Robert Smalls & the Planter-- Part 2: War Comes to Charleston

For a slave making a meager wage, the price to buy your freedom was expensive, and knowing what plantation life for a slave family was like,  Smalls began to think of other ways to obtain freedom for his wife and family.

Smalls' work led him to the wharves and piers of bustling Charleston where he eventually settled in and worked various jobs as a longshoreman, sailmaker and a rigger.  He grew to like the sea and as he worked on boats, he became intimately familiar with the tides, currents and sandbars of Charleston Harbor.

Harbor pilots were needed to safely guide the big, cotton-carrying ships to and from the piers.  At that time, Blacks could not be hired as pilots, but by all accounts, Smalls was well-qualified to be one.  His experience and navigational skills led him to be trusted by the white shipowners up and down the waterfront along Bay Street.

In April 1861, of course, Fort Sumter was fired upon and forced to surrender, starting the Civil War.  War came to Charleston which became increasingly more fortified.  Confederate defenders built a series of forts and batteries around the harbor.  Many of them were located on low-lying islands only acessible as by boat.

Pilots were in huge demand.  And, Robert Smalls was an emminent one.

--Old B-Runner

Fort Randall and Cushing-- Part 3: Action at the Fort

"At 8 o'clock at night I crossed the bar with three cutters and  25 men and proceeded up the river.  My object was to look for pilots, and also to find some schooners supposed to be inside," reported William Cushing.

After meeting light resistance, Cushing beached his boats and formed his men about 200 yards from Fort Randall.

"Knowing that the enemy was ignorant of our numbers, I charged with bayonet and captured their works, going over one side as they escaped over the other," he wrote.

In the abandoned camp, Cushing found a blockhouse pierced for muskets, but no cannons.  Apparently they had been taken to more strategic forts.

"The enemy left in such haste that their stores, clothing, ammunition and a portion of their arms were captured.  I destroyed all that I could not bring away," wrote Cushing.  "I went a short distance up the river; had another skirmish; did not see the schooners; got out of ammunition and returned with the loss of but one man shot in the leg."

--Old B-Runner

Blockade Runner Annie-- Part 1

This ship had quite an active October 1864, when it was almost captured running into Wilmington and captured at the end of the month on its way out of that port.  This was the ship the USS Aster was chasing when it ran aground and was lost, that the USS Berberry was trying to pull off when it to ran aground before being rescued by the USS Niphon.  I have been writing about these ships the last several weeks.

On October 31, 1864, the Annie was captured by the USS Niphon and Wilderness.

The following pilot shipped aboard the Annie several times through the blockade at Wilmington.

From James William Craig, A Veteran Cape Fear River Pilot."

After successfully piloting several runners into and out of Wilmington, he was ordered to go to Nassau in the blockade runner Fanny, (former Orion), and report to Captain Watters in the blockade runner Annie.

"I remember we left [Wilmington] in the Fanny on a Saturday night and arrived in Nassau before daylight of Tuesday morning, where I found the Annie loaded and ready for sea and waiting for me.  We accordingly left about 4 o'clock in the afternoon and arrived without incident inside the Cape Fear Bar on the Friday night following."

More Adventures in the Annie Next.  --Old B-Runner

Victoria and Dominic Catanetti, Appalachicola, Florida

From the May 9, 2019, Apalachicola Times "Ghosts rise at Chestnut Cemetery" David Adlerstein.

This was one of those occasions when people visit a cemetery and learn about some of the folks buried there.

Victoria Catanetti (played by Megan Lamb) was born Victoria Silvain Palermo in Sicily, Italy, in January 1833 and immigrated to the United States about 1852.  She married Dominic(k) Catanetti in 1865.

He was a sailor and ship's captain and in the 1860 census was listed as "Master of Vessel."  During the Civil War he was in the Confederate Navy, possibly on the CSS Spray.  (I have written quite a lot about this small ship.  Click on the CSS Spray label below.)   In 1900, he was bar pilot for Apalachicola Bay.

Victoria died on February 22, 1904, in Apalachicola.

--Old B-Runner

The Condor and "The Wild Rose of the Confederacy"

The Condor was one of five Falcon Class steamers built on the Clyde River in Glasgow, Scotland specifically to run the blockade.  On its maiden voyage, it ran aground and was lost on the night of October 1, 1864, in front of Fort Fisher.

Noted Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow was on board and returning from England where she had been raising funds for the Confederacy.  She feared she'd be captured and executed and insisted she be rowed to shore despite being advised not to do so by the ship's captain and officers.

A volunteer crew attempted to get her ashore, but waves capsized the boat and she drowned.  She was buried in Wilmington's Oakdale Cemetery.  Her grave is often marked with flowers and a Confederate flag in homage to "The Wild Rose of the Confederacy."

The rest of the Condor's crew rowed ashore the following day, including a Newfoundland puppy belonging to the ship's pilot, Thomas Brinkman.

