Thomas Frederick Paige, Jr.: Civil War Sailor and Civil Rights Activist

By Bennett White
HRNM Volunteer

Thomas Paige likely served aboard USS Minnesota during the Battle of Hampton Roads. In this painting, USS Minnesota is protected by USS Monitor on March 9, 1862. (Tom Freeman Art)

African Americans have participated in armed conflicts since the American Revolution; however, the Civil War was the first time the Federal Army and Navy officially incorporated free Black men and previously enslaved individuals into their ranks. In his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln instituted a policy allowing Union military commanders to begin enlisting Black men into the Union military. By May 1863, the Bureau of Colored Troops was established in Washington, D.C., to administer the increasing number of African American units operating in the field.[1] While the Union Army quickly established complex regulations to segregate African Americans into all-Black units, the Navy—desperately short of manpower at the start of the war—fully integrated the decks of its steamboats, supply ships, and war frigates to put together an effective fighting force.[2] Hampton Roads, due to Fort Monroe’s reputation as a refuge for escaping slaves, proved to be a rich recruiting ground for Navy personnel to identify and enlist African Americans into military service. Many of these Black veterans would go on to shape American life after the war through political activism and entrepreneurship.

Thomas Frederick Paige, Jr. was one of these brave men. Born into slavery in 1838, Paige had to combat racism in antebellum Norfolk from an early age. Before the Civil War, enslaved people in Norfolk held the same jobs as free Blacks and less affluent whites, and often developed skillsets necessary for carpentry, barbering, crafting sails, and staging freight along Norfolk’s dockyards. However, economic stagnation made jobs scarce, which prompted white laborers to lash out against African Americans through street brawls and vigilantism.[3] In 1857, seeking freedom, Thomas—along with his brother Richard Paige (who eventually became Virginia’s first Black attorney and a Republican congressman)—escaped aboard a schooner bound for Philadelphia through the help of northern abolitionists. While Richard remained in Boston to study law under abolitionist George Hilliard Steward until 1867, Thomas quickly found himself back in Hampton Roads after enlisting in the Navy in Boston sometime in early 1861.[4]

Thomas Frederick Paige, Jr.'s USN Pension File (National Archives)

According to his pension file, Paige worked as a landsman on four different ships, including USS Minnesota, USS Princeton, USS St. Louis, and USS Macedonian.[5] Although archival records are not definitive, his time spent on Minnesota in late 1861 and early 1862 likely coincided with Minnesota’s famed involvement in the Battle of Hampton Roads on March 8-9, 1862. On March 8, punishing broadsides from the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia crippled the Federal flotilla blockading southeastern Virginia, sinking USS Congress and USS Cumberland before forcing USS Minnesota to run aground off the coast of Newport News. Immobilized by a thick mud bank, Minnesota’s crew ferociously returned fire from CSS Virginia, CSS Jamestown, and CSS Patrick Henry while tugs worked to pull the steam frigate to safety. As the battle continued, the ironclad USS Monitor defended Minnesota’s crew from CSS Virginia’s attacks long enough for tugs to escort Minnesota back to Fort Monroe. Often overshadowed by the historic showdown between ironclads, Minnesota’s crew heroically withstood artillery barrages and returned fire throughout the two-day ordeal, protecting the Union blockade and ultimately helping USS Monitor neutralize the Confederacy’s most prized naval asset.

After the war, Thomas Paige—through his advocacy for racial equality—embodied the courage exhibited by Minnesota’s crew during the Battle of Hampton Roads. As the smoke cleared from Virginia’s battlefields and waterways, Thomas and Richard Paige immediately began advocating for recently emancipated African Americans. In the summer of 1865, prominent African Americans in Norfolk organized clubs that lobbied for Black political equality. Led by a former slave, dentist Dr. Thomas Bayne, community organizers established the “Colored Monitor Union Club” and gathered nearly 2,000 African American citizens on the steps of Catherine Street Baptist Church to listen to local speakers reflect on issues central to the Black community. The lectures were then published with the help of Thomas and Richard Paige—their Bostonian contacts connected them with E. Anthony and Sons, a Black press located in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The resulting pamphlet, Equal Suffrage: Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, Va, to the People of the United States, called for Black male suffrage in state and local elections in order to obtain legislative representation and to ensure ex-slaveowners would be unable to re-form the Confederacy.[6] The Paige brothers, along with the Colored Monitor Union Club, financed the printing of 5,000 copies dispersed throughout the United States.[7]

