Importance of the Gosport/Norfolk Naval Yard in the Early Civil War Period

Confederate success in throwing back the Union army at Bull Run in 1861 owed much to the gun power used in the engagement, seized by the Confederates months earlier with the occupation of Gosport Naval Yard. On the heels of the capture of Harpers Ferry, Gosport represented a tremendous early loss for Abraham Lincoln. Despite attempts to destroy the yard, vessels, and munitions, the South salvaged most of the yard and its many armaments. Historians still debate who deserves the greatest blame for its loss to the South.

 

The Importance of Gosport Naval Yard

 

As the Civil War began, Gosport was one of the most important naval installations along the Atlantic coast. Its dry dock was the largest in the hemisphere and the facility contained almost 1000 naval guns and other artillery. Located on the James River, Gosport was in Virginia, a state that had not yet left the Union after Lincoln’s inauguration but was under intense pressure to do so by late April.

 

Besides the obvious tangible benefits that came with control of the yard such as munitions and vessels, use of the naval facility would enable the South to hinder any Northern naval blockage, put pressure on merchant shipping that might ultimately goad Maryland into joining the South, and possibly even threaten Washington on the Potomac River. Control of Gosport and the Norfolk area meant control of the Chesapeake Bay.

 

Several naval ships, in fact one quarter of the fleet, were in Gosport, although several ships were not seaworthy and repairs were being completed on most of them. The USS Merrimack was also awaiting repairs, her engines in desperate need of a major overhaul. Although sunk and set ablaze by Union defenders, she would be raised, repaired, refitted with iron casing, and renamed the CSS Virginia.

 

The Merrimack sank too quickly. This saved her hull and engines from the fire that was set as she began to founder. A boon to the South, she would earn the distinction, after her duel with the Northern Monitor in the spring of 1862, of forever changing naval warfare and ensuring that all wooden navies were obsolete.

 

Defending and Destroying Gosport

 

Historians differ as to who should receive the ultimate blame for the loss of Gosport. David Detzer demonstrates that several poor decisions were made by men in varying capacities yet ultimately blames Abraham Lincoln for waiting too long in an effort to appease Virginia. Page Smith, however, states that Naval Secretary Gideon Welles was blocked from implemented earlier actions by Secretary of State William Henry Seward.

 

Gosport was commanded by the seventy-eight year old Charles McCauley, a man whose immediate background may not have prepared him for the severity of the crisis in March-April 1861. Further, McCauley’s instructions were often ambiguous, almost contradictory, and indecisive. Lacking men or resources, he was fully aware that forces were being raised against his facility across the James River.

 

By the time reinforcements arrived under the command of Captain Hiram Paulding, McCauley had already destroyed parts of the facility and was in the process of evacuating. Paulding, reinforced with Marines as well as Massachusetts men from nearby Fortress Monroe, merely continued the process of destruction. Keeping the facility out of enemy hands was part of his orders, even if it meant destruction.

 

Critics point out that with the munitions at the yard and a reinforced garrison, the facility might have withstood a siege until further reinforcements arrived. Weeks earlier, when Welles asked General Winfield Scott for men to hold the yard, he was told that they simply were not available. President Lincoln concurred in this. But by the mid to end of April Union troop strength was growing steadily and necessary reinforcements might have made the difference.

 

Sources:

 

David Detzer, Dissonance: the Turbulent Days Between Fort Sumter and Bull Run (Harcourt, Inc., 2006)

Shelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville (Vintage Books – Random House, 1986)

Page Smith, Trial By Fire: A People’s History of the Civil War and Reconstruction (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1982)

First published May 2, 2009 in Suite101 by M.Streich.copyright