THE NORFOLK NAVY YARD IN APRIL, 1861.
The yard at Norfolk was, on the contrary, one of the oldest and perhaps
the most valuable and important naval establishment the United
States Government possessed. It had a magnificent granite dry dock,
foundry and machine shops; two complete shiphouses and one unfinished;
officers' houses and naval barracks; tools and machinery of all
kinds; material, ammunition and provisions of every description.
From its stock had been launched two sloops-of-the-line, one frigate,
four sloops-of-war, one brig, four screw steamers, and one side-wheel
steamer. A vast amount of rebuilding and refitting was done there
every year.
On the night of April 20, 1861, this stronghold was laid waste and
abandoned by the United States troops stationed there, eight hundred
marines and seamen with officers, under command of Commodore C. S.
McCauley. Shiphouses, storehouses and offices were fired, guns in the
parks were spiked, machinery broken up. The sloop-of-war Cumberland,
flagship of the Home squadron, United States navy, was lying off
in the Elizabeth river. To this were carried such stores as could be
transferred, and the remainder destroyed. Ships at the docks were set
on fire and scuttled; the most of them burned. The ships were: Line-of-battle
ships Pennsylvania and Delaware, the first in commission as a
receiving ship, the second carrying seventy-four guns; line-of-battle
ship Columbus, eighty guns; frigates Raritan and Columbia, fifty guns
each; sailing sloops Plymouth and Germantown, twenty-two guns each;
brig Dolphin, four guns, and the steam frigate Merrimac, which alone
was valued at $1,200,000. The line-of-battle ship New York was in
shiphouse A, and was also burned. The old frigate United States escaped
destruction, and soon after the evacuation was taken down the river
and sunk at its mouth by Virginia troops.
The Pawnee, United States navy, had left Washington the day previous,
under command of Commodore Hiram Paulding, whose orders
were to bring off the vessels lying at the Norfolk yard. He was two
hours too late. The work of destruction had begun, and the Pawnee
was put to use to tow the Cumberland down the river with the departing
Federal troops on board. The loss to the Federal Government in
the destruction was incalculable. The direct value of the property destroyed
was estimated by the Unites States Naval Department as $9,760,181;
but a greater loss to that government resulted from allowing
such valuable and much needed stores to fall indirectly into the hands
of those upon whom it was about to wage war.
Immediately on the departure of the Federal forces the citizens of Norfolk
and the two military companies then in the city broke into the
yard and devoted themselves to saving the property, heedless of personal
risk from flying firebrands and igniting powder. The dry dock
was saved, although twenty-six barrels of powder had been distributed
in the culvert north of the dock, and a train laid to a lighted fuse.
Two thousand guns were found practically uninjured, a large portion
of them the new Dahlgren guns of various caliber. Small arms, machinery,
steel plates, castings, construction materials, ordnance and
equipment stores, were saved from the flames. Later the spiked cannon
were restored to use. The fire on the Merrimac was quenched
when she had burned to the water line, her hull and boilers, and the
heavy and costly part of her engine, but little injured. Restored to
service at a later date, she took her place in the history of the war as
the famous ironclad ram Virginia. The hull of the Germantown,
with her battery of ten large guns, was raised in June following. The
Plymouth was also found worthy of repairs, and put to service.
All this the devotion of Virginians saved to the Confederacy. On
Monday morning, April 22d, the flag of Virginia, raised by Lieutenant
C. F. M. Spotswood, formerly of the United States navy, floated over
the yard.
