31st Jan
Dunlop arrives off Galveston Bay.
The blockading force consists of the Santee and the Rachel Seaman. Both are sailing ships, one a frigate and the other a schooner.
Dunlop has every advantage possible - the Sans Pareil alone outguns the entire blockading force. Unable to escape, the Santee focuses all her fire on the Ariadne (the Rachel Seaman is a complete non factor, disabled by shells before getting close enough to do meaningful damage with her two 32-lber guns). Her gundeck guns can only get the right elevation on the up-roll, which results in low accuracy, and the 32-lber guns can do only superficial damage at the long range. She scores one long ranged hit with her 8” shell guns and one hit between wind and wave with one of her 64-lber chaser guns, as well as two ineffectual hits with the 32-lbers - by which point she has been hit by at least six Armstrong rifle shells from Ariadne and Sans Pareil fuzing on Pillar fuzes, and other RN ships are swinging into position to rake her with their own Armstrongs. At this point, on fire and unable to effectively resist, she strikes.
Two of the RN’s Armstrong guns blew vent pieces during the action, though Dunlop suspects poor drill is at fault.
Fortunately the Santee does not explode, but she does burn to the waterline over the next few hours. Ariadne is quickly patched up by the carpenters, and Dunlop sets sail the next day.
2 Feb
An ominous day for the US - a French-flagged merchant ship sails into Hampton Roads, carrying 500 tons cargo (Minie Rifles, ammunition, boots, blankets and cloth) which it will exchange for cotton - and make a tidy profit on the deal.
3 Feb
Milne is substantially reinforced from a combination of ships ordered for America before the outbreak of war (similar to Orlando) and the rest of the vessels from the NA&WI station. Nile, Shannon, Severn, Diadem, Euryalus, Barrosa, Rosario, Devastation, Peterel, Vigilant, Lee, Amelia, Escort, Emerald all arrive, as well as three gunboats (Brazen, Beaver, Snapper).
This makes up his mind, and he determines to attack and neutralize Fort Monroe - partly because the Confederate forces containing it can be put to better use drawing off Union troops.
4 Feb
HMS Hydra stops and searches a US-flagged merchant ship off Narragansett bay. The ship contains only grain, and is let through - the British list of contraband does not include foodstuffs.
Also on this date, James Ripley telegraphs all contractors producing breech-loaders for the army to ask how many weapons they can deliver per week. The total - spread among Sharps, Starr, Gibbs, Merrill, Burnside, Gallagher and Smith - is approximately 1,600 per week.
5 Feb
Dunlop arrives off Ship Island. The blockading force here was not alerted of his approach until a day ago - as it happens, HMS Spiteful operating out of the Bahamas has captured the dispatch steamer sent to warn the gulf squadron. Since McKean is ailing (his replacement, Farragut, was to arrive around this time, but was unable to due to British ships blocking the entrance to the Chesapeake), control is de facto in the hands of his flag captain Theodorus Bailey.
Bailey’s forces are strung out across various inlets of the Mississippi. The sailing ships are unable to concentrate in time - Dunlop’s vessels have several knots on them - and the Vincennes, Preble and Samuel Rotan are lost for little return fire as Dunlop’s craft simply attack from windward.
Making matters worse, half of Dunlop’s fleet sailed along a course some distance from the coast, using a following wind, and are coming at Mobile Bay from the south-east - forcing that US squadron to fall back on Ship Island as well, and preventing easy escape.
The remainder of the USN fleet is able to concentrate, giving Bailey a large if motley fleet. The most powerful three vessels are the Niagara and Colorado, both pre-war heavy screw frigates (one armed with the bizarre armament of twelve 11” Dahlgren guns on pivots), and the Brooklyn, a sloop with an 11-gun broadside consisting of 9” and one 10” shell gun.
Aside from this, however, the rest of Bailey’s forces consist of gunboats with an average of five guns each (mostly 32 pounders).
Bailey attempts to tempt the Royal Navy force in towards the shore, where the unpredictable sandbanks would give his force an advantage, but unbeknownst to him Dunlop had sent the Greyhound upriver to New Orleans and hired on a pilot. The RN vessels remain in the relatively deep water sections of the channel, and head for the Niagara and Colorado (ships with a deep enough draft they cannot hide in the shallows) while firing on other USN vessels which come within their arcs.
