. The naval history of the Civil War . sentup the Potomac and prevent the enemy frommarching directly upon the city, and give 406 THE NAVAL HISTORY time to assemble troops enough to meet himin the field. Washington City would havebeen cut off entirely in its river communi-cations with the North, in the earlier partof the war, but for the presence of thissquadron at Hampton Roads, where it waswithin easy reach. Without it, the GrandArmy of the Potomac could not have beenmoved so successfully to the Peninsular;and it is scarcely yet forgotten how, inthe most trying times, when that army its grea
. The naval history of the Civil War . sentup the Potomac and prevent the enemy frommarching directly upon the city, and give 406 THE NAVAL HISTORY time to assemble troops enough to meet himin the field. Washington City would havebeen cut off entirely in its river communi-cations with the North, in the earlier partof the war, but for the presence of thissquadron at Hampton Roads, where it waswithin easy reach. Without it, the GrandArmy of the Potomac could not have beenmoved so successfully to the Peninsular;and it is scarcely yet forgotten how, inthe most trying times, when that army its great discipline, the energy of the offi-cers and the skill of its commanders, it notonly often arrested defeat, but sometimeschanged defeat into victory. It might appear to some people that therewas a larger number of vessels lying idlein Hampton Roads than was necessary, andthat these might in the earlier part of thewar have pushed on up the James and keptthat river free of batteries until the Fed-erals could mount guns enough afloat to. COMMANDER (AFTERWARDS REAR-ADMIRAL) JOHN KODGERS. seemed to be in danger of annihilation,the Navy was at hand to give shelter underits guns to our retiring and weary troops,and drive back the excited and victoriousfoe, who would have driven our soldiers intothe river, or made them lay down their things are mentioned not for thepurpose of claiming undue credit for theNavy, but to show that it was always onhand to perform its part of the duty in put-ting down the rebellion, and that, through push on up to Richmond. But war cannotbe carried on without mistakes, and theseoccurred in the Navy as well as in the Army;but we will venture to say that there werenot near so many in the Navy. The sinsof the Navy were more those of omissionthan commission. The situation was a newone to all concerned, and the stern reality-could onhr be learned by wading throughbattle-fields, or in the slaughter-pens of gun-boats when under the fire of heavy artille
Size: 1581px × 1581px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectunitedstatesnavy
