Benjamin Butler's Naval Brigade

BENJAMIN BUTLER'S NAVAL BRIGADE Howard C. Westwood Major General Benjamin F. Butler took command of the Union's Department of Virginia and North Carolina on November 11, 1863. Almost at oncehe organized a unique unit in his army to operate a small fleet of wooden gunboats, called the Naval Brigade.1 Much as historians have scrutinized Buder's regime, littìe or no attention has been given to that army navy. It merits notice. Until the time in May 1864 when Buder's recendy organized Army of the James moved up the James River to take part in what evolved into the siege of Petersburg, water hadbeen asimportant as landin the operations of the army of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina. The department had extended from the Rappahannock River down the coastal area west of the Chesapeake Bay to the bay's mouth, and thence along the Adantic Coast region to the southern border of North Carolina . In late December 1863 there had been added to it the Maryland county bordering the mouth of the Potomac River, and Virginia's two Eastern Shore counties between the Chesapeake and the Atlantic. It was a labyrinth of bays, sounds, rivers, canals, and creeks. Its headquarters were in the midst of the labyrinth, at Fort Monroe on thenorth side of the entrance to Hampton Roads near the mouth of the Chesapeake. Just after Butler took command of the department, he did a quick tour ofhis army's posts in North Carolina, accompanied by his wife. On their reDeep is my debt to Michael Musick, ofthe National Archives, who guidedmeto obscure corners of the military records. Helpful, also, were Dr. William S. Dudley, who heads research at the Naval Historical Center, Navy Department, and one of his staff, Tamara Melia, who suggested this topic. 1 The War of the Rebellion: A Compihtion of the Official Records of the Union and ConfederateArmies, 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1880-1901), ser. 1,29, pt. 1,5; pt. 2, 447 (hereafter cited as OR). This unit is not to be confused with anotherarmy unit in the department, the 99th New York, that always, even postwar, called itself the Naval Brigade . It was so named at the war's outset on its organization for army gunboat service, but within weeks was reorganized as an infantry regiment. Through much of the war, however , detachments or individual officers of that regiment had temporary army gunboat service from time to time. History of the Naval Brigade, 99th N.Y. Volunteers, comp. Philip Corell (New York: n.p., 1905). Civil War History, Vol. XXXIV, No. 3, © 1988 by The Kent State University Press 254civil war history turn, Mrs. Butler wrote a friend, "North Carolina seems to be all water." Had she toured the Virginia area, she would have found it much the same.2 The department's basic missions under Butler's predecessor, Major General John G. Foster, and during the first five months under Butler were twofold. One was cooperation with and protection of the navy's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Rear Admiral S. Phillips Lee, whose home port was Hampton Roads. The other was maintaining access to substantial inland areas along the labyrinth that provided potential jumping-off points for future army invasion deeper into the Confederacy, and, in any case, suppressing rebel recruiting, trade, and other activities in those areas. In pursuit of these missions the army was not engaged on established fronts. Rather it was stationed at posts, from which bodies of troops were sent on forays, often via inland waterways. In Virginia the posts were on and near Hampton Roads and on the James River/York River Peninsula. In North Carolina, apart from certain posts directly on the Atlantic coast, the army had three posts on shores of inland waters. They were Plymouth at the head of the Albemarle Sound, Washington in the headwaters of the Pamlico River, and New Berne, the headquarters of the department's North Carolina district , on the Neuse River. Such inland posts, quite detached and widely spread, caused concern to Admiral Lee.3 Lee's concern was the extent of the demands on his squadron resulting...