Tag Archives: Franklin Buchanan

ECW Weekender: Fort Gaines

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Phill Greenwalt

On the tip of Dauphin Island, Alabama, sits the impressive brick and mason Fort Gaines, a silent sentinel of Mobile Bay. In the parade ground of the fort is displayed the anchor of the USS Hartford the flagship of Admiral David … Continue reading →

Posted in Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Emerging Civil War, Monuments | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

What’s In a (Confederate) Name?

Posted on July 11, 2020 by Dwight Hughes

Visitors to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis are engulfed in history. The magnificent grounds on the Severn River (known officially as “the yard”) abound in monuments, plaques, halls, and displays memorializing the nation’s naval heritage. Names of heroes … Continue reading →

Posted in Memory, Monuments, Navies, Ties to the War | Tagged , , , , , , , | 69 Comments

An Ancient and Fearsome Weapon: The Ram

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Dwight Hughes

The ram—the main armament of sleek and swift Greek triremes powered by 180 rowers—turned back a Persian invasion at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BC and launched Western Civilization. Rowing galleys ruled the Mediterranean for two more millennia, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Battles, Navies, Weapons | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sink Before Surrender: The CSS Virginia Gets Underway

Posted on May 7, 2019 by Dwight Hughes

In the dawn of that fateful Saturday, March 8, 1862, the CSS Virginia lay alongside the Gosport Shipyard quay on the west bank of the Elizabeth River across from Norfolk, Virginia, and just upriver from Hampton Roads. The storm passed … Continue reading →

Posted in Battles, Emerging Civil War, Navies | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Civil War Echoes: The Battle of Okinawa

Posted on April 1, 2019 by Chris Kolakowski

Today 74 years ago Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, got underway as the first of 183,000 soldiers and Marines of U.S. Tenth Army swarmed ashore at Hagushi on the island’s west coast. It was the largest amphibious operation of … Continue reading →

Posted in Armies, Battles, Ties to the War, Trans-Mississippi | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Civil War Echoes: The Greatest Raid of All

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Chris Kolakowski

One hundred years ago today, construction began on USS Buchanan (DD-131), a destroyer named for Franklin Buchanan, the first superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and later first admiral in the Confederate States Navy. She later played a role in … Continue reading →

Posted in Navies, Ties to the War | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Duel in Mobile Bay

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Chris Kolakowski

Early in the morning of August 5, 1864 (150 years ago today), Union Admiral David G. Farragut’s fleet steamed north toward Mobile Bay, in an effort to run Confederate defenses and block the eastern Confederacy’s last major port on the … Continue reading →

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