US Navy engineer's letters home provide riveting details of blockade, life aboard ships

Display case at the National Civil War Naval Museum (Civil War Picket)

Letters written by a US Navy engineer describing the blockade of Charleston, S.C., soldiers of the legendary 54^th Massachusetts, Gen. George B. McClellan and even a hippopotamus at Barnum’s American Museum in New York City are now in the collection of the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Ga.

(Heritage Auctions, HA.com)

The museum last year purchased about 120 letters and other items from Heritage Auctions for $16,000. It has been displaying letters from third assistant engineer George S. Paul to his parents and other family members.

Jeffery Seymour, director of history and collections at the museum, said officials decided to make their first major purchase in some time, through the help of a major donor and a few other givers.

The museum wanted the perspective of a junior officer who detailed operations of the vessels on which he served: the gunboat USS Paul Jones, the ironclad USS Nahant and the gunboat USS Sonoma.

“We need more information about what life is like in the engine room,” Seymour recently told the Picket.

Paul, a native of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, failed in his first attempts to pass an engineer exam and moved in the fall of 1861 to Wilmington, Delaware, where he worked on federal government shipbuilding contracts. The 24-year-old recalled in a September 1862 letter the passage of a train through the city carrying wounded Federal soldiers.

“Yesterday morning the citizens of W. received word that there would be fourteen hundred wounded soldiers through here at noon and citizens were invited to bring down refreshments so just before noon women began to string along the road with baskets of provisions and the track was lined on both sides for half a mile with people and their baskets....At about two oclock the cars came along....There were forty car loads of them...some had one ear shot off others had their heads all bandaged up. One had his chin shot off another had both heels shot of[f]." 

(Civil War Picket)

By January 1863, he passed the Navy test and began his service. Seymour said Paul was likely on the low end of the totem pole.

Paul wrote a letter to his parents: "It is the duty of the Third Asst. Engineer to keep water in the boilers keep an account of the amount of coal used, to register the pressure of steam per square in. every hour and to keep the register of the height of water. His duties are not hard. His watch is four hours on and eight hours off so it makes the days work eight hours each day. The rest of my spare time I can spend in studying and as I will carry all my books with me, I can get along very well." 

According to Heritage Auctions, Paul was in St. Simons, Ga., in the summer of 1863. He detailed seeing Col. Robert Gould Shaw of the 54^th Massachusetts, the famed regiment of African-American troops, come aboard. Paul said while his captain opposed such units, he and others believed in their service.

The Second Battle of Fort Wagner, which involved an assault by the 54th Massachusetts, took place in July 1863. Although a tactical defeat, the gallant service of the 54^th led to further use of black troops.

(Heritage Auctions)

Paul was transferred to the monitor USS Nahant in January 1864. The engineer inked two drawings of the vessel and wrote this vivid description:

"Every thing is under water and the men mess and sleep in the next room to the board room and at this time they are making considerable racket as they have got up a walk around dance and are playing 'dixie' on two violins and the bones so you can imagine what kind of noise we have got...the waves run over every thing but the Turret....In perfectly smooth water the deck is about eighteen inches out of water." 

Paul’s other letters described life on the Nahant and described various bombardments of Confederate positions in South Carolina. Regarding one: "We went into action at 11 AM, and in one hour we were struck nine times three times cutting holes in the deck each one three feet long. One cut through in the Engine room and knocked a good many splinters down into the room. They were very fine, and not capable of doing much damage...and the third shot that cut the deck, cut it nearly over the powder magazine and knocked a piece of the deck plate through the deck which struck a fireman....It cut him in the head just above the right ear cutting a frightful gash, and then went down and struck him in the collar bone, breaking it and cutting him badly."

(Civil War Picket)

(Heritage Auctions, HA.com)

Seymour said Paul wrote about the February 1864 sinking of the USS Housatonic, though he did not mention the Hunley. He probably did not know at the time that the Confederate submarine was responsible.

Paul saw service through the end of the war. He later worked in Pennsylvania before moving to Ohio, where he worked an engineer for a railroad line. After a stint in Iowa, Paul settled in Cuyahoga Falls. He died in 1900 at age 62.

Seymour said the museum will continue transcribing and rotating the letters, with the hope of eventually digitizing them.

USS Nahant (Wikipedia)