The USS Passaic-- Part 1: 'The Fightingest Ship in Mr. Lincoln's Navy'

From the Passaic County Historical Society "USS Passaic"  by Alfred P. Cappio.

The monitor USS Paissaic was commanded by Edward Simpson in the 1863 attack on Charleston and Fort Sumter.

The USS Passaic was named after the Passaic River in New Jersey.

"It is doubtful that any other ship in the Union Navy fought in more actions, fired more shells at enemy fortifications, or was hit more often by enemy fire than  the Passaic.  Truly this ship might well be called "The Fightingest Ship in Mr. Lincoln's Navy."

After the success of the USS Monitor, nine more monitors were ordered from John Ericsson at his Greenpoint (now Brooklyn) shipyard. The first to be completed was the USS Passaic, launched on August  30th and commissioned  at the New York Navy Yard on November 25, 1862.

Two days later, under the command of Captain Percival Drayton, she sailed to join the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron under  Admiral DuPont at Port Royal, South Carolina.

--Old B-Runner

September 12, 1862: Senator Grimes of Iowa Pushes the Navy

SEPTEMBER 12TH, 1862:  Rear Admiral Du Pont wrote Senator Grimes of Iowa expressing his "warm appreciation of your tremendous labors in behalf of the Navy during the last session.  I believe this to be emphatically the opinion of the whole service."

Grimes had strongly backed the bill creating the rank of Rear Admiral in the Navy.

In reply, the Senator stated:  "I am in no wise deserving of the kind compliments you lavish upon me .... you know that up to my time [in Congress] it was supposed that all information  in relation to your branch of the public service was confined to a select 'guild' about the Atlantic cities, no one from the interior having presumed to know anything about it.

"If i have been of any real service it has been in breaking down and eradicating that idea. , in  assisting to nationalize the Navy -- in making frontiersmen as well as the longshoreman feel that he was interested in it and partook of its glory."

--Old B-Runner

Death of Rear Admiral Samuel F. DuPont

JUNE 23RD, 1865:  Rear Admiral Samuel F. DuPont died unexpectedly at age 61 while on a visit to Philadelphia.  he had commanded the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron during the first two years of the war and had led the naval forces in the important capture of Port Royal by an amphibious assault on 7 November 1861.

The author J.T. Headley wrote of DuPont:  "A gentleman of the old school...whose bearing was that of dignified courtesy to all.  Chivalrous in his own feelings, he was incapable of wounding those of others.  --Insensible to fear, he never shrank from encouraging any danger, while he was absolutely incapable of thrusting himself forward to obtain notoriety."

Unlike Admiral Porter.  --Old B-Runner