A View of the Norfolk Navy Yard.
From a photograph by Cook.
It is cheering to read that “the disloyalty did not at that time extend to the mechanics,” and that “they worked day and night” to get the ship ready. “Then forty-four firemen and coal heavers volunteered for the service of taking the Merrimac out.” At this Commodore McCauley, mindful of his orders to do nothing to excite the suspicions of hostile intent, said “that next morning would be time enough.” Next morning, there being a good head of steam on, word was again sent that she was ready, but he replied that he had decided not to send her out. “He gave as a reason the obstructions that had been placed in the channel, and when the anxious Alden told him they could clear away the obstructions he merely ordered the fires drawn. He had become utterly demoralized, and his demoralization was infectious.”
At about this time came Captain Paulding in the Pawnee from Washington with a regiment of Massachusetts volunteers. His instructions were to “save what he could and act as he thought proper.” When he arrived the Southern officers had just resigned, and the mechanics, being citizens of Virginia, had been induced to leave the yard in a body. It was reported that thousands of Virginia militia were coming to reinforce the Confederates gathering about the yard. The report was due to a trick of William Mahone, afterwards a noted practical politician of the State. He was president of the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad, and ran empty cars up the line, loaded on a mob sent there for the purpose, and brought them back “with every man yelling with all his might.” This was on April 19, 1861. The next day Confederate troops did arrive, and the demoralization in the yard was completed. It was the most disgraceful panic in the history of the nation, for it was a panic that came on when not a gun had been fired, and the only overt acts of war were the robbing of a government powder magazine and the sinking of a few hulks (Mahone did this also), so that the government officers would think the channel was being obstructed.
“The broadside of the Germantown, which was all ready for sea and only waiting a crew, would have saved the navy yard against attack, overawed Norfolk and Portsmouth, and prevented the channel from being obstructed by the Confederates.” So says Porter. Elsewhere he adds, that the “five heavy guns on a side on board the Pennsylvania” with fifty good seamen on board, “could have bid defiance to 5,000 Confederates in arms and held Norfolk and Portsmouth.”
Nevertheless, “after the arrival of the Pawnee had made the yard doubly secure, the shells were drawn from the Pennsylvania’s guns, and the guns spiked.” Every other gun in the yard, afloat and ashore, except 200, was spiked. Men with sledge-hammers ran about the yard, vainly trying to knock the trunnions from the guns in store. Others soaked the decks of the ships and the buildings with tar and turpentine. Others laid a mine in the dry dock—put twenty-six barrels (2,600 pounds) of powder there. Only the Pawnee and the Cumberland, which were full-manned, escaped the work of the destroyers.
“It was a beautiful starlight night, April 20th, when all the preparations were completed. The people of Norfolk and Portsmouth were wrapped in slumber, little dreaming that in a few hours the ships and public works which were so essential to the prosperity of the community would be a mass of ruins, and hundreds of people would be without employment and without food for their families. The Pawnee had towed the Cumberland out of the reach of the fire, and laid at anchor to receive on board those who were to fire the public property. Commodore McCauley had gone to bed that night, worn out with excitement and anxiety, under the impression that the force that had arrived at Norfolk was for the purpose of holding the yard and relieving him of responsibility, and when he was called at midnight and informed that the torch would be applied to everything, he could hardly realize the situation, and was chagrined and mortified at the idea of abandoning his post without any attempt to defend it.
“At 2.30 A.M., April 21st, a rocket from the Pawnee gave the signal; the work of destruction commenced with the Merrimac, and in ten minutes she was one vast sheet of flame. In quick succession the trains to the other ships and buildings were ignited and the surrounding country brilliantly illuminated.”
