A Rebel Captured the Last Slave Ship for the Union-- Part 3: Service in the Far East and the Mexican War

Visiting Portsmouth and Gosport, Virginia, for the first time,  he was ordered to serve on the sloop of war John Adams.  He next served on the frigate USS Columbia on her voyage to China and after three years passed his his naval officer's examination.    Returning to Portsmouth, Guidry took some time in 1840 for a courtship and married a local girl from one of the city's prominent families, Louisa S. Spratley.  The couple settled in what is today Swimming Point.

After service in the Mexican War on blockade duty, Guthrie was sent in 1852 to the frigate USS Brandywine on the Brazil Station.  There he learned how to speak Spanish and translate a history of his host nation.  (Well, this should be Portuguese).  Unfortunately, that translation was lost at sea while in route to its publishers.

Guthrie next received orders to report to  Captain Matthew  Fontaine Maury, who was establishing the  U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C..

Guthrie's second tour to China was aboard the USS  Levant, proved very eventful.  He arrived in time for the Anglo-French War in the Far East as the two European powers fought for control over the tea and spice in the Orient.  This is also called the Second Opium War.

--Old B-R'er

USS Columbia (1862)-- Part 1: A Captured Blockade Runner

From Wikipedia.

The screw steamer Columbia was a 168-foot blockade runner captured by the USS Santiago de Cuba off the coast of Florida on 3 August 1862.  It was purchased by the U.S. Navy at the Key West Prize Court on 4 November 1862 and commissioned in December under command of Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Joseph Pitty Couthouy.

It had a complement of 100 and mounted six 24-pdr. smoothbore cannons and one 30-pdr. rifled gun.

While serving with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Wilmington, North Carolina, it ran aground and was wrecked off Masonboro Inlet. on 14 January 1863.  Forty of her crew and her commanding officer were captured by Confederates.

A Short U.S. Navy Career.  --Old B-Runner

USS Columbias in the Civil War-- Part 1: USS Columbia 1836

I have been writing about the USS Columbia in my Not So Forgotten:  War of 1812 blog.  It was a frigate under construction that was burned at the Washington Navy Yard in 1814 to prevent capture by the British. Butt there were three ships by the name of USS Columbia involved in the Civil War.

From Wikipedia.

The first USS Columbia of the three in the Civil War was a fifty gun wooden sailing frigate launched in 1836.  It was the flagship of the U.S. East Indies Squadron and one of the first American naval ships to circumnavigate the globe.  It was scuttled and burned at Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia on 21 April 1861  to prevent capture by Confederate forces.

Following the end of the Civil War, it was raised and sold on 10 October 1867.

--Old B-R'er

March 12, 1864: Union Expedition Up the St. John's River in Florida

MARCH 12, 1864:  The USS Columbia, Acting Ensign Francis W. Sanborn, supporting an Army movement up the St. John's River, Florida, captured the Confederate river steamer General Sumter.

Acting Master John C. Champion, commanding a launch from the USS Pawnee which was in company with tug Columbine, took command of the prize, and the two vessels pushed up the St. John's River, reaching Lake Monroe on the 14th.

That afternoon the naval force captured steamer Hattie at Deep Creek.  The expedition continued for the next few days, destroying a Southern sugar refinery and proceeding to Palatka, where the Army was taking up a fortified position,

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago: Norfolk Navy Yard Abandoned and Ships Mostly Destroyed

APRIL 20TH, 1861:  Norfolk Navy Yard partially destroyed ti prevent facilities from falling into Confederate hands.  USS Pennsylvania, Germantown, Raritan, Columbia and Dolphin burned to water's edge.

The USS Delaware, Columbia, Plymouth and Merrimack (later CSS Virginia) were burned and sunk.  Old frigate United States was abandoned.

The USS Pawnee, and tugboat Yankee, towing the USS Cumberland, escaped; Pawnee went to Washington to augment the small defenses at the Capital.

This major Yard was of prime importance to the South.  The Confederacy had limited industrial capacity, and possession of the Norfolk Yard provided her with guns and other ordnance materiel, and, equally as important, gave her a drydock and an industrial plant in which to manufacture critically needed items.

In large measure, guns for batteries and fortifications erected by the Confederates on the Atlantic coast and rivers during 1861 came from Norfolk.

--Old B-R'er

Ships Sunk Off the North Carolina Coast During the Civil War in January

From the NC Wreckdiving site.   B-R stands for Blockade-Runner.

JANUARY 1865: B-R's Cape Fear and North Heath lost in the Cape Fear River. Probably destroyed after the fall of Wilmington or Fort Fisher.

**  During 1864, in the space of seven days, three B-R's were wrecked: Jan. 4th-- Bendigo at Lockwood's Ferry; Jan. 10th-- Vesta at Tubb's Inlet and Jan. 11th-- Ranger at Lockwood's Folly.

JANUARY 14, 1863: USS Columbia lost in Masonboro Inlet

JANUARY 15, 1862: City of New York, federal transport, lost off Hatteras

JANUARY 15, 1865: CSS Tallahassee, near Cape Fear.

--Old B-Runner