The Photographic History

The Chicora and the Palmetto State Break the Blockade

Volume VI, The Navies, 1911, pages 124–28

From the chapter “The Blockade”, Chapter IV

The sortie of 31 January 1863, when the two Charleston-built ironclads took the inner blockading line by surprise, and Beauregard's attempt to have the foreign consuls declare the blockade raised.

Cite as

James Barnes, “The Chicora and the Palmetto State Break the Blockade,” in The Photographic History of the Civil War, ed. Francis Trevelyan Miller, vol. 6, The Navies (New York: Review of Reviews Co., 1911), 124–28.

The page in the scanned volumeThe whole volume at the Internet Archive

Published
1911
Volume
VI — The Navies
Pages
124–28
Kind
from a chapter
Author
James Barnes
Photographs
3

On the 31st of January, 1808, there took place a brilliant and famous attempt on the part of the Confederate naval forces in Charleston to break the blockade, when the ironclads Palmetto State and Chicora actually put out from their harbor and steamed some distance out to sea, these rams having engaged several strong Federal gunboats, capturing one and putting the others to flight. Flag-Officer Ingraham, the senior officer of the attack, was fully persuaded that he had broken the blockade, and upon bis return to Charleston so reported to General Beauregard. The latter did everything in his ])ower to force this claim upon the attention of foreign governments, for if the consuls of European nations at Charleston would have acted upon such representation, it would have been necessary for the Federal Government to have established a fresh blockade in accordance with the laws of nations. However, to put it briefly, although this intrepid exploit came as a thunderclap to the North, the great Federal armada had

COMMODORE GERSHOM J. VAN BRUNT, U. S. N.

REAR-ADMIRAL CHARLES WILKES, U. S.

REAR-ADMIRAL JAMES L. LARDNKK, U.S.N.

only been caught slightly off its guard. England refused to admit that the blockade had been raised by the events of January 31st. Charleston never had another opportunity, for there was soon off the ])ort the strongest fleet then at sea, which embraced the New Ironsides, mounting fourteen 11-inch Dahlgren guns, two lj()-])oiuuler rifles, and two 50-pounder rifles, and also the monitors Wcclinxchen, Passaic, Montauk, Patapsco, Catskill, Naiifiicl.-ct, and Nahani, besides the monitor Keokuk, of a slightly different pattern from the Ericsson floating turrets.

The scan

What the scanning made of this page, and what it is in the printed original.

  • The date in the opening sentence is a scanning error. The page reads “On the aist of January, 1808”; the book prints 31st of January, 1863, which is the date of the sortie and the date the same chapter gives for it on page 128.