Selma, Ala., and Chief Engineer H. A. Ramsay had charge of an establishment at Charlotte, N. C. , for heavy forging and making gun carriages and naval equipments of all kinds.
On May 31 and June i, 1861, several vessels belonging to the Potomac flotilla, under Commander Ward, U. S. N., cannonaded the battery at Aquia creek, under Commodore W. F. Lynch, but with no particular result. The object of the enemy, probably, was to develop the Confederate defenses. Commodore Lynch mentioned favorably Commanders R. D. Thorburn and J W. Cooke and Lieut. C. C. Simms. On June 27th, Commander Ward was killed on board his vessel, the Freeborn, off Mathias point on the Potomac river. Lieutenant Chaplin, U. S. N., landed with a handful of sailors and attempted to throw up a breastwork. He was soon driven back, but he exhibited extraordinary courage in taking on his back one of his men who could not swim, and swimming to his boat. Batteries were at once constructed by the Confederates at Mathias point and Evansport, and put under the charge of Commander Frederick Chatard. As the river at Mathias point is but one mile and a half wide, the battery almost blockaded the Potomac river, and considerably annoyed, successively, the United States steamers Pocahontas, Seminole and Pensacola. Commander Chatard was assisted by Commander H. J. Hartstene and Lieut. C. W. Read, and others whose names are unobtainable.
The batteries on the Potomac and Rappahannock rivers were evacuated when the army retired from Manassas; those on the York when the army fell back on Richmond, and those on the Elizabeth when the Confederates evacuated Norfolk.
The steamer St. Nicholas, plying between Baltimore and Washington, having been taken possession of by Commodore Hollins and Col. Richard Thomas, June 29, 1861, was taken to Coan river, and there boarded by
