How Abe Lincoln Sunk the Merrimack

February 12th used to be Lincoln’s Birthday. It still is, but we combined it with Washington’s, called it President’s Day and moved it. Now, it celebrates Hoover, Nixon and all the rest of them. Lincoln’s an icon, though, with his name on tunnels and head on pennies. He’s beloved and atop nearly everyone’s favorites lists. It wasn’t that way in his day, though. He was controversial and inflammatory, barely won office. Initially, he had Radical Republicans and Copperhead Democrats to contend with, then a war and a new gaggle of generals and ‘advisors’ pecking at him.

Lincoln was broadly skilled but not an experienced soldier. He led a militia company during the Blackhawk War, famously wrestling himself into that position. But they saw no action. He’d visit Washington’s fortifications and was present during a calvary raid during which he ‘commanded’ a gun battery that took pot-shots. That’s about it. Consequently, I was surprised to learn that Lincoln had planned, organized and commanded, ‘from the field’, a combined military operation during the Civil War. President Lincoln never commanded a field army like Washington did during the Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion. However, he was more ‘involved’ than Madison was when he observed (as did Francis Scott Key), the bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1812. During Lincoln’s operation, George B. McClellan still commanded the Army of the Potomac, though he was totally unaware of the President’s plan.

Lincoln, Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton and Treasury Secretary, Samuel Chase arrived at the Union’s main base at Fort Monroe, VA, on May 6, 1862. They were there to ‘check on’ McClellan. Stanton despised the general. Political animal Chase sided with powerful Radicals and Abolitionists and was no McClellan supporter, either. The President still trusted him but was frustrated by the army’s slow progress. On their voyage down the Chesapeake from Washington, the potentates risked encountering the Confederate ironclad Virginia (Merrimack). She had been repaired since her battle with the Monitor and again was loose and marauding.

On May 5th, a “fierce, short and decisive” counter-charge, led by Winfield Scott Hancock, near Williamsburg gave McClellan a victory banner with which to fend off his detractors. The push to Richmond was on! Still dissatisfied, Stanton convinced Lincoln to ‘try out’ a plan he’d devised to capture Norfolk and its shipyard, the Virginia’s home base. Confederate forces were occupied against McClellan and the city was vulnerable. The Navy and 10,000-man garrison at Fort Monroe were Lincoln’s to command.

The President enlisted 78-year-old General John E. Wool to lead the expedition. The fort’s commander began his competent, fiftyyear career during the War of 1812. While Lincoln was aboard the flagship Minnesota discussing logistics with his ‘team’, a deckofficer described him: “Dressed in a black suit with a very seedy crepe on his hat, and hanging over the railing, he looked like some Hoosier just starting home from California with store clothes and a boiled shirt.”

The Lincoln Operation had a stumbling start. On May 8, a flotilla of warships, led by the Monitor, was sent to bombard enemy positions on Sewell’s Point, seven miles north of Norfolk. Troop transports followed and were to land under cover of that fire. But, before they even approached shore, the Virginia steamed into view. The plan was quickly aborted. Transports returned to Fort Monroe and the fleet scattered. Another, safer, landing site was found and, on the night of May 9th, General Wool landed with 5,000 men. The President and Stanton stayed at Fort Monroe to ‘run’ things.

Lincoln had a sleepless night and the next morning experienced the frustration and infuriation all military commanders do. When a brigadier leading troops to reinforce Wool seemed too slow-moving the Commander in Chief blew his top. “Why are you here!? Why not on the other side!?” he shouted and slammed his stovepipe hat to the floor, seedy crepe and all.

General Wool needed no help. His landing was unopposed. The next morning, accompanied by Secretary Chase, they marched to the outskirts of Norfolk. They expected a stubborn defense but, Mayor William W. Lamb greeted them ‘at the gates’ to offer surrender. The 9,000-man Confederate garrison under Major General Benjamin Huger had already evacuated. Lamb insisted on ‘officially’ presenting a set of rusty ‘keys to the city’. According to a witness, he dragged out the surrender ceremony, “with all the formality of a medieval warden.” It was a deliberate stall to give time for demolition crews left behind by Huger to destroy the Gosport Navy Yard, port facilities and stockpiled supplies.

Despite the destruction of the naval yard, the operation was a shining success. A new ‘beachhead’ was gained, offering another route to Richmond. The Confederacy lost a major shipyard and an important port. The Virginia, which was still ‘standing’ off Sewell’s Point, was now a ship without a home, bottled up in the James estuary. Federal forts barred her escape into the bay and she drew too much water to escape upstream to Richmond.

Because of the successful Lincoln Operation, the Virginia’s captain, Josiah Tattnall, realized his ship had no future. He chose not to heroically steam out, guns blazing, to certain destruction. To prevent his ship’s capture, on the night of May 10, Tattnall took the ironclad to Craney Island, a few miles northeast of Norfolk. He ordered the ship abandoned and, before debarking himself, lit a fuse. At 4:58am, May 11, 1862, the sixteen-ton powder magazine on the Virginia, the pride of the Confederate Navy and a ship ever to be remembered as the Merrimack, exploded and sank. President Lincoln returned to Washington and ‘commanded’ another three years of war. McClellan met Robert E. Lee and failed to take Richmond. He was fired, re-hired and fired again in the next six months. ‘Little Mac’ lost to Lincoln in the 1864 presidential election but went on to serve as governor of New Jersey. About Lincoln, we all know— and celebrate his life this time of year.

JaCK SCHiCK iS a long time QuaKertown area reSident and regular Contributor Here at ubfP. reaCH Him at SJCKSCHC@aol Com