Built in a cornfield in Plymouth Landing, North Carolina, within a few feet of the Roanoke River, the Albemarle personified the grass-roots resistance of the South and the make-do that made the Confederate States Navy run. A persistent shortage of iron meant that the ship was fabricated from recycled items in the district -- implements whose loss caused genuine hardship to local citizens. Local planters got personally involved in the project, scouring the countryside for iron and parts, inventing equipment that cut laborious hand work down sufficiently to make the ship's completion possible. Even so the ship's construction took more than a year. And the focused activity was not ignored by Yankee intelligence. The Albemarle was armed with captured Yankee guns: two 8-inch Parrott rifles, mounted on traverses at either end so they could pivot to fire either straight ahead/astern or on either broadside. This homemade ironclad packed quite a punch -- at right, a 63-foot replica on the Roanoke today.
The ship was built to a standard design by John L. Dixon, issued across the South by Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory. Three ironclads were contemplated for the region: the Albemarle for the Roanoake, her sister ship the Neuse at Kinston on the river whose name she bore; and a third sister at Tarboro on the Tar; this last was never completed. Supervising the building of this terrifying trio was Capt. J.W. Cooke, CSN, later to become the Albemarle's skipper. Cooke signed a contract with one Gilbert Eliot, a 19-year-old blacksmith living on Albemarle Sound, allowing him to choose his own building site. Eliot selected the famous cornfield at Edwards Ferry, where the waters were too shoal for interference from the Union gunboats which patrolled and controlled the eastern N.C. sounds. Eliot named the ironclad for the body of water she would briefly control.
Albemarle and her two near-sisters were built to the 160-foot compact plan for a Dixon casement ironclad, appropriate both for the lean resources of the region and the small, shallow rivers they would call home. The design borrowed features from shoal-draft river barges, adding a casement above and a ram below water. Armor for the ship largely consisted of scrap iron laboriously re-poured in the cornfield forge, hand-hammered and slowly assembled into the casemate panels, which fitted over heavy oak timbers. Home-made or not, the armored hull and casemate proved almost impregnable to cannonfire. Like all home-built Confederate craft Albemarle was cursed with temperamental engines driving her twin props; she allegedly got their steam engines from a raid on a sawmill; the Neuse received her boiler from a steam locomotive, useless since the Yanks had occupied the terminus of the line at New Bern. The ships' propellers and shafts were the only professionally made components, manufactured at the naval yard in Charlotte, as were the props for all four North Carolina-built ironclads. With her shallow 8' draft and low superstructure, the Albemarle handled poorly under power, especially when traveling downriver. It was eventually determined she steered best downstream by traveling stern-first, with a heavy drogue of chains dragging from the bow!
Plans & Specifications
Specifications for the Albemarle:
Dimensions: 158' x 35' x 8' Armor: 4" handmade armor (two laminated 2" thicknesses), casemate; 2" hull. Armament: Two 8" Parrott RML; cast iron ram. Propulsion: (2) direct-acting steam engines developing 200 hp; twin screw. Speed: 4 kts. Crew: 150
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 48.2m x 10.1m x 2.44m Armor: 102 mm handmade armor (two laminated 51 mm thicknesses), casemate; 51 mm hull. Armament: Two 203 mm Parrott RML; cast iron ram. Propulsion: (2) direct-acting steam engines developing 149 kW; twin screw. Speed: 7.4 km/hr. Crew: 150
Ship's History
As soon as she was commissioned in April 1864, Albemarle was set to the task she had been designed for: forcing the Yankee blockaders back out of the Sounds. She is thought to have appeared as in the illustration above by Civil War buff Daniel Dowdey; as always, our thanks to the artist for the opportunity to display his fine work. The ironclad's first assignment was to clear the Yanks out of the Roanoke River, where they had held the key positions through three years of war. She pulled safely past the fire of the Union batteries and past the obstructions placed in the river, which was at flood; but below Boyle's Mill she met two Union double-ender gunboats. The Union boats' game was to pass one on either side of Albemarle and trap her by means of chains and cables passed between their two hulls. Commander J.W. Cooke, CSN ordered the Albemarle to outflank the Southfield to starboard, running dangerously close to the riverbank and avoiding the chains. When alongside the Southfield, he pivoted and savagely rammed her side, locking Albemarle's bow in the crunched hull of his opponent. The Miami came across to assist, loosing a point-blank shot which bounced off Albemarle's sloped casemate and back into Miami's bridge, killing Capt. Charles W. Flusser. Albemarle proved invulnerable to everything the Yanks had that day, and they withdrew downriver in Miami after the Southfield sank. On land, the Confederate thrust, of which Albemarle was but a part, succeeded. After more than two years of Union occupation, Confederate Gen. Hokes took Plymouth and the nearby forts on the river.
That was only the ship's baptism of fire, however. On May 5, she met a squadron of Yankee steamers while convoying two sidewheelers packed with troops, the CSS Cotton Plant and Bombshell. Here again was the Miami, along with two more double-enders, Mattabesett and Sassacus, and two smaller steamers. The Yanks concentrated their fire on Bombshell which -- despite her martial name -- soon struck her colours. But the combat was only beginning.
Noticing the Albemarle's flank presenting a perfect target at 400 yards, Lt. Cdr. Francis Asbury Roe ordered emergency power from his engine room and prepared to ram. A stoutly-made wooden ship, Sassacus charged at her prey and hit her hard in the aft section, burying her own bow deep in her adversary and leaving her bronze ram embedded in the ironclad's hull. With the two ships locked together Albemarle loosed two point-blank shots, one of which punctured her tormentor's boiler. Five Sassacus crewmen would die of scalding; for their surviving shipmates, the rest of the battle would be fought in blinding steam, but fight they did. In a three-hour affray, the ironclad proved immune to their shot and shell, and defeated attempts to torpedo her and foul her screws as well.
The Albemarle reigned supreme over
Albemarle Sound all summer and into the fall. But she was riding for a fall.
Lt. Cdr. James Ward Cushing, USN had a score to settle. Capt. Flusser of the Miami, killed in combat with the Albemarle, had been a close friend. Moreover, Cushing's brother had been taken prisoner at Shiloh while fighting in the Army of the Potomac. Just before being posted to the Carolina Sounds, Cushing had received word of his brother's death in a Confederate prison camp. Cushing had been studying torpedo tactics and went to his command with a plan to eliminate the Albemarle. Command gave him the nod, and soon two 28' steam picket-boats were on their way from New York. These boats had been converted by the Union's torpedo school to carry an iron spar with torpedo attached at the bow. Only one boat was delivered -- Picket Boat No. 1 in the Navy Register -- but in it Cushing and his crew repeatedly practiced their moves. The Confederates were not unprepared for such an attack, as Cushing found. Albemarle lay at anchor surrounded by booms of logs when he arrived to attack on the night of Oct. 27/28, 1864. The logs proved to be partially waterlogged and well-grown with algae after several months in the river. The Confederates sighted Cushing's launch when he was on his approach, and loosed a heavy but ineffectual curtain of fire. But Cushing revved up his engine and got a running start. His momentum skipped the launch across the tops of the well-slimed logs, allowing Cushing to plant his charge into the ironclad's side at the waterline. Operating according to 1860s torpedo doctrine while under fire, Cushing reversed power and ignited the 100-lb charge while backing off the target. The resulting explosion blew "a hole large enough for a coach-and-four to drive through" in the Albemarle's side. The blast swamped and sank Cushing's boat, though he himself swam away and avoided capture (11 of his crew were made prisoner, two drowned, and one other escaped). By morning the Albemarle was sitting on the bottom in 8 feet of muddy water. Cushing's revenge was complete; he immediately became one of the foremost naval heroes of the war for this daring and successul exploit.
Albemarle's wreck (left) seen a few weeks after the action. The ship's Confederate skipper salvaged her two big guns and turned them over to the Army for the defense of Plymouth -- a forlorn hope as it turned out. In the grim, protracted struggle to crush the South, heroic moments like Cushing's exploit boosted morale. It inspired admiration and emulation in the Yankee fleet. For the South the sinking was another body blow: a potent weapon painstakingly constructed, then destroyed after only seven months in service. It had been a supreme effort that brought Albemarle forth; the South entirely lacked the resources to build a replacement. In 1864 the South was already clearly, grudgingly, agonizingly losing the war. On land that year of the Albemarle's demesne and eventual demise, the South's railways and agriculture were being ravaged by Sherman's March to the Sea and Philip Sheridan's rampage through the Shenandoah. On the road to Richmond, Gen. U.S. Grant's unending series of battles was pummeling the Army of Virginia towards its breaking point -- though at a terrible cost to the attacker. The South still offered plenty of fight, but the Union blockade was strangling its war effort and starving its civil society. It was impossible to find sewing needles in the remaining Rebel territory, and difficult to find food. At the same time, three smallish but potent oceangoing ironclads ordered from Europe in 1861-2 were denied the South when they came ready for delivery towards war's end. How that threat was finessed by Union statesmen is a study in another dimension of warfare, the diplomatic front. But in these negotiations the Union's hand was now strengthened by a string of military successes, and the prospect of hard-won victory at last.
Albemarle's wreck was raised after the war and towed to the Norfolk Navy Yard. She is seen above in this penultimate phase of her career, completely disarmed, but still covered with her rough-and-ready cornfield armor. At Norfolk, she was repaired and formally purchased by the Navy, only to be warehoused and sold to J.N. Leonard & Co. in 1867. Down in Dixie, it is claimed that panels of her hand-forged armor are in circulation on the Southern folk art circuit, but one mustn't place much credence in such flimsy rumours. The 3/8-scale replica of the ship is moored behind Port O' Plymouth Museum. It can be fired up for tour groups, making a short circuit of the river and firing its guns.
C.S.S. Neuse
Albemarle's Less Fortunate Sister
Albemarle had two sister ships, one of which still exists; one of four Confederate gunboats, and six Civil War warships extant to this day. The remaining sister is CSS Neuse, built in the "cat hole" on the Neuse River, at the foot of King St. in Kinston. She was powered by large steam engines liberated from a sawmill. She was armed with two pivoting 6.4" rifles mounted in the same manner as the Albermarle. Chronic shortages of materials plagued the construction effort. During the ship's 3-year gestation, the Yanks took the port of New Bern, at the mouth of the Neuse near the south end of Pamlico Sound. Neuse's mission was to drive the Union troops out, working in conjunction with Gen. Hoke's ground forces, as Albemarle had done in Plymouth. But with all the delays, she was not ready to move until April 22, 1864. Luck was against the new ship. On her way downriver, she ran hard ground and could not be freed until the middle of following May.
By that time Hoke's division had been transferred to Virginia, so there was no infantry available for any attack locally. Returning to Kinston, Neuse was at last completed by June 7, but could not deploy forward. Instead she remained in her familiar hole in Kinston until the following spring, when she met the enemy at last. In March 1865, the Union was mopping up the remaining pockets of resistance in the crumbling Confederacy. On March 12, Neuse confronted some of the 18,000 Union troops marching north up the river to take Kinston. Hoke's men retreated upriver to Goldsboro, ordering Neuse to fight a delaying action. Accordingly Neuse turned her forward Brooke rifle on the advancing Yankees until all was clearly lost; this was her first and only hostile engagement. Before she could be captured, the ship was set afire and sank bow-in to the riverbank after a scuttling charge exploded forward. A day later, a Connecticut private named Henry Thompson visited the Neuse's watery grave. "Weather very windy, sand flying," Thompson noted. "Visited the rebel Ram which was in the bend of the river in the woods and sunk with two large Guns on board." The New Englander described her as "a savoy looking craft."
As the Sixties began, enthusiasm for Civil War history surged across the U.S., and nowhere more than in North Carolina. After three years of preparation, volunteers and marine archaeologists raised Neuse's wreck in May 1964. Our picture testifies to the good state of preservation of the ship at that time. It was largely filled with sand and under only a foot of water. The decks were largely intact and the base of the casement was clearly visible. The method of salvage chosen was to deliberately break the wreck in three pieces and lift each one independently. Unfortunately, most of the old hull and decks collapsed during the salvage. The small pieces are still extant. The ship's guns and machinery were never found, raising the possibility that they had already been removed at some time in the past.
Adequate funds were not available to build a temperature-and-humidity-controlled display space, so Neuse was moved to a temporary shelter at the Governor Caswell Memorial site in Kinston in 1969. There the remains of the ironclad -- little more than the ship's flat bottom with some ribs, a rudder and screw attached, plus a panel of the casement -- are on public view. The pavilion is located in a swampy area near the river, subject to flooding. The ship has deteriorated badly over more than three decades in this temporary site. An uproar arose over the situation, but sufficient funds have yet to be allocated for a new pavilion and exhibit space. The bright side of this story is that the site proved a rich lode of period artifacts --15,000 were recovered in all. Many of these are now on display beside their old ship; others are shown in the CSS Neuse Museum on Queen St.
There is no shortage of Civil War buffs in the Carolina Sounds -- a region positively marinated in the history of the time. Some years ago a group formed the CSS Neuse Foundation, dedicated to building a full-size replica of the ship, under the experienced eye of master shipbuilder Alton Stapleford. At this writing (2010) the project is nearing completion; auxiliary engines are being installed in the hull. Seen above in her cradle at the corner of Heritage and Gordon in Kinston, Neuse II is the world's only full scale replica of a Civil War warship. The massive timbers of this sturdily-constructed hull remind the visitor that most early ironclads were robustly-built wooden ships with only a four-inch skin of iron on the outside. For an instructive comparison, see the specs for the USS Cairo.