Emboldened by his political leadership, Thomas Paige navigated persistent racial discrimination during Reconstruction to become a successful businessman and property owner in Norfolk. By 1872, Norfolk had 74 Black-owned businesses. Black entrepreneurs forged successful law practices, established importation companies, and opened barber shops. All six of the city’s oyster dealers were African American, and four Blacks held positions on the Freedmen’s Bank advisory board. Black social life experienced a renaissance, too. Norfolk’s Black community spent their leisure time attending lectures, hosting weekend picnics, and organizing grand parades complete with veterans in military dress and lively musical bands. By 1880, Thomas opened Paige’s Hotel, a boarding house centrally located on the western side of Market Square, Norfolk’s premier business district in the late nineteenth century. There, an exhausted dockyard worker could pay fifty cents per night for access to a warm bed, eat a hearty meal any time of the day, and play pool in the attached billiards hall while imbibing with “the best wines, liquors, and cigars” in Norfolk.[8]

Advertisement for Paige's Hotel in the Norfolk City Directory, 1880 

The story of Thomas Frederick Paige, Jr. is just one of the many unique narratives that can be uncovered when exploring the archival records of African American service members. For many Black Civil War veterans, serving in the Union Army and Navy meant more than performing their patriotic duty. Rather, it was a deeply personal endeavor to free their own parents, wives, and children from the same plantations from which they escaped. Once free, Black veterans like Thomas Paige built on their military careers by fighting for political rights and economic prosperity during Reconstruction and beyond.



Notes:
[1] Keith P. Wilson, Campfires of Freedom: The Camp Life of Black Soldiers during the Civil War (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2013), 2.
[2] Segregation in the Navy | Naval History Magazine - February 2021 Volume 35, Number 1 (usni.org)
[3] Tommy L. Bogger, The Slave and Free Black Community in Norfolk, 1775–1865 (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1976), 161–62; 188.
[4] Encyclopedia Virginia, “R. G. L. Paige (1846-1904),” Last modified (n.d.), Accessed Dec. 14, 2023, R. G. L. Paige (1846–1904) - Encyclopedia Virginia.
[5] The National Archives, Washington, DC, USA. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934; NAI Title: General Index to Civil War and Later Pension Files, Ca. 1949-Ca. 1949; NAI Number: 563268; Record Group Title: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 1773-2007; Record Group Number: 15; Series Number: T288; Roll: 211. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 - Ancestry.com
[6] Excerpts from Equal Suffrage: Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, VA, to the People of the United States (1865), 5. Excerpted by the National Humanities Center, accessed September 28, 2023, http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/freedom/text5/equalsuffrage.pdf.
[7] Thomas C. Parramore, Peter C. Stewart, and Tommy L. Bogger, Norfolk: The First Four Centuries (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994), 227.
[8] Norfolk City Directory (1880), “Paige’s Hotel,” 177. Accessed Dec. 14, 2023. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 - AncestryLibrary.com.

Wooden Warrior: The First USS Minnesota

USS Monitor defends Minnesota during the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 9, 1862 (U.S. Navy)

By Zach Smyers
HRNM Educator

When the smoke cleared and the cannonade ceased on March 9, 1862, the wooden frigate USS Minnesota was still standing and the Battle of Hampton Roads was over. During the battle, Minnesota had gotten stuck on a sandbar, and the ship suffered heavy damage and several casualties from the attacking ironclad CSS Virginia. Due to the arrival of the ironclad USS Monitor, Minnesota was spared a fate similar to its fellow wooden ships, USS Cumberland and USS Congress, which were both sunk on the first day of the battle. Minnesota was successfully removed from the sandbar on March 10, 1862. The ship received much-needed repairs and returned to duty, serving as the flagship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

Built at the Washington Navy Yard, Minnesota was high-tech for its time. Minnesota had two engines operated by four boilers, as well as a full complement of sails known as a “ship rig.” This allowed Minnesota to reach a top speed of 12.5 knots (approximately 14 mph). Initial construction of the ship began in 1854. It was launched on Dec 1, 1855, and commissioned on May 21, 1857. The newly commissioned USS Minnesota, classified as a Steam Frigate 1st Class of the Merrimack class (interestingly, the same class as the renamed CSS Virginia), displaced 4,833 tons, had a length of 264 feet 9 inches, a beam of 51 feet 4 inches, and a draft of 23 feet 10 inches. The ship’s crew consisted of 646 officers and enlisted sailors. Armament included two 10-inch guns, twenty-eight 9-inch guns, and fourteen 8-inch guns.

USS Minnesota (Naval History and Heritage Command)

After the Battle of Hampton Roads, Minnesota experienced its fair share of action. On April 14, 1863, Minnesota participated in the Battle of Suffolk. During this battle, four Sailors from Minnesota earned the Medal of Honor while temporarily assigned to USS Mount Washington. While operating on the Nansemond River on April 14, 1863, Mount Washington lost propulsion after its boilers were destroyed by Confederate gunfire. Despite being dead in the water, the Sailors from Minnesota manned a 12-pound howitzer and returned fire for six hours.

The following year, during the December 1864 Battle of Fort Fisher in Wilmington, North Carolina, Minnesota provided gunfire support against Confederate positions located inside the fort. In addition to this, Minnesota contributed 240 men to the landing force during the second battle, which took place from January 13 to January 15, 1865. The second assault on Fort Fisher was successful, and the Union was able to shut down a vital port that had supported the Confederate war effort.

After the Civil War, Minnesota was decommissioned on Feb 16, 1865, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The ship was re-commissioned in June 1867 to help train midshipmen during a cruise to Europe. On January 13, 1868, Minnesota was placed in reserve at the New York Navy Yard. The ship was re-commissioned again on June 12, 1875 and served as a gunnery and training ship for naval apprentices. The ship would serve in this capacity for the next twenty years.

USS Minnesota with its signal flags flying (Naval History and Heritage Command)

In 1895, Minnesota was loaned to the Massachusetts Naval Militia. This would be the ship’s last duty station prior to being sold to Thomas Butler & Co. of Boston in August 1901. Minnesota’s name was stricken from the Navy register so it could be used again on a brand-new battleship (BB 22), and the original Minnesota was burned at Eastport, Maine, to salvage its iron fittings. USS Minnesota represented its namesake state in a proud manner during its Navy career. It fought gallantly during the Battle of Hampton Roads, and despite being stuck and unable to move, the Sailors on Minnesota never gave up. Their determination and fighting spirit lived up to the Navy’s core values of honor, courage, and commitment. These values were represented again by Minnesota Sailors during the Battle of Suffolk and the Battle of Fort Fisher. It is appropriate that a fighting ship like Minnesota was used later in its life to train future Sailors before they joined the fleet.

Hurricane Maria Resurrects Ghosts of Wars Past

Although news reports about the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria, which recently made its closest approach to Hampton Roads, frequently center upon the destructive winds and tidal flooding that such a storm can bring, this week it has come to light that there were other less-recognizable threats unleashed by the storm as it made its approach to North Carolina's Outer Banks.  On Monday, beachgoers found a barnacle-encrusted sea mine near the town of Avon on Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and another one was discovered nearly 80 miles north in Corolla, just south of the Virginia state line.

An object (above) presumed to be a sea mine was found near Avon on Cape Hatteras National Seashore on the morning of September 25, 2017, and another one was found near the town of Corolla about 80 miles north on the Outer Banks of North Carolina that same morning. They were subsequently turned over to military explosive ordnance disposal technicians.  Thankfully, the Corolla mine turned out to be a training target.  (National Park Service)

During the last century, mines have posed some of the gravest enemy threats to shipping in our home waters.  During both World Wars I and II, German submarines deployed mines along the Mid-Atlantic.  It was an effective, albeit unpredictable tactic.  The Naval History and Heritage Command is currently helping lead an effort to survey USS San Diego, which ran afoul of a suspected mine off the eastern end of Long Island on July 18, 1918. We are also approaching the 99th anniversary of the second such incident that took place during the First World War, not far off the eastern seaboard. On September 29, 1918, the battleship Minnesota (BB 22) ran into a mine only 20 miles off the coast of Delaware.

Photographed in 1911 by O.W. Waterman of Hampton, Virginia, the battleship Minnesota (BB 22) appears somewhere in Hampton Roads, flying the flag of Rear Admiral (Upper Half) Aaron Ward, Commander, Battleship Division 3, U.S. Atlantic Fleet. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

Built at Newport News Shipbuilding and commissioned on March 9, 1907, just in time for the Jamestown Tercentennial Exhibition and the epic circumnavigation of the globe with the Great White Fleet that followed, the veteran of the 1914 Vera Cruz expedition was assigned to Battleship Division 4, mainly to provide practical gunnery and engineering training for the tens of thousands of new recruits the Navy was taking in during World War I.  She was sailing off the Delaware Breakwater when she struck a mine that had been deployed earlier by U-117. 

