May 8, 1862: USS Monitor Shells Sewell's Point, Va.-- Part 1

MAY 8TH, 1862:  The USS Monitor, Dacotah, Naugatuck, Seminole and Susquehanna-- "by direction of the President"-- shelled Confederate batteries at Sewell's Point, Virginia, as Flag Officer L. M. Goldsborough reported, "mainly with the view of ascertaining the practicability of landing a body of troops thereabouts" to move on Norfolk.

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago, December 1, 1861: Capturing Runners

DECEMBER 1ST, 1861:  The USS New London, Lieutenant A. Read, captured sloop Advocate in the Mississippi Sound.

**  The USS Seminole, Commander Gillis, seized sloop Lida, from Havana, off St. Simon's Sound, Georgia, with cargo of coffee, lead and sugar.

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago, September 25, 1861: Semmes Still At It

SEPTEMBER 25TH, 1861:  The CSS Sumter, Commander Semmes,  captured the American ship Joseph Park off the northeast coast of South America; three days later burned her at sea.

**  The USS Jacob Bell, Lt. Edward M. McCrea, and USS Seminole, Lt. Charles S. Norton, engaged a Confederate battery at Freestone Point, Virginia.

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago, September 21, 1861: Another Capture on the Potomac River

SEPTEMBER 21, 1861:  Boat under Midshipman Edward A. Walker from USS Seminole, Commander Gillis, captured sloop Maryland on the Potomac River.

--Old B-Runner

Farragut's Old Nemesis, the Blockade-Runner Denbigh Is Finally Destroyed-- Oart 1

MAY 24TH, 1865:  The blockade-runner Denbigh, once described by Admiral farragut as "too quick for us", was found aground at daylight at Bird Key Spit, near Galveston.  She had attempted to run into the Texas port once again under cover of darkness.

She was destroyed during the day by gunfire from the USS Cornubia and Princess Royal, and later boarding parties from the USS Kennebec and Seminole set her aflame.

Prior to the capture of Mobile Bay, the Denbigh had plagued Farragut by running regularly from Mobile to Havana. He narrowly missed capturing it on 7 June 1864, and Farragut expressed his feelings in a letter to Rear Admiral Theodorus Bailey:  "We nearly had the Denbigh; she has not  moved from the fort [Morgan] yet, so she must have been hit by some of the shots fired at her, but he is a bold rascal, and well he may be, for if I get him he will see the rest of his days of the war in the Tortugas,"  The Tortugas was a prison.

What a Spoilsport.  --Old B-Runner

Blockade Runner Lelia Founders

JANUARY 14TH, 1865:  Blockade Runner Lelia foundered off the mouth of the Mersey River, England.  Flag Officer Barron wrote Secretary Mallory from Paris: "The melancholy duty devolves  on me of reporting the death on the 14th instant, by drowning of Commander Arthur Sinclair and Gunner P.C. Cuddy, late of the Alabama."

Commander Hunter Davidson, learning of the accident while in Funchal, Madeira, early in February, commented: "What an awful thing the loss of the Lelia.  To death in battle we become reconciled, for it is not unexpected and leaves its reward; but such a death for poor Sinclair, after forty-two years' service...!"

Also, this date:  The USS Seminole captured schooner Josephine bound from Galveston to Matamoras with cargo of cotton.

--Old B-Runner