Class Picture Day, James River, 1864

When the U.S. Navy made its way up the James River toward City Point, Virginia, as part of the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, several members of the Northern press accompanied the ships to document what they thought would be the final days of the Confederacy (it was not to be). Many ship's companies, particularly the wardroom, took advantage of the photographers present to get their pictures taken. The result is a disproportionate number of Civil War Navy photographs labeled "James River, 1864."

Naval historians are fortunate to have these images available. While the images do not tell us much about the campaign, they do give us a better understanding of shipboard life. In particular, one will notice the casual dress of the officers on the smaller ships commanded by volunteer officers, such as USS Hunchback. Compare this to officers aboard ships like the captured Confederate ironclad USS Atlanta, which were typically commanded by Naval Academy-trained officers.

An obviously staged action shot aboard USS Hunchback. Of more than 600 ships that served
in the U.S.  Navy during the Civil War, Hunchback is one of the most photographed.

An up-close shot of Hunchback's wardroom and some of the enlisted sailors.

Another image of Hunchback and one of the ship's 12-pounder Dahlgren boat howitzers.  Note the straw hats
and open coats of the officers, suggesting a more relaxed routine aboard ship. 

In contrast to Hunchback, the wardroom of the monitor USS Saugus is wearing
their formal uniforms.  This could be due to the weather (note the lack of leaves on the
trees, suggesting the picture was taken in Fall or Winter).

The wardroom of the ironclad USS Atlanta is also very formal in their
group picture, wearing full-length, buttoned coats.  However, like Saugus, this also
could be due to the time of year.

This is the ship's company of the double-ender gunboat USS Mendota. 
Uniform historians take note: the enlisted sailors are wearing white covered hats. 

The monitor USS Lehigh provides us with a happy medium.
The wardroom is far more relaxed; however, the uniform is still more formal
than that worn aboard the wooden gunboats.

Lehigh also gives us an image of the ship's company of engineers and enlisted sailors. The engineers are the men with open jackets on the sides. Note that they are not included with the officers. This type of image
is valued by historians because it shows the makeup of the company in terms of age and ethnicity.

Old Man Graham Tells Richmond Kids to Get Off His Lawn...err...Ships, 1891

USS Manhattan on the James River, 1880s

In the years following the American Civil War, the Navy placed its monitor-type ironclad warships in a reserve status. In its search for a suitable place to lay up these ships, the Navy decided that City Point, Virginia, on the James River would be a good place for six of the monitors.

The squadron consisted of Ajax, Canonicus, Catskill, Lehigh, Mahopac, and Manhattan. The squadron was not a "ghost fleet" per se because the Navy assigned a small contingent of officers and sailors to watch over the ships. In charge of this squadron was Commander Felix McCurley of Baltimore, Maryland. At 74 years old, McCurley entered the Navy as one of the hundreds of "volunteer" naval officers at the beginning of the Civil War and experienced his fair share of combat and diplomatic standoffs (in the Kingdom of Hawaii, for example). McCurley possessed an easygoing personality.

While at City Point, McCurley's sailors became restless and openly expressed their displeasure at being assigned to such a backwater location where there was nothing for them to do while off-duty. To accommodate them, McCurley received permission to move the squadron closer to Richmond.

The change of base piqued the curiosity of the locals. The public wanted to walk the decks of the historic warships, even if they were Yankee warships against which their fathers had fought. All of the ships in the squadron had been in battle during the late war. McCurley welcomed excursion boats that frequently passed by the ships and he was happy to have visitors on board. One newspaper report commented that the visitors had made the monitors "a resort," implying that they did more than just walk the decks of the ship.

Lehigh's turret with battle scars caused by Confederate

guns guarding Charleston, South Carolina.

In 1891, McCurley received orders to take command of League Island (Philadelphia) Navy Yard. His relief was Commander James Duncan Graham and the fun came to a sudden end. A member of the U.S. Naval Academy's class of 1857 and a veteran of many battles on the Mississippi River during the late war, Graham had a much more serious view of his duties. He proclaimed to the press that he was issuing a strict policy regarding ship visitation. The result was a revolt among the local boaters. As Graham described the situation to a local reporter, "The good people of Richmond have no idea of the indignities, insults and other annoyances the officers and men on board the monitors are subjected to, particularly on Sundays and holidays. People come down the river in boats and insist upon coming directly abreast the monitors, and using the most vile language, shouting at the tops of their voices, and jeering at the men aboard ship." Fearing for his own family's safety, he moved his wife and children north.

After a quick fix at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the
Navy moved the James River monitors to League
Island (Philadelphia) Navy Yard.

Navy leadership saved everyone additional trouble by ordering all six monitors to be taken to Norfolk Naval Shipyard for minor repairs and then to League Island for their new permanent station. It is not clear whether public threats made by Richmond boaters had anything to do with the transfer. The Navy would later mobilize the squadron for the Spanish-American War.

But in the opinion of Graham, one thing was for sure: these were ships of war. A newspaper commented, "The foundation of adverse feeling in [Graham] is simply owing to the fact that he had never considered it commensurate with his duty to permit the monitors to be used as a public museum or a Pleasure Resort."

1876-The Fleet Mobilizes at Norfolk Navy Yard

This is a Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper engraving from February 1876, showing the North Atlantic Squadron deploying from the Norfolk Navy Yard for Winter exercises in Port Royal, South Carolina. Ships in the engraving include the historic steam sloop USS Hartford, the rebuilt steam sloop-of-war USS Marion, and the new iron-hulled steam gunboat USS Huron. There are two monitor-type warships and they are believed to be USS Passaic and Lehigh. In the written portion of the paper, the editors were more interested in the historic ships that the Navy laid up at the Yard, then the active ships. This included the sail frigates Savannah, St. Lawrence, and Macedonian. The colorized engraving is currently on display in the museum's 1907 exhibit.

The year Frank Leslie's produced this image was the lowest of low points in the history of the Navy. Even with the embarrassment of not being able to mobilize a squadron to respond to the Virginius incident in Cuba, Congress advised the Navy to cut its personnel by ten percent and continued to cut funding in new ship construction and technologies. It was also the year that Navy inspectors found several irregularities with the Navy Yard's contracts and the way it conduct business with the private sector.

Nonetheless, the Navy still had a job to do and Hampton Roads and Norfolk Naval Yard were the center of most of the Navy's activities in the Atlantic Ocean. Until the construction of NOB Hampton Roads, the Navy Yards served as ad hoc naval stations and all ships of the North Atlantic Squadron spent at least two months in the region, before heading out to a foreign station. The squadron of ships depicted in this image provide proof of this. En route to Port Royal, the Navy ordered most of the ships to skip Port Royal and steam to trouble spots in Haiti and Mexico.