Civil War Service
Canonicus sailed from Boston 22 April 1864 and arrived at Newport News, Virginia, 3 May for service with the James River Flotilla. Her heavy guns pounded Confederate batteries at strong points along the James on 21 June, 16 August, and 5 December–6 December.
Reassigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the monitor arrived at Beaufort, North Carolina, 15 December 1864, and took part in the heated attacks on Fort Fisher, North Carolina. In the first engagement on 24 December and 25 December, Canonicus was hit four times, but suffered no casualties and only minor damage while her own fire put two guns of Fort Fisher's battery out of action. On 13 January 1865, during the second attack, Canonicus received thirty six hits. Twice her flag was shot away, twice replaced. None of her men was killed, and only three wounded. Again, she dismounted two of the Fort's guns. Quartermaster Daniel D. Stevens (1839–1916) was awarded the Medal of Honor for replacing the ship's flag under fire.
In February 1865, Canonicus joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston, South Carolina, and during the closing months of the war aided in the capture of several blockade runners off the South Carolina coast, as well as voyaging to Havana, Cuba, in search of CSS Stonewall.
Read more about this topic: USS Canonicus (1863)
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil, war and/or service:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)
“We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“There’s no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn’t invaded Kuwait that August and set everyone gearing up for World War II½. Can we count on Saddam Hussein to come along every year and resolve our defense-policy debates? Given the history of the Middle East, it’s possible.”
—P.J. (Patrick Jake)
“The gods’ service is tolerable, man’s intolerable.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)