Charles S. Boggs - Civil War Service

Civil War Service

In December 1861 Boggs was given command of the gunboat Varuna. The following April, during the Capture of New Orleans, he commanded her with distinction:

In the attack of the squadron on the Mississippi forts, April 18–24 ... he destroyed six of the Confederate gunboats, but finally lost his own vessel, after driving his antagonist ashore in flames. When he found the Varuna sinking, he ran her ashore, tied her to the trees, and fought his guns until the water was over the guntracks.

Varuna was lost in the battle with 184 casualties. Receiving his Captain's commission in July 1862, during the rest of the American Civil War he was commanding officer of the steam sloops Juniata and Sacramento, with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the steam cruiser Connecticut in the West Indies, and had special duty at the New York Navy Yard.

Read more about this topic:  Charles S. Boggs

Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or service:

    Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.
    David Hume (1711–1776)

    They have been waiting for us in a foetor
    Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
    Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
    Of the expropriated mycologist.
    Derek Mahon (b. 1941)

    Then down came the lid—the day was lost, for art, at Sarajevo. World-politics stepped in, and a war was started which has not ended yet: a “war to end war.” But it merely ended art. It did not end war.
    Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)

    The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.
    Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)