Miraculously, only three days after striking a mine off Fenwick Island on the Maryland/ Delaware border on September 29, 1918, USS Minnesota (BB 22) was safely ensconced in a dry dock at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, where the serious damage that had been inflicted by a to her bow by a German mine could be ascertained.  She would remain there for five months. (Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph) 

Despite sustaining heavy flooding to her bow, there were no casualties and the battleship was able to make it to Philadelphia under her own power.  She would remain at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for five months, during which time the war ended.  In January 1919, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels visited the battleship and personally commended 27 crew members for their "courage and efficiency." After leaving Philadelphia, Minnesota would do her part bringing thousands of American soldiers home from Europe. 

Several thousand troops from Brig. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's celebrated "Rainbow Division" (42nd Infantry Division, U.S. Army National Guard), crowd the decks of USS Minnesota (BB 22) upon their return to New York from France in 1919. (Donation of Dr. Mark Kulikowski, Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

The Minnesota incident of 99 years ago ended happily, but it stands out as the exception and not the rule in the long, violent history of what was originally called the "torpedo" by its inventors during the American Civil War. Although enemy mines did the worst damage to American vessels during both Twentieth Century wars, not to mention in the Middle East during the latter part of the century, it should not be forgotten that American-made mines were also deployed in large numbers along our coasts, particularly during the Second World War.  Although intended to protect American merchant vessels and warships from the enemy submarine threat, they too caused damage to American shipping when merchant vessels strayed off course or their captains and pilots did not possess the latest information.  

While waiting for a harbor pilot to arrive on the "dark and stormy night" of February 16, 1942, the one-year-old, 554 foot-long tanker SS E.H. Blum of the Atlantic Refining Company, described as "one of the largest and finest tankers in the world" in the War Record of the Fifth Naval District, was ripped in two after drifting into a Navy minefield only 950 yards off the Cape Henry lighthouse.  On June 11, the SS F.W. Abrams of the Standard Oil Company "through a combination of unfortunate circumstances which included bad weather, a misconception of escort duties, and lack of proper navigational information, strayed into the Hatteras Mine Field and was eventually lost."  

Just three days later, on June 15, two American ships and one British vessel ran into a German minefield within sight of Virginia Beach that had been set by U-701, killing 17 on the British vessel, HMT Kingston Ceylonite, and one on SS Robert C. Tuttle.   

The heavily damaged Esso tanker SS Robert C. Tuttle appears in dry dock at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in July 1942.  After preliminary repairs, she was towed to Newport News for completion. (Naval History and Heritage Command photograph)

Despite a concerted effort to sweep the area for German mines, SS Santore encountered another of U-701's mines while assembling to leave Hampton Roads in Convoy KS-511 on June 17, listed to port, and quickly sank, taking three crew members with her.  

Before the month was over, the 7,256-ton Norwegian passenger-cargo vessel MV Tamesis became the second ship sunk by the "friendly Hatteras Mine Field."  The American tug Keshena became its third victim on July 19 while attending to the Panamanian-flagged J.A. Mowinckel, that had itself been damaged by torpedoes and mines.  Three were killed in the tug's engine room.

Whether the mines that emerged from the depths off North Carolina this week present a renewed threat from a past war has yet to be ascertained, but one thing is for certain: the story of mines off the East Coast is far from over.  

A Mystery Beneath the HRBT

Marine Archaeologist Dr. John Broadwater looks out over the James River from the tip of Willoughby Spit, where one or more ship hulks lie just off the beach, extending towards the eastbound lanes of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel at the upper right, which carry traffic from across the river in Hampton, seen in the far distance. (Photograph courtesy Bill Utley)

No matter where you go in the world, you are rarely far from relics of history.  While underwater archaeologists from the Naval History and Heritage Command travel the globe in search of discoveries that not only clear up old mysteries but also redefine our understanding of naval history, Hampton Roads is the kind of place where untold discoveries await just below the surface.

Case in point: The Hampton Roads Naval Museum's singular collection of Civil War artifacts from the sloop-of-war Cumberland and the Confederate raider Florida.  Both wrecks lie within a half-mile of one another at shallow depths in the James River.