--Old B-Runner

North Carolina Timeline, January 1863: Coastal

These are more the coastal part of what was happening.

JANUARY 5--  Expedition to capture Wilmington pilots.

JANUARY 14--  Loss of USS Columbia off Masonboro Inlet.

JANUARY 17-21--  Reconnaissance from New Bern to Pollocksville, Trenton, Young's Crossroads and Onslow.

JANUARY  19--  Skirmish at White Oak Creek.

JANUARY  20--  Skirmish near Jacksonville

JANUARY 27-28--  Reconnaissance on Neuse and Trent rivers.

JANUARY 30-FEBRUARY 3--  Naval expedition to Hertford on Perquimans River.

--Old B-Runner

155 Years Ago, December 30, 1861: Union Navy Pay on Western Waters

DECEMBER 30TH, 1861:  Flag Officer Foote wrote Assistant Secretary of Navy Fox of the pay scale he was using:  "In the case of Masters and Pilots, I have been obliged, in order to secure the services of efficient Men, to pay 1st Masters $150. per month, 2nd Masters $125.  3rd Masters $100. and 4th Masters $80. per month, while Pilots are paid $175. per month.

"These prices are much less than the incumbents received in ordinary times, while they have been provided with table furniture and stores, bedding &c, which I have not allowed them."

It Costs Money To Fight a War.  --Old B-Runner

Another Recon of Masonboro Inlet, NC

Acting Ensign Elamson Semon made his second reconnaissance expedition to Masonboro Inlet and Wilmington, North Carolina, gathering more important information concerning blockade-runners, the defensive dispositions of forces in the area, and made arrangements to procure pilots for the upcoming operation against Wilmington.

He learned for the first time that the CSS North Carolina, one of the ironclads built for the defense of Wilmington, had sunk at her pier at Smithville (Southport today).  her bottom was eaten out by worms.  The North Carolina drew too much water to pass over the bars at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, and had spent most all of her short career at Smithville.

I am wondering about how Semon would obtain pilots if they were Southerners?

Getting Ready for the Attack.  --Old B-Runner

The Importance of Pilots to the Confederacy

APRIL 13TH, 1864: John S. Begbie, an agent of the Albion Trading Company of London, with which the Confederacy dealt, wrote Confederate States Commissioner John Slidell in Paris regarding Southern regulations on pilots (who were needed to guide the blockade-runners in and out). He said that he had been informed of these three things: "1. Pilots are liable to the conscription. 2. If losing their ship are forced to enlist. 3. If demanding or receiving more than the Government regulation pilotage they are, if found out, deprived of their license and obliged to serve." //// He protested against these regulations and continued: "It is desirable and in the interest of the Confederate Government that staemers should run in with stores and out with cotton, paying the Government debts and influencing greatly their credit, surely pilots are more usefully employed to the States as pilots than as fighting men."

The State of Affairs at Wilmington, NC-- Part 5: Lots of Runners and Pilots

\Speaking on the pilots.

Still on the October 5, 1863, letter of Benjamin Lewis Blackford to his parents.

"...and inhabited exclusively by amphibious pilots; ignorant, stupid and disloyal. They had always earned an easy living by pilotage, and they are rebels against any Govt which interferes with it.

I never had any idea till I came to Wilmington of the number of steamers engaged in the blockade trade. Fifteen fine steamers came safely into the river, and two or there were run aground during the two weeks I was camped near Fort Fisher."

--Old B-R'er

The State of Affairs At Wilmington, NC-- Part 4: Battling the Mosquitoes

"Awhile before dark we had to make a fire in the middle of the floor of rotten wood and old rags; after an hours dense fumigation we closed all the doors and windows, and as far as it was possible, in the fierce heat and suffocating atmosphere, we slept. Those mosquitoes could sting through a double blanket without the least trouble.

The great ocean which stretched on before us, and the magnificent surf bathing were the only bright spots in the Camp. The 'Point' was not over four miles broad, entirely destitute of cultivated land ...."

Dealing With the "Disloyal" Pilots. --Old B-R'er

Black in Blue: Blacks in the Navy

From the Feb. 19th Columbus (Ga) WTVM 9 News "Black In Blue" African Americans in the Civil War Navies" by Brittany Dionne.

A history program was held at the Natinal Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia, about three people.

Moses Dallas was a nominal slave (new term for me). Owner, Mrs. Elbert, gave him papers and he could live where he wanted, negotiate his own contracts and keep the money he earned. He loved being a pilot for ships so remained a slave because of a Georgia law which did not allow a free black to be a pilot. A slave, however, could be one.

He had used the money he earned to buy the freedom of his wife and daughter and worked in the Confederate Navy for three years before piloting the expedition to capture the USS Water Witch in which he and five others were killed.

The Confederate Navy had full military honors at his funeral and paid for it, but his last paycheck was sent to Mrs. Elbert and not his widow.

Now, This Is An Interesting Story. --Old B-Runer