Navy Profiles
Gunboat Master
On October 24, 1863, near Napoleon, Mississippi, the side-wheel steamer Conestoga, Acting Master Gilbert Morton, seized steamer Lillie Martin and tug Sweden, suspected of trading with the Confederates. Four days later, she engaged Confederate batteries near Decatur, Alabama, on the Tennessee River. Paddle-wheeler General Thomas sustained damage but passed the batteries, rounded to and, with Army gunboat Stone River, poured such a withering crossfire into the emplacements that the Southerners abandoned them. Brigadier General Robert Granger, commanding Union troops in the area, described the action: "It was impossible for men to withstand this attack. They deserted their guns, a portion of them retreating to their main line, while many of them rushed down the bank and sought the protection of the trees at the waters edge. The guns of the boats, double-shotted with canister, were turned upon them at a distance of scarcely 300 yards, and poured in a terrible fire." In December, General Thomas, on the upper Tennessee River, blocked CSA General Hood's escape route. Cassius M. Booth, John Hayes, Horace Kelley, Charles King, Herod King, Rollin S. Sherman, John Travers and James G. Warner served on the General Thomas. King was from Halifax, the others were all from Essex. Sherman died of wounds December 30, 1864, at Nashville." On March 4, 1865, the side-wheel gunboat General Burnside, Lieutenant Moreau Forrest, accompanied by Morton's General Thomas, attacked and dispersed the encampment of CSA General Philip D. Roddey at Mussel Shoals, on the Tennessee River; later that day, at Lamb's Ferry, they destroyed Confederate communications and transportation facilities.1
(to be continued ...)
Notes:
1. Peck, 693; "General Thomas," DANFS; Peck, 699ff.
See Researching and writing about Vermont Blue-Jackets in the Civil War for explanations of references.