For this week's post we turn our attention to something lying just beneath the surface to the east of those two wrecks, at the tip of the narrow tendril of sand between Sewells Point and the Ocean View section of Norfolk known as Willoughby Spit.  Overlooked by most commuters passing nearby on the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) southeast from the Virginia Peninsula, a dark form lapped at by the waters of Chesapeake Bay has been shrouded in mystery for decades. Generations of local residents have passed along the apocryphal tale that the jumble of dark metal mostly obscured by sand is that of a German U-Boat that tried unsuccessfully to make it into the roadstead during World War II, only to become fatally trapped in steel antisubmarine netting.

HRNM Curator Joe Judge cleared up the mystery for readers of the Bay Journal in 2010 when he identified the shallow hull as the remains of the torpedo boat USS Stringham, which was decommissioned in 1913 and sold to a private company a decade later.  But when you consider what the torpedo boat actually  looked like, it is not difficult to imagine why she would have been mistaken for a submarine for all these years.


Painted a dark green, the torpedo boat USS Stringham, photographed in 1907 during the Jamestown Exposition, contrasted sharply with the USS Maine (BB-10) in the background.  (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Although not a submersible, Stringham and other torpedo boats like her were built during the same era of technological transition that was taking place in navies around the world near the turn of the last century.  The submarine was invented around the same time simply as a submersible form of torpedo boat, while vessels like USS Stringham were employed to do the same thing on the surface.  These fast, lightly-armed boats would close in for the kill with their torpedoes and withdraw before the huge, sluggish pre-dreadnought battleships of the time could react.  By contrast, early submarines made up for lack of speed with stealth. 

It stands to reason that the first torpedo boat commissioned by United States Navy in 1890 would be named after the daring Lt. William B. Cushing, who used a steam launch equipped with a fixed spar torpedo to sink the Confederate ironclad Albemarle in October 1864.  The invention of the screw-driven torpedo during the 1880s paralleled the development of small, fast, inexpensive boats to carry them, making them a cost-effective way for navies to neutralize much larger, more expensive capital ships in the way Cushing did. 

USS Cushing (TB-1) was not only the first of a new class of warship for the Navy, but it also inaugurated a new way of naming vessels for figures who played key roles in American naval history.  Torpedo Boat 19 was named for Flag Officer Silas Horton Stringham, the commander of the newly-established North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads after the outbreak of the American Civil War.  Although his long service to the United States Navy began during the War of 1812 and he was a captain during the Mexican-American War, his status as a key figure in naval history, particularly in Hampton Roads, was cemented after the outbreak of the Civil War, after many other long-serving naval officers resigned to join the Confederacy.

Silas Stringham, who first saw combat during the War of 1812 as a teenage midshipman, is shown here after his promotion to rear admiral in 1862. (Naval History and Heritage Command image)

Aboard his flagship USS Minnesota (where William B. Cushing was working as an acting master's mate), Stringham entered Hampton Roads in May 1861 and quickly began rounding up blockade runners. Three months later he commanded a joint Army-Navy expedition, along with Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, against Confederate forts Hatteras and Clark guarding Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina.  Stringham later accepted the sword of Confederate Commodore Samuel Barron after he and nearly 700 other prisoners were taken into custody on August 29.  Stringham was relieved by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough aboard Minnesota on September 23, 1861, less than six months before the Battle of Hampton Roads.  

Sponsored by Edna Stringham Creighton, granddaughter of Rear Adm. Stringham, and commissioned on  June 10, 1899, USS Stringham performed a number of operational duties up and down the eastern seaboard, including Hampton Roads, including as a host for the nation's news media, until succumbing to that fate that befalls all warships great and small: obsolescence.  Only the very elect of historic ships escape the fate of torpedo boats like Stringham, which was built too late to have earned a mention in history during the Spanish-American War. 

Well before World War I, this type of vessel was outmoded by a new class of ship, the "Torpedo-Boat Destroyer," which was designed specifically to protect capital ships from torpedo boats.  This was later shortened to "destroyer" (DD).  It just so happens that the last Spruance-class destroyer was also named in honor of the man whose daring, unconventional attack changed naval warfare.  USS Cushing (DD-985), the fifth ship named for the legendary naval officer, was decommissioned in 2005.  The Arleigh Burke and Zumwalt-class multirole guided-missile destroyers (DDGs) continue to serve an important role in protecting the larger ships of strike groups today.

