to the other ships and buildings were ignited and the surrounding country brilliantly illuminated.”

At the beginning of April, 1861, there were stored at this yard 2,000 cannon, of which 300 were new Dahlgrens; 150 tons of powder, besides vast quantities of loaded shells, machinery, castings, material for ship-building, and ordnance and equipment stores—all in great quantities. It contained a first-class stone dock. The steam frigate Merrimac was there undergoing repairs, the shops of the yard being well fitted for such work. The sailing sloops-of-war Germantown and Plymouth, of twenty-two guns each, and the brig Dolphin, of four guns, were there, not manned, but fit for sea. Six other sailing ships, including the famous United States, that were not of much use, but worth something, were also there. On the whole, the material of this yard was of more value, probably, than that in any two beside it in the country. The Confederates estimated the value of the property abandoned to them at $4,810,056.68 in gold. “But the greatest misfortune to the Union caused by the destruction of the Navy Yard was the loss of at least twelve hundred fine guns, most of which were uninjured. A number of them were quickly mounted at Sewell’s Point to keep our ships from approaching Norfolk; others were sent to Hatteras Inlet, Ocracoke, Roanoke Island, and other points in the Sounds of North Carolina. Fifty-three of them were mounted at Port Royal, others at Fernandina and at the defences of New Orleans. They were met with at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Island No. 10, Memphis, Vicksburg, Grand Gulf, and Port Hudson. We found them up the Red River as far as the gunboats penetrated, and took possession of some of them on the cars at Duvall’s Bluff, on White River, bound for Little Rock. They gave us a three hours’ hard fight at Arkansas Post, but in the end they all returned to their rightful owners, many of them indented with Union shot, and not a few permanently disabled.

“Had it not been for the guns captured at Norfolk and Pensacola, the Confederates would have found it a difficult matter to arm their fortifications for at least a year after the breaking out of hostilities, at the expiration of which time they began to manufacture their own ordnance and import it from abroad. Great as was, therefore, the loss of our ships, it was much less than the loss of our guns.” So says Porter.

Rightly considered, the abandonment of the Norfolk Navy Yard was as great a misfortune to the South as to the North, for it needlessly prolonged and intensified a conflict that could have but one end. No one can estimate the number of lives that these guns cost both sides—the fortifications that were erected and the battles that were fought in consequence of their falling into Confederate hands. But if it took the Confederates a whole year to get at the work of casting cannon, it is not unreasonable to suppose that one year of the war would have been saved had the government held its own.

It was with guns that were needlessly abandoned at Norfolk that the Confederates made their first fight against the Federal navy—the battle at Acquia Creek. Something like thirty miles below Washington the Potomac makes a wide sweep to the east. Two creeks enter it there from the west—one, right on the point of the elbow, being known as Potomac Creek, and the other, that enters a little way to the north of the elbow, being called Acquia Creek. There is a considerable bluff on the point between Acquia Creek and the river, known in those days as Split Rock Bluff. Because this creek was the terminus of a railroad leading to Fredericksburg, Virginia, and because it was believed by the Confederates that the point commanded the Potomac River, three batteries were erected. The Confederate accounts say that there were thirteen guns here, of which two were eight-inch Dahlgrens, brought from Norfolk. The Confederates completed this battery about May 14, 1861. They had decided to abandon Alexandria whenever the Federals chose to take it, and make Acquia Creek their frontier post on the river.

Accordingly, when the Federals, under cover of the Pawnee, Capt. S. C. Rowan, crossed over on the 24th, the Confederates moved out, and there was no bloodshed until the insane hotel-keeper, Jackson, shot Colonel Ellsworth because the Confederate flag was taken down from the Marshall House. Then the Potomac flotilla, which was under Fleet Officer James H. Ward, was ordered to attack the Acquia Creek batteries.

In one respect that order was one of the most remarkable ever issued in the navy, up to that date, for Ward had under him the Freeborn, a wooden paddle-wheel steamer of 250 tons, carrying three guns, the largest being a thirty-two-pounder smooth-bore; the Anacostia, a screw steamer of 100 tons, carrying two little howitzers, and the Resolute, a steamer of ninety tons, carrying two howitzers. In all, three frail wooden vessels, carrying seven small guns, were sent to attack a well-planned, well-manned fort with not less than thirteen guns, of which the worst was better than the best afloat before it. This matter is especially worth considering in connection with what a Secretary of the Navy is likely to do in future if the nation is ever again unexpectedly obliged to fight.

However, Ward was a great man. He had already distinguished himself as a writer on gunnery and naval tactics and as an inventor. He now showed his pluck by bravely attacking the forts.

It was on Friday, May 31, 1861, at 10.30 o’clock at night, that the first shot of this war was fired from a naval ship at a fort. In all, fourteen shots were fired, and the Confederates fired fifty-six at the ships. The forts were not damaged, and one Confederate soldier lost a finger. However, the Confederates abandoned the battery they had erected at the water level and took the guns to the top of the bluff. Next day, the Pawnee having come to reinforce the fleet, the attack was renewed, and for five hours the four little steamers hurled their shot at the forts. The Confederates fired over 1,000 shot in return. It is instructive to note that no one was hurt on either side by all that firing. The ships were struck several times, but “there was no irreparable damage done.” The attack failed absolutely.

Ward was afterwards killed in an attack on the Confederate forts erected at Matthias Point, fifteen miles or so farther down the river. This was on June 27, 1861. The Federal forces attempted to land there and were driven off easily. But for the coolness of Lieut. J. C. Chaplin, of the Pawnee, who rallied his force, in spite of a heavy fire, the whole landing party would have been captured. Ward was the only one killed, but four others were wounded.

On the whole, the work of the navy on the Potomac was confined to patrolling the stream for the purpose of preventing the Confederates of the two slave-holding States that bordered it from communicating with each other. The men engaged in it have not received and never can receive the credit they deserve for what they did, simply because there was nothing striking about the work. More unfortunate still, they had steamers that were wholly inadequate to the work, and the fighting, when any was done, was like that at Acquia Creek—ineffective necessarily. Instead of an opportunity to win fame, the men found toil of the most wearisome kind, and as a reward for it they got the reproaches of ignorant editors at the North and the jeers of exultant editors at the South. Nevertheless, this much was done: The river was kept open, so far as was needed, for the transportation of troops and supplies, to and fro, and when, in 1862, the Confederates found that their forts could not stop traffic, even though their guns had an effective range greater than the width of the river, they retired from the bank of the Potomac altogether.