PEOPLE & 



PLACES 



CSS Neuse: 



An Ill-Fated Ironclad 



By Pam Smith 



F 



JLew would argue that the CSS Neuse is an ill-fated Civil War "hero." 



The Confederate ironclad was meant to play a glorious role in retaking New Bern from 

 Union troops. From that strategic stronghold at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers, 

 the Confederate Army and Navy would protect crucial supplies moving along the 

 Wilmington and Weldon Railroad line from the North Carolina port to Gen. Robert E. Lee's 

 army in Virginia. 



But alas, the CSS Neuse never moved far from her Kinston mooring on the Neuse River 

 where she was being fitted with firepower and four inches of steel armor. Her cannons would 

 be fired only a single time — not in a glorious offensive assault, but as part of an ineffective 

 defense against enemy forces moving toward key Confederate forts. 



The crew shelled the Union calvary advancing on Kinston. Then, to avoid capture, the 

 CSS Neuse was set afire and sunk. For nearly a century, she lay buried in the muddy river 

 bottom. 



Her massive hull was recovered in the early 1960s and transported to its current humble 

 resting place adjacent to the Richard Caswell Memorial that commemorates North 

 Carolina's Revolutionary leader and first elected governor. The CSS Afeitfe/Richard Caswell 

 Memorial Historical Site — one of more than two dozen historic places administered by the 

 N.C. Department of Cultural Resources' Division of Archives and History — is an excellent 

 destination for a fall day trip. 



In spite of her less than glorious service in the Confederate Navy, the CSS Neuse tells 

 an important and dramatic piece of Civil War history, says Morris Bass, site interpreter. 



"The most fascinating part of the story is that the ironclad was the newest technology of 

 its time," Bass explains. "And, remember, at the start of the war in 1861, the Confederate 

 Navy had zero warships and was challenged to build a world-class navy. By 1865, the 

 Confederate fleet had grown to 21 1 warships." 



SETTING THE STAGE OF HISTORY 



Nevertheless, by March 1862, New Bern had fallen to Union Gen. Ambrose Burnside 

 and had become the center for federal forces in eastern North Carolina. Here, federal troops 

 launched military operations, according to William C. Harris, Civil War and Reconstruction 

 historian and North Carolina State University professor of history. 



In a book Harris edited for University Press of Florida, In the Country of the Enemy: 

 Civil War Reports of a Massachusetts Corporal, he calls the Wilmington and Weldon 

 Railroad "the best protected railroad in the South." Along with the taking of key river towns, 

 the Union troops pressed on to seize control of the Confederate railroad supply line. 



So, in October 1862, the Confederate Navy ordered, "with the least possible delay," the 

 construction of the CSS Neuse, one of 22 shallow-draft, ironclad gunboats it would build in 

 the course of the war. The wood hull would be constructed at Whitehall, now Seven Springs, 

 and then floated to Kinston to be fitted with munitions and armor. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 21 