Decommissioned on November 21, 1913, Stringham was stored at Norfolk Navy Yard for nearly a decade until she was sold to the E.L. Hurst company in May 1923 for the sum of $256.76.  After being purchased, however, she somehow came to came to rest in the shallow water at the tip of Willoughby Spit instead of being broken up at a shipyard in North Carolina.  What remains to be sorted out is just how and why this happened.  

This undated aerial photo looking east taken sometime after the ex-USS Stringham (TB-19) came to rest just off the tip of Sewells Point, presumably in the early-1920s, but before the construction of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT) during the mid-1950s, shows the hull of the torpedo boat just offshore, with what might be a barge alongside.  Whether this is evidence of an effort to re-float the hull or to fill it with concrete as part of an effort to limit beach erosion remains to be established. (Courtesy the Ocean View Station Museum)   

Over the decades, the mystery of how and why the ex-torpedo boat came to rest off Willoughby Spit receded back into the mire, replaced by a legend about a lost German submarine, but new technology has reignited the mystery.  Dr. John Broadwater, after a four-decade career as a marine archaeologist, including postings as chief scientist of the USS Monitor expedition and serving as senior underwater archaeologist at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, has brought us evidence that might force a reassessment of our assumptions about the former Navy torpedo boat.

This enhanced satellite image shows the presumed remains of the former torpedo boat USS Stringham, along with a submerged barge alongside, plus a second, larger, unidentified vessel which extends roughly to the north, completely under the eastbound lanes of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT). (Courtesy John Broadwater)

Recent satellite imagery has shown the unmistakable outline of a second, larger hull behind the former USS Stringham.  If accurate, this means that perhaps the torpedo boat was not accidentally lost after all, but was perhaps put there deliberately as a part of a concerted effort to stave off beach erosion.  There could even be yet another, as yet unknown story here waiting to be uncovered.  Only further research and exploration will solve this mystery.  Meanwhile, we are reaching out to you, our readers, in an effort to gather any other evidence you might possess as to the identity of the second vessel, or any other details or clues you might know of.



Since the original publication of this post, HRNM senior docent Hunt Lewis has conducted extensive research into the identity of the mystery hull and has concluded:

Internet research of ship casualties as far back as 1900 do not indicate that any vessels of the size of the “Mystery Ship” went ashore on Willoughby Spit. Careful scaling of the outline of the “mystery ship” against the known dimensions of the torpedo boat Stringham reveals that the outline closely matches that of the underwater half-breadth plan of a Word War II Liberty ship. During the construction phase of the first HRBT tunnel, the inactivated Liberty ship SS E. Kirby Smith was being used as a grain barge and was rammed during a storm by the SS Nyland on March 17, 1956 within the confines of Hampton Roads. The SS E. Kirby Smith was damaged to such an extent that the ship was broken-up locally. Available records so far about the SS E. Kirby Smith end at that point. It is my conjecture that before the SS E. Kirby Smith was completely scrapped, the cut down hulk was purchased, towed to its present position and sunk as a “ready made groin.” Little notice was taken of the event because very little of the hulk probably appeared above the water, and by that time the hulk had lost its identity as the SS E. Kirby Smith.


As new technologies have recently revealed famous lost shipwrecks such as the WWII-era aircraft carrier USS Independence (CVL 22), new mysteries have also emerged right here in Hampton Roads, even in the shallows under the bridge thousands of today's Sailors take to Naval Station Norfolk every morning.  Please stay tuned as we continue to search for clues, and in the meantime, please chime in! 

1913 Live Fire Exercises in the Chesapeake Bay: Chicken Farmers Not Pleased...Again

Atlantic Fleet battleships steaming from Hampton Roads towards the
"Southern Drill Grounds" in the Chesapeake Bay, 1913

We have previously posted about Maryland poultry farmers accusing the Navy of killing over 70,000 chickens during live fire exercise off Tangier Island in 1911. The farmers claimed that the big battleship guns caused such a concussion shock on shore that the poor chickens keeled over and died. The Navy denied having anything to do with the alleged chicken massacre. Two years later, the Navy was back with more ships and bigger guns.

