The U.S. Navy bought aging whaling ships in New England with the goal of sinking them, loaded with stone, to block the channels of Southern harbors. The assembled fleet sailed from Port Royal, South Carolina bound for Charleston Harbor. There, they were deliberately sunk in the harbor channels under the direction of former Coastal Survey officer Captain Charles Henry Davis. Success at closing the harbor was only partial and further sinkings took place in 1862. Herman Melville later commemorated the fleet in verse. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Ann Sophia Stephens, Pictorial history of the war for the Union: a complete and reliable history ... (New York: Benjamin W. Hitchcock, 1866), I: 225-226.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers
