fAR HEEL HISTORY
By Jerry Blackwcldcr
The Fall And Rise
Of A Confederate Ship
The ironclad Raw Neuse was sunk to avoid capture
by Yankees, but reborn as a Kinston historic site.
The U.S.S. Monitor may lx- North
Carolina's best-known ironclad,
but it isn’t the only one that
came to rest in Tar I leel waters.
Anchored permanently on the banks
of the Neuse River in Kinston is the
< lonfetiemte States Shift Neuse. Built only a
few miles upstream, the Neuse is a
gunboat that sank, spent nearly a century
in the swirling, muddy waters ol the
Neuse, and rose again.
The ironclad debuted during the Civil
War and represented a radical departure
from the wooden sailing ships that had
been the standard of naval warfare for
hundreds of years. The new ships were
known by several names: “ironclads"
1хч
au>e of the iron plating several inches
thick that covered their wooden hulls,
"rams" because of the destructive
capacity of their pointed armor-plated
bows, and "gunboats" because they
carried heavy artillery aboard the top
decks.
The ships were designed to lx- driven
by stcam-|xnvered propellers, rather than
by traditional sails or paddle-wheels. They
s;it low in the water, where they presented
difficult targets for rival gunners.
The new gunboat technology became
quite |M>pular during the Civil War. At the
outbreak of the hostilities, of course, the
Confederacy was without a standing navy.
President Jefferson Davis hoped one
would not be needed, but the Union
blockade of critical ports forced the
Southern states to defend their
waterways. The Union produced more
than
НИ)
ironclads, and the Confederacy
built and commissioned 22. Two years
into the war. John Porter of the Confed¬
erate navy announced plans to build four
ironclads in North Carolina.
I he Neuse and her sister ship, the
ЛИ*
marie, were designed to lx 158 feet
long and 35 feet wide, with four inches of
iron 'kin to deflect enemy shells, a flat
bottom to navigate the shallow waterways
and inlets of Eastern North Carolina, and
two large swivel guns for attacking Union
positions.
Original plans called for the Neuse's 22-
inch-thick pine and oak inner hull to Ik-
assembled in New Bern, but Union
occupation in 1862 forced a move
upriver to Whitehall, now called Seven
Springs. As Union forces inarched west
toward a strategic railroad bridge in
Cnldshoro. they shelled the partially
completed gunboat. The Confederate
navy t«x*k the ship from its builders and
towed the damaged hull down the river
to Kinston, safe at the time from the
Union invaders. It would Ik* the longest
voyage the Net isr ever made.
Completion at Kinston was a slow
proc ess. Manpower was scarce, and
Confederate infantrymen had to be
brought into service as shipbuilders, lion
also was in short supply and tiskv to
transport over railways from iron works in
Ric hmond or Atlanta. It took two years
from the time construction began until
the Neuse became sea- and Intlle-woithy.
Even then, it had far less than half the*
needed armor plating.
In April 1864 Confederate strategists
vowed to retake New Bern, and the 500-
ton Neuse was ordered downstream foi
the attack. But when the ship was only
hall a mile from the port, it ran aground
on a sandbar. As the river fell, its how-
stuck cuit four feet above the water level.
It remained there a full month In-fore
spring rains rose the water again and
freed the stranded gunboat. Abandoning
tli«* trip to New Bern, the ship returned
to Kinston and remained idle lot 10
months.
( 'Miimaiicler Joseph Price and his < lew
ol nearly a hundred "long legged I toys
from the pincy woods.” as he c alled
them, took up residence in Kinston to
await further orders.
Bv March 1865 the war was near Ivov ci.
A group of Kinston businessmen formed a partnership in 1961 to retrieve the C.S.S.
Neuse from the bottom of the Neuse Riser. Today, the ship's remains are on display
at the C.5.S. Neuse State Historic Site.
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The State'Scpt ember 1940
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