The Atlantic Fleet at the Southern Drill Grounds as seen
from the cage mast of USS Kansas (BB-21)

The operation was one of the largest Naval exercises to date.  Navy planners plotted out a series of static target gun shoots and war games between ships in an area they designated as the "Southern Drill Grounds" in the Chesapeake Bay.  Planners preferred the Chesapeake Bay due to the fact that it provided favorable weather conditions. They wanted the water to be somewhat rough to give gunners the chance to practice in choppy water, but not so rough as to cancel the exercise.   


USS Kansas unloads her 12-inch guns at a stationary target

In late March 1913, the Atlantic Fleet arrived near Tangier Island in full force. Rear Admiral Charles Johnson Badger led a force that consisted of the new dreadnought-type battleships USS Wyoming (BB-32), Utah (BB-31), Delaware (BB-28), and South Carolina (BB-26), along with the pre-dreadnought-type battleships USS Kansas (BB-21), Minnesota(BB-22), Georgia (BB-15), New Jersey (BB-16), and Nebraska (BB-12). In addition to the battleships, two divisions of torpedo boat and torpedo boat destroyers joined the battle force, along with several support ships such as coal tenders and store ships. 

12-inch shell explosions during live fire drills

The fleet conducted several rounds of live fire shoots with their main guns in late March and early April. The torpedo boat divisions practiced torpedo attack runs on the battleships during the middle of the night. Several senior naval officers served as observers and kept score of hits and misses of the stationary targets and determined the success of the torpedo boats against the battleships. Witnessed by several U.S. Senators and Secretary of the Josephus Daniels, the exercises were by all accounts a success.

With their round of shooting done, officers on board Kansas
observe other battleships' firings. 

That is not how local Marylanders saw it. Like the 1911 operation, Maryland civilians who lived near Tangier Island claimed the battleship gun shoots were having a devastating affect on their town and their agribusiness. One newspaper reported that buildings in Chrisfield, Maryland had their shattered windows and cracked foundations. The newspaper even claimed some of their chimneys were knocked off. In addition, Chrisfield watermen claimed the concussion waves killed thousands of fish.  They were also afraid of getting hit by stray shells. Local poultry farmers claimed that eggs cracked and were hatching prematurely. The Navy had no comment on these allegations.

Bombardment of Fort Fisher, by James Madison Alden



This print is entitled Bombardment of Fort Fisher. The lengthy subtitle reads, "By U.S. Naval Forces under command of Rear Admiral D.D. Porter just previous to the assault of the Military and Naval forces under the command of Major General A.H. Terry, January 15, 1865.  To the Gallant Officers and Men with valor and skill that secured the Victory, the Print is respectfully dedicated by the Publisher."

Drawn by James Madison Alden and published by the New York City-based print shop William Endicott and Company (the same company that published the museum's USS Minnesota print), the print currently hangs in the museum's Civil War gallery.  It depicts the second major bombardment conducted by the massive U.S. Fleet in preparation for a major ground assault by 10,000 Union Soldiers of Terry's XXIII Corps and 2,000 volunteer Sailors and Marines from the fleet.  The print is centered around the Confederate batteries at Fort Fisher's "Mound Battery," located on the Southern end of the fort. From this vantage point, the viewer can see the entire length of the fort and appreciate the large number of ships the U.S. Navy brought to subdue it. Read more about this epic battle here.



Alden's work is rare in the respect that the vast majority of other images portraying the battle show it from the fleet side, looking at the fort from the outside. It is also unique in another respect. Throughout his career as an artist, cartographer, and executive assistant to Admiral David Dixon Porter, Alden painted over 670 works. Bombardment of Fort Fisher is the only one of Alden's works that has people in it, and is the only one that portrays a battle. A third factor that makes this illustration rare is that Alden only sold a few of his private works to the public. 

This is a typical  Battle of Fort Fisher illustration, with the fleet
in front and the fort toward the back.  This one was sketched
by T.F. Laycock and published by William Endicott.

 

As an artist, Alden specialized in sweeping landscape watercolors. He developed a talent for this while serving on the U.S. Boundary Commission expedition from 1857 to 1860. Charged with working with British Royal Engineers, the Commission's job was to finalize the exact location of the U.S.-Canadian border. Alden provided illustrations of important geographical landmarks that could be cross-referenced on a map. (Many of those works can be seen here). One art historian noted that Alden's training as a cartographer led him to reject the up-and-coming European schools of 19th century art, such as Romanticism and Impressionism. Rather, Alden believed his paintings should accurately portray the subject without the artist adding his own interpretation.