Identifier: navalbattlesanci00ship (find matches)
Title: Naval battles, ancient and modern
Year: 1883 (1880s)
Authors: Shippen, Edward, 1826-1911
Subjects: Naval battles
Publisher: Philadelphia (etc.) J.C. McCurdy & co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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land, Newbern, Plymouth andother places were early captured, some ofthem after regular actions. A position wasgained from which the important inlandcommunication was threatened, which was vital to theConfederacy, while the commerce of the Sounds wasentirely put a stop to. It was important for them to regain what they had lost,and to this end they put forth every effort. Among other means they commenced and hastened tocompletion a formidable iron-clad vessel. In June, 1863,Lieutenant-Commander C. W. Flusser, an excellent andthoroughly reliable officer, had reported that a batterywas building at Edwards Ferry, near Weldon, on theRoanoke River, to be cased with pine sills, fourteenInches square, and plated with railroad iron. The slantingroof was to be made of five inches of pine, five inches ofoak, and railroad iron over that. Unfortunately, the light-draught monitors, which shouldhave been on hand to meet this vessel, turned out failures,and the light wooden gun-boats and double enders
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GUSHING AND THE ALBEMARLE. 653 employed in the Sounds had to encounter her. She wasaccompanied by a ram, which the Union fleet had novessel fit to meet. In April, 1864, the Albemarle being completed, theConfederates were ready to carry out their plan ofattack, which was first to recapture Plymouth, by theassistance of the ram, and then send her into AlbemarleSound, to capture or disperse our fleet. A force of tenthousand men, which they had collected, made an advance,and gained possession of the town. Lieutenant-Commander Flusser was then at Plymouth,with four vessels, the Miami, a double-ender,and threeferry-boats, armed with nine-inch guns, and exceedinglyfrail in structure, called the Southfield, Ceres and White-head. At half-past nine, on the evening of April i8th,he wrote to Admiral Lee that there had been fightingthere all day, and he feared the enemy had had the bestof it. The ram will be down to-night or to-morrow.* * * I shall have to abandon my plan of fighting theram lashed

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