The Charlotte, North Carolina, Navy Yard, C.S.N.

Ralph W. Donnelly, a frequent contributor to this magazine, is treasurer of the American Military Institute. Currently he is associated with the Skyland Life Insurance Company, Charlotte, North Carolina. The Charlotte, North Carolina, Navy Yard, C.S.N. RALPH W. DONNELLY one of the most interesting and startling tourist attractions in Charlotte , North Carolina, is a marker on the corner of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad freight depot on East Trade Street. This iron marker is a navy shield surrounded by sea anchors with wording which proclaims to passers-by: "Confederate States Navy Yard, Charlotte, N.C, 18621865 ." Such an incongruity as an inland site for a Civü War naval station calls for an explanation, and the story is as follows— The story of the Charlotte Navy Yard actually begins in the first year of the war at Portsmouth, Virginia, at the former United States Navy Yard known as Gosport. This yard, sometimes referred to as the Norfolk yard, was a center of naval construction, and it was here that gun carriages were made for the heavy naval guns which were shipped throughout the Confederacy for the hastily constructed defensive works in the early days of 1861. Here, too, much of the shot and shell for these same guns was prepared. A new laboratory cast iron and brass cannon and manufactured fuses, caps, bullets, shot, shell, shrapnel, and fireworks . The yard also contained a manufacturing machine shop. The one deficiency preventing the construction of heavy steam engines for war vessels was a means of hammering out the necessary heavy shafting, and this later was supplied through the purchase of a Nasmyth (steam) hammer to do the job. Formerly dependent upon shops in Raltimore or more distant cities, the Confederacy was able to construct its own ship engines after this hammer was acquired.1 It seems to have been 1 Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1894-1922), Ser. H, Vol. 2, p. 77; hereinafter cited as O.R.N., followed by the series number in Roman numerals, the volume in Arabic, and the page, as O.R.N., II, 2, p. 77. 72 purchased in August, 1861, from the famous Tredegar Works in Richmond .8 In the spring of 1862 it became apparent that the Confederacy stood a fair chance of losing the Norfolk area and, with it, the Gosport Navy Yard. On March 26 Secretary of the Navy Stephen R. Mallory, in anticipation ofthisloss, wrote a confidentialdispatch to the commander of the yard, Captain Sidney Smith Lee, C.S.N. (brother of Robert E. Lee), instructing him to begin packing and readying for transportation all the fine machinery and tools not then required for current operations in the workshops. The officialreasonforthe packing was to be that the department needed the equipment to establish an additional workshop.3 A further confidential dispatch on April 30 reiterated the request for the removal of suchmachineryas could be dispensedwith, andwasfollowed by an additional order to have the naval storekeeper prepare the most valuable of the naval stores for transportation.* Another confidential dispatch on the next day, May 1, 1862, directed that "all valuable machinery not really needed for service ... be boxed or secured and sent away from Norfolk at once." Mallory promised that the destination would be named on the morrow. Captain Lee was further ordered to destroy all public property, if necessary, to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy.5 Fast-moving events brought detaüed instructions on May 3 for withdrawing from the Gosport yard. Secretary Mallory directed Captain Richard L. Page to select a safe place in North Carolina for a laboratory and to transport all the ordnance stores, especially ammunition and arms, to that point. Naval Storekeeper William H. Peters was instructed to remove his stores to North Carolina, beginning with the most valuable provisions and clothing; such valuable machinery as could be saved was to be sent to Richmond.6 Several trainloads of supplies were sent off by railroad whüe other loads were shipped by water up the James River to Richmond.7 Practically all the navy yard workmen followed the army...