All three of the prewar USN ships are mainly armed with heavy smoothbores, and while at first they have problems with accuracy (while the Royal Navy vessels have their Armstrongs to rely on - firing slowly to minimize the potential of a failure of drill) their accuracy increases as Sans Pareil at the head of the line gets closer.
One of Niagara’s salvos hits Sans Pareil right on the waterline, causing her to take on water and list somewhat to port.
Bailey is gratified by the results, until an explosion draws his attention - while his three heavy ships were concentrating on Sans Pareil and St George, the rest of the Royal Naval vessels were systematically destroying his gunboats. De Soto has just blown up, raining debris over the Winona, and a moment later Ariadne knocks the Unadilla class gunboat out of the fight as well with a salvo.
The Royal Navy liners turn to open their broadsides at 800 yards, and a storm of heavy firepower flashes back and forth between the two fleets. The USN at this point has an unusual problem - while the RN shells are using good, reliable percussion fuzes on both their smoothbore (8” and 10”) shell guns and their Armstrong rifles, the Dahlgren guns cannot be fuzed for less than three and a half seconds. At the range of this battle, that means the Dahlgren shells are detonating nearly a second after impact - the 11” rounds are actually passing right through the Royal Navy ships before exploding. The 8” rounds are a little more effective as they have more chance of being stopped by the far side of the ship.
By the end of the engagement, both Sans Pareil and St George are in need of repairs (with dozens dead and wounded) and the Jason is slowly sinking after a magazine explosion, with most of the rest of the squadron having taken more minor damage. Dunlop himself has a splinter wound from one of the 9” shells which hit his flagship.
The USN flotilla, however, has been effectively destroyed. Itasca and New London escaped out to sea, remaining at large, and the R R Cuyler will ultimately be hunted down by Confederate river gunboats.
The rest of the USN fleet has either exploded, burned to the waterline, been sunk, or (in the case of about half the losses, including both Brooklyn and Colorado) beached itself to prevent sinking. (New Orleans was burned by her crew, but the guns of the other two heavy ships will be captured by the Confederacy.)
Sans Pareil is quickly fothered, the water pumped out, and the carpenters get to work.
Meanwhile, with nowhere to go, the ships undergoing repairs on Ship Island are burned to prevent their capture. This denies the Confederacy the South Carolina and the Sciota.
The Marion escapes out to sea, and will raid British commerce for the next few months until captured (also warning the Pensacola, which retires on Port Royal). The Portsmouth, another sailing sloop, is not so lucky and is caught by HMS Ariadne.
7 Feb
Up in New England and points south, rearming is occurring at a frantic pace. Approximately 600 reserve guns were in storage at the start of the Civil War (including both fort guns and flank howitzers, though the former are mostly of older patterns such as 24-lbers and 32-lbers), but since a single fort can consume four hundred and sixty four guns (Fort Adams, of which 64 are mounted and a further 140 present - these are ¼ of the total reserve - and which fully armed would require 5,000 men to serve the guns) this does not go far.
Making matters worse is that a substantial fraction of the reserve guns have already been mounted - in the Washington defences.
Still, the delay is very useful for the US - Boston is completely undefended except by a bluff in the local papers, and it is only by a lucky chance that HMS Orpheus does not sail in to test the forts and discover the deception.
8 Feb
Milne launches the first stage of his attack on Fort Monroe. The weather is blustery, coming from the west, which does not have any particular impact on the combatants.
Milne has for the last week had the assistance of two CSA river pilots with good charts of the James River and Hampton Roads, and using these and those of his captains with experience from the Crimea he has identified a series of weaknesses in the fort.
The first target is Fort Calhoun, a one-tier fort which is undergoing an upgrade to the second tier. It has less than fifteen guns, none of which face south - and, worse, the casemates are open to the south. HMS Diadem, Escort, Emerald and Landrail take the fort with ease, ultimately sailing within 200 yards and facing no return fire (Fort Calhoun masks the fire of Fort Monroe from this angle).
As the night falls, some of the guns from Milne’s ships are being dismounted - to fit onto Fort Calhoun and attack Fort Monroe directly.
At ten in the morning of the same day, Goldsborough is recalled for a lack of aggression, and Captain (Flag Officer) Farragut takes his place. His remit is to drive off the British by any means necessary, and to act in conjunction with Fort Monroe to achieve this - the general belief of the cabinet is that the weapons of Fort Monroe will prove decisive.
Farragut begins working urgently, scouring the city of Washington for all the iron plate he can find. In some cases he requisitions iron rails intended to be used on railways, and in others he resorts to large quantities of chain to fit at the waterline. All this means weight, but he has a simple solution - he has the coal bunkers half-emptied, so his ships are travelling light, and the sailing vessels have submarine outriggers added consisting of small boats caulked and fastened below the waterline to lift them higher in the water.
9 Feb
Farragut’s modifications continue. They are done in a tearing hurry using all the workers available, including at least one army regiment pulled away from line duty to provide extra hands - both the sailing frigates get strapped with rails arranged crosswise to catch as many incoming shells as possible, while the Roanoke gets the few metal armour plates he has been able to scare up in addition to both steam frigates and the Hartford having waterline chain armour attached.
During this time the British fleet is mostly engaged in moving guns onto Fort Calhoun - fortunately for Farragut, as his ships are all vulnerable. Only one small vessel comes to investigate late in the day, and the Cumberland fires a broadside (assisted by a tug to pull her around) to discourage the British sloop.
The Mohican sails into Bermuda, intending to raid this important Royal Navy supply node. She is armed with 2 11” pivots and four other guns, which her captain considers quite adequate to deal with any ship smaller than herself.
She steams towards the hulks making up much of the base infrastructure, and as she does the guardship steams towards her.
Unfortunately for the Mohican, her captain makes a similar error to the one made by her fellow sloop the Dacotah. The guardship is a little smaller than she is, and carries more gun ports - and the judgement made by the Mohican’s captain (Sylvanus Gordon) is that this is a sloop similar to herself. As such, he fires a shot across her bows with a 32-lber - then opens fire with both his 11” Dahlgren pivots.
The cheer which goes up from Mohican’s crew is abruptly cut off when the shells shatter on impact with 4” thick rolled iron plate.
In reply, the guardship - HMS Terror - opens her port broadside and opens fire. Eight 68-lber shells shoot across the intervening space, smashing into the timber sides of the Mohican and detonating inside.
The battle goes on another five or ten minutes, but the outcome was never really in doubt - while Terror suffers some two dozen casualties due to projectile spall when Mohican belatedly begins using shot, the Mohican is quickly left a blazing wreck and her captain strikes.
A few minutes later, the Mohican explodes as the flames reach her powder store. Some of the flaming debris hits Terror, which is forced to cut away some of her rigging.
10 Feb
Farragut’s squadron is ready for the battle. The Congress, Cumberland, Zouave, Roanoke, Minnesota and Hartford are all present, and an attempt has been made to coordinate with the Port Royal fleet - though this has fallen through as the problems of coordinating a message via the eastern side of the Chesapeake (while staying out of range of the British fleet) has not allowed for precise enough coordination..
Meanwhile, Milne’s fleet is undergoing final preparations for the cannonade. There are now at least a dozen 110-lber or 68-lber mounted on Fort Calhoun, most of them taken from the battleships and frigates which can spare at least one gun each.
To support this, Milne has a very large bombarding force. No ironclads have yet arrived - Terror is still at Bermuda - but counting the vessels that have come in and the ones he set out with he disposes of Hero, Donegal, Agamemnon, Aboukir, Nile, Severn, Shannon, Mersey, Immortalite, Melopmene, Liffey, Spiteful, Rinaldo, Medea, Cygnet, Racer, Diadem, Landrail, Euryalus, Barrosa, Rosario, Devastation, Peterel, Vigilant, Lee, Amelia, Escort, Brazen, Beaver, Snapper and Emerald.
The battery on Fort Calhoun is the first to open fire, using heavy 68 pounder guns to batter the southern wall of Fort Monroe and 110 pounder rifles to aim directly for the embrasures. The 110-lber gun turns out to be immensely destructive against Fort Monroe - like most US coastal forts, it is built of masonry with 6 feet of thickness in the main walls, and the 110-lber can put shell three feet into solid masonry at this range (which then bursts to highly destructive shattering effect). When shot is fired, it goes straight through and into the embrasures and in some cases knocks out a gun with a single hit - the shot turns a conical section of wall approx. three feet wide into fragments of rubble which act like cannister.
The 68-lber rounds - fortunately for the US - do not prove so destructive. However, even with this small mercy, they are still powerful battering weapons, and the guns on Fort Calhoun are supplemented by a heavy cannonade from RN gunboats and even ships of the line. All are using their 110-lbers and other Armstrong rifles, and the damage mounts quickly.
There are around 25 old 32-lber guns firing south in the embrasures of Fort Monroe, and these achieve some damage in return - but the heavy rifled guns prove to be all but unstoppable. Within two hours, the south face of Monroe is effectively incapable of firing, with several embrasures collapsed and the rest choked with rubble and dead gunners. The price for the RN gunners was high - two guns, one 68-lber and one 110-lber, were hit during the exchange of fire, and two of the Armstrong guns have suffered blown vent pieces - but Milne considers it to be worthwhile.
With this achieved, RN vessels can operate freely between Fort Monroe and the Fort Calhoun battery. Before this can be taken advantage of, however, Farragut brings his ships in to fight.
Farragut has studied the hydrography of Chesapeake Bay carefully, and elects to take advantage of a feature known as the Middle Ground. Moving during a time of gradually ebbing tide, he moves most of his fleet (with tugs attached to the sailing vessels for maneouverability) to the eastern side of the bay, behind a large sandbar - the Middle Ground. This is intended to protect his ships from a direct attack by Royal Navy vessels, in the event he is seen - there are rain squalls moving in as the day wears on, so visibility is less than ideal.
Once in position, he sends the Hartford - the smallest of his steam vessels - through the maze of submarine sandbanks and channels, making for a notch in the southernmost bar which will permit relatively deep draft vessels. Hartford is making much smoke, a deliberate measure, and is clearly visible to the blockading pickets of the Royal Navy as it approaches the mouth of the bay.
Peterel carries the news to Milne, while the other pickets and their heavy support (Barrosa and Devastation with Shannon and Euryalus) get their steam up and move in.
While Hartford has been moving south, however, Farragut’s squadron has been following her. Burning Pennsylvania anthracite, with the steamers towing the sail vessels and with sails furled to reduce their profile - at least at first - they too make for the notch, aiming to gain local superiority against the RN frigates. Aided by the squalls and the tide, they slip over the bar and turn west to Hartford’s aid.
Hartford has been fighting well, engaging Barrosa in a medium-range fight where her 9” Dahlgren guns are more effective than the shell 68-lbers carried by Barrosa. The Royal Navy corvette is also having trouble with her pivot gun due to a drill problem, and the two vessels are both damaged but still fighting (with about three guns dismounted on each side and Barrosa taking on some water) when the HMS Euryalus joins the combat.
Euryalus adds another fourteen shell 68-lbers and 11 32-lbers to the battle, engaging Hartford from directly ahead - resulting in destructive raking fire which does significant damage to the American sloop.
Before this can become decisive, however, Farragut finally arrives. His flagship - Roanoke - fires a great broadside of her own at about 1,000 yards range (1 10”, 14 9” and 7 8”), which hit Barrosa heavily - half a dozen shells detonate inside her, dismounting or destroying three more guns and forcing her to turn about to bring her relatively unimpaired broadside into play.
Both American sail frigates fire as they bear at the Euryalus, and the Minnesota joins the battle as well - with the little Zouave using her small size and 30-lber rifle to attempt to attack the rudders of the British ships while they are busy with more important matters.
Milne becomes aware that the engagement to his east is larger than expected when the sound of gunfire - until then barely audible through the rain - intensifies suddenly. (This is the opening broadsides of the Cumberland and Congress, which take place at about the same time as one another.) Worried about the possibility of a US concentration on his seaward flank, he orders the assault on Fort Monroe abandoned for the day and sends half his liners (along with smaller vessels in proportion) to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay itself.
After roughly an hour of combat, Farragut’s battle has largely played out. The makeshift armour fitted to the two sailing frigates has not proved effective - Cumberland is afire after a particularly effective broadside from the Shannon, burning fiercely enough that her captain is abandoning ship, and Congress is badly damaged enough to no longer be an effective fighting unit as the Shannon hit her with a raking broadside. The plates fitted to Roanoke have been substantially more helpful - stopping at least three potentially destructive shells from penetrating - and one round which would have hit Minnesota’s machinery was stopped by her chain armour, though both screw frigates are badly knocked about and the Hartford is unable to make steam.
The Zouave has vanished - probably the recipient of a broadside from one of the frigates or from Barrosa.
For the Royal Navy’s part, their own ships are a mixed bag. Shannon is still capable of fighting, though with her funnel heavily damaged and the loss of one mast she is unlikely to be able to pursue the American ships. Euryalus is effectively out of the battle, Barrosa has run aground to prevent herself sinking and the Devastation’s relatively few guns are reduced to the point of no longer being able to fight.
In the clearing air, Farragut can see HMS Agamemnon bearing down on him at a distance of about four miles, and turns to leave. Congress is taken in tow by the Roanoke, and Minnesota takes the Hartford in tow in a hurry before the four vessels sail north for the notch.
Unfortunately for Farragut, the Congress has lost her bulges and has taken on enough water that, combined with the iron rail armour, she is riding at least three feet lower than she should. Rather than lose one of the relatively few large ships the United States has, the Congress hurriedly ditches most of her guns - leaving her armed with a few 8” guns - and both Roanoke and Minnesota together tow her over the bar.
The difficulty of navigating this sand and mud-strewn section of the Chesapeake Bay means that Milne’s ships can only fire a few long range rounds at Farragut as he retreats - holing the Hartford below the waterline with a lucky rifle round, but otherwise unable to properly punish the attackers.
Farragut writes in his diary that - had he had the choice - he would have rather escaped out to sea and refitted at New Yok, but Lincoln and his cabinet had commanded that he remain in the Chesapeake to protect the approaches to the Potomac.
11 Feb
Milne returns to Fort Monroe, moving a force of five ships and half a dozen gunboats in close to the southern wall (which is still unable to fire on his vessels) and using their rifles and shell guns to bombard the water battery on the eastern side of the fort.
As they begin to engage - at a shallow angle - the 15” “Lincoln gun” near the lighthouse opens fire. This is the prototype 15” Rodman gun, hurriedly remounted, and its first round is a hit on HMS Aboukir - doing considerable damage, but not as much as it could simply because the round goes straight in and out the other side. (This is the problem with the lack of percussion fuzes again). Nevertheless, the 350-lb shell is almost as effective as a solid shot in this regard, sending jagged splinters through the gundeck of Aboukir and killing or wounding well over a dozen men. The 15” gun gets off only one additional round, as it quickly becomes a target for the broadsides of the entire squadron, and this second round is considerably more destructive (ironically due to a loading error reducing the powder charge) - it hits the Melopmene and penetrates her sidewall, but does not pass out the other side. When this shell detonates, it kills or wounds several dozen sailors and starts fires - she is forced to flood her magazine and can play no further part in the bombardment, being replaced by her sister Immortalite.
A few of the 32-lber guns on the barbette tier of the bastions of Fort Monroe can also bear on this angle, and they start engaging the British squadron with shell fire. These guns will keep firing for up to two hours until neutralized by 110-lber or 68-lber fire, as they are trickier targets from a rocking gunboat (especially in the choppy water developing, as the unsettled weather from yesterday continues).
Most of the British attention is focused on the water battery, however. From this angle the British fire is enfilade fire, their shells coming in over the moat and hitting the embrasures in their open backs. The angle makes them harder to hit than the Fort Calhoun guns, and there are more of them (10” smoothbores), but this time there are two battleships and two heavy frigates firing. The water battery lasts about an hour and a half, absorbing thousands of shells (and at least two small magazine explosions) but is finally neutralized.
Over the course of the battle some hot shot has also been fired from Fort Monroe, but the British are used to facing this and have countermeasures in place. (Their own Martin shell is a response to these countermeasures.)
It is now around midday, and Milne’s bombardment moves into the third phase. This involves as many of his ships as possible forming a line along Hampton Roads itself and bombarding the fort face mercilessly with their heavy guns. Counting the Nile, Hero, Aboukir and Donegal, the liners alone have around 50-60 shell guns pointed at Fort Monroe.
General Butler endures this treatment until 4 pm, whereupon he surrenders and strikes his colours - by this point the southern wall is nothing more than rubble and rounds are striking the northeast face of the fort from behind, and if this continues much longer his ability to stand off even infantry attack will be destroyed.
The terms of the surrender take another hour at least to work out, and the logistics will take a further three days to satisfactorily conclude. In the end the British are to take the escaped slaves (which are considerable in number) off in several of Milne’s empty or nearly-empty supply ships (as well as the Melponeme), to be temporarily housed on Bermuda and offered a choice between resettlement elsewhere or being returned to the United States at the close of hostilities, and white troops are remanded into Confederate custody. Owing to the timing of the attack, this is not just the garrison of the fort itself but also Burnside’s division - thus the number of captives is around 12,000 Union troops.
A Union dispatch steamer slips out after dark, burning anthracite. It carries orders to the Port Royal force to not engage with the Royal Navy fleet which now have the run of the Chesapeake - instead they are to immediately evacuate Port Royal and return to New York to defend this critical city.
