In the 225-year history of the United States Coast Guard and its forerunners the U.S.Lighthouse Service, U.S. Lifesaving Service and Revenue Cutter Service, the military branch has lost a total of 129 ships over 65 feet in length. Most of these have been lost in storms, accidents, or foundering.
Several have been lost in combat including six during the War of 1812, seven after May 1861 during the Civil War, five in the First World War and 15 in the Second.
However, perhaps the deepest and curious cut ever suffered by the branch occurred during a 111-day period from 27 December 1860 to 18 April 1861, when the tiny service lost no less than 7 cutters, 6 lighthouse tenders, 164 lighthouses and 10 lightships stationed or located in the former Southeastern United States to local enterprising secessionists (sometimes with the treasonous assistance of their commanders.)
This amounted to about a third of the force.
Only one Southern-based cutter, the USRC Dobbin, a 91 footer class schooner, managed to escape capture to the North, slipping her place at the federal dock in Savannah and making her way to Delaware. A second cutter, the 175-foot oceangoing USRC Harriet Lane, one of the first effective sidewheelers in the U.S. fleet, was not based in the South but was in Southern waters off Fort Sumter before the shooting started and likewise made it into U.S. Naval service on 30 March 1861.
Most of the cutters of the USRCS at the time were built direct for government use such as the 190-ton 91-foot brig-rigged schooner Washington shown here. They were shallow draft coastal vessels meant to run about and snag smugglers, illegal slavers and the last of the Gulf pirates. Typically cutters were just armed with one or two older naval pieces and small arms. Lighthouse tenders and lightships on the other hand were typically just bought off the local shipping market then modified and were unarmed.
Of the 23 seized vessels, most were used in some form by the Confederate Navy but, as far as I can tell, by 1865 all were either destroyed or condemned and none rejoined federal service after the war.
While details through the U.S. Coast Guard Historians Office on these are sketchy, here is the run down.
- USRC William Aiken; 82 ton (2 carronades) schooner, surrendered to the state authorities of South Carolina by her commanding officer, Revenue Captain N. L. Coste, on 27 December 1860. She was the first Federal vessel of any service taken by the seceding states (South Carolina had moved to secede 20 December 1860)
- USRC Alert; 74-foot (2 x 12-pounders); 18 January 1861; Seized in Mobile Bay and used as the CSS Alert
- USLHT Jasper; 1861; Seized by North Carolina militia while under repair
- USLHT Howell Cobb 1861; Seized in South Carolina
- USLHT Helen; January 1861; Seized in South Carolina and used as a supply ship in Florida during the war
- USRC McClelland; a 91′ Cushing-class (1 x 42-pound pivot gun) topsail schooner; 29 January 1861, the cutter’s captain, John Breshwood and XO, Lt. Caldwell hauled down the ensign and offered the cutter to the state of Louisiana who renamed her CSS Pickens
- USRC Washington; a 91′ Cushing-class (1 x 42-pound pivot gun) topsail schooner; 31 January 1861; Seized by Louisiana militia
- USRC Lewis Cass; 80′ Phillip Allen-class (1 x 9-pdr.) topsail schooner; 31 January 1861; Seized in Mobile Bay after Revenue Captain J. J. Morrison offered her to the state of Alabama. Her 13-man crew however, left for points North.
- USLHT William R. King; March 1861; Seized by Louisiana militia at New Orleans
- USRC Henry Dodge; 80′ Phillip Allen-class (1 x 9-pdr.) topsail schooner; 2 March 1861; Seized by Texas militia at Galveston after her skipper, First Lieutenant William F. Rogers, USRM offered her to the state with the caveat that he remain in command.
- USLHT Buchanan; 18 April 1861; Seized by Virginia militia
- USLHT North Wind; 18 April 1861; Seized by Virginia militia
- USRC Duane; a 102′ Campbell/Joe Lane-class (1 x 24-pounder) Topsail Schooner, 18 April 1861; Seized by an armed mob in Norfolk
USRC William Aiken depicted after her seizure by South Carolina. Note the Palmetto Flag
The following lightships were seized in the first two weeks of April and either moved or sunk.
- Frying Pan Shoals Lightship
- York Spit Lightship
- Wolf Trap Lightship
- Windmill Point Lightship
- Smith’s Point Lightship
- Lower Cedar Point Lightship
- Upper Cedar Point Lightship
- Bowler’s Rock Lightship
- Harbor Island Lightship
- Rattlesnake Shoal Lightship
Speaking of lights, a staggering 164 manned lighthouses, property of the U.S. Lighthouse Board, were confiscated by either local, state or Confederate government agents by the end of April. These were referred to by the senior U.S. Naval officer on the USLHB, South Carolina native and War of 1812-veteran, Commodore William Branford Shubrick, as the work of “pirates.”
While many keepers, products of their local community and outnumbered even if they were disinclined to hand over property in their care, did so without a fight, they didn’t always go quietly.
The U. S. Gunboat “Mohawk” chases the Confederate Steamer “Spray” into the St Mark’s River. Note the Confederate flag above the lighthouse. Built in 1828 the Florida lighthouse survived both Confederate and Union attacks in the coming conflict and is preserved today passing from the Coast Guard to the state Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013 As for Mohawk, in April 1861 she defended the lighthouses and Forts Jefferson and Taylor at Key West, FL. from actions of “bands of lawless men”, enabling the Union to retain the forts and lights there as bases during the forthcoming Civil War
On March 31, keeper Manuel Moreno at the isolated Southwest Pass of the Mississippi River knew very well that something was going on 120 miles upriver at New Orleans. Hearing rumors from pilots on stem tugs, he complained to New Orleans collector Frank Hatch, “I am in this deserted place, ignorant of what is transpiring out of it.” The entire South was arming and he could not possibly be left out of the coming fray. “We ought to have about six muskets and a few pistols, and Powder and Balls, so as to be ready, at all times to resist any attack.”
By April 18, just 7 federal lighthouses, all in the Key West/Florida Keys area, remained in the custody of the USLHB and did so throughout the war.
The captured lightships and lighthouses remained (very) briefly in service of the CSA, who formed the Confederate Lighthouse Bureau under the command of CDR Raphael Semmes, CSN, formerly of the USN (and the USLHB). However, as Semmes left that post once the shooting started to pursue more properly piratical activities on the high seas, and keeping the lights lit were seen as helping the Union blockaders more than anyone else, the Confederate coasts went dark. Their lenses and clockwork in most cases removed and spirited away inland, their whale oil reserves either caved in or forwarded for naval use.
Many of the lighthouses, including the grand 200-foot tall brand new Sand Island house in Mobile Bay, were destroyed in the course of the conflict.
Sand Island lighthouse AL ca 1859
For more on the CSLHB, see, “The Confederate States Lighthouse Bureau” by David Cipra.
For more on the Revenue Marine in the Civil War, Truman Strobridge at the USCGHO has a great article here
