The Battle of Albemarle Sound was an inconclusive naval battle fought in May 1864 along the coast of North Carolina during the American Civil War. Three Confederate warships, including an ironclad, engaged eight Union gunboats. The action ended indecisively due to the sunset.
In April 1864, a Confederate Army, with the aid of the CSS Albemarle, forced the surrender of the Union garrison at Plymouth. Robert Hoke, commander of a Confederate Army in North Carolina, encouraged by his success at Plymouth attempted to retake New Bern which had been in Union control since early in 1862. For his proposed attack on New Bern Hoke again turned to the aid of Albemarle, which had been a decisive factor in the Battle of Plymouth.
James W. Cooke, commander of Albemarle sailed out of Plymouth in early May 1864, along with the captured steamer CSS Bombshell and the transport CSS Cotton Plant. Steaming south toward New Bern, Cooke ran into a Union fleet at the mouth of Albemarle Sound, commanded by Captain Melancton Smith. This fleet consisted of the double-ender gunboats USS Mattabasett, USS Sassacus, USS Wyalusing and USS Miami, the converted ferryboat USS Commodore Hull, USS Ceres, USS Whitehead and USS Isaac N. Seymour. When the Confederate ships were spotted, Mattabasett, Sassucus, Whitehead and Wyalusing immediately formed a line of battle supported by Miami, Commodore Hull and Ceres. Albemarle opened fire first, wounding six men working one of Mattabesett's two 100-pounder Parrott rifles. Mattabesset, Whitehead and Wyalusing opened fire almost simultaneously. Albemarle then attempted to ram Mattabesett, but the sidewheeler managed to round the ironclad's armored bow. She was closely followed by Sassacus, which then fired a broadside of solid 9 in (229 mm) and 100-pound shot, all of which bounced off Albemarle's casemate armor. However, Bombshell, being a softer target, was hