August 13, 1862 Wednesday
Preliminary orders were issued for the movement of the remainder of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from the Peninsula toward Gordonsville, Virginia as what was to become the Second Manassas Campaign got under way. The steamers George Peabody and West Point collided in the Potomac River, with the loss of seventy-three lives, many of them convalescent soldiers of Burnside’s corps (
http://www.suvnhcamp10.iwarp.com/dortloss.html ).
In Virginia there were reconnaissances and skirmishes toward Orange Court House. Skirmishes also occurred on Yellow Creek or Muscle Fork, Chariton River, Missouri; at Huntsville and Medon, Tennessee; and on Black River, South Carolina. On this day and the fourteenth there were skirmishes at Blue Stone, western Virginia. U.S.S. Kensington, commanded by Acting Master Crocker, seized schooner Troy off Sabine Pass, Texas, with cargo of cotton.
Rear Admiral Du Pont wrote Assistant Secretary of the Navy Fox on the subject of Confederate rams and ironclads at Savannah and Charleston: "The Savannah one, not at all the Fingal, is more of a floating battery, doubtless with 10 inch guns (8 of them) but she has a list, leaks, and has not power to go against stream. She may be used to cover vessels running the blockade by putting herself between them and the Forts if entering Savannah River. . . . The Charleston vessels are not yet ready and I hope are progressing slowly, one is simply an ironclad, size of Pembina--the other more of a ram."Because of the power which C.S.S. Virginia had promised and demonstrated, the Confederacy made every effort to ready other ironclads to strike against the blockading forces. However, lack of critical material and industrial facilities prevented the South from mounting a truly serious threat. On the Savannah River, ironclad rams Georgia and Atlanta were launched, but both were too slow and drew too much water to be fully effective. Atlanta showed herself to Du Pont's squadron on 31 July, when she steamed down the river toward Fort Pulaski and returned to Savannah. Some six months later, Master H. Beverly Littlepage, CSN, wrote Lieutenant Catesby ap R. Jones of her: "We are still at anchor in the river between Fort Jackson and the first obstructions, only a few hundred yards from the Georgia. I understand it is the intention of the commodore [Tattnall] that the Atlanta shall be moored as near the stern of the Georgia as she can get so that by springing her either of her. broadsides may be made to bear on the obstructions in the event of the anticipated attack. I think I can safely affirm that the Atlanta will never go outside of the obstructions again or, at least for some time. . . . There is no ventilation below at all, and I think it will be impossible for us to live on her in the summer. . . . . I would venture to say that if a person were blindfolded and carried below and then turned loose he would imagine himself in a swamp, for the water is trickling in all the time and everything is so damp." C.S.S. Georgia, for want of adequate engines, was used as a floating battery. The ironclads concerning Du Pont at Charleston were C.S.S. Palmetto State, a ram, and gunboat C.S.S. Chicora. Palmetto State's keel had been laid in January under Flag Officer Duncan N. Ingraham. Two months later Chicora's keel was laid-in the rear of the Charleston post office--under the direction of James M. Eason, who built two additional ironclads at Charleston, C.S.S. Charleston (whose keel was laid in December 1862) and C.S.S. Columbia, which was not completed before the fall of Charleston. Lieutenant James H. Rochelle, who commanded Palmetto State late in the war, described the vessels: "The iron-clads were . . . slow vessels with imperfect engines, which required frequent repairing. . . . Their armor was four inches thick, and they were all of the type of the Virginia. Each of the iron-clads carried a torpedo fitted to the end of a spar some 15 or 20 feet long, projecting from the bow on a line with the keel, and so arranged that it could be carried either triced up clear of the water or submerged five or six feet below the surface. . . . Every night one or more of the iron-clads anchored in the channel near Sumter for the purpose of resisting a night attack on Sumter or a dish into the harbor by the Federal vessels." Of Columbia Rochelle wrote: "She had a thickness of six inches of iron on her casemate, and was otherwise superior to the other iron-clads. Unfortunately, the Columbia was bilged in consequence of the ignorance, carelessness or treachery of her pilot, and rendered no service whatever." For all their defects, the Charleston vessels, particularly Palmetto State and Chicora, did in a measure, as naval constructor John L. Porter forecast in a 20 June 1862 letter to Eason, "afford great protection to the harbor of Charleston when completed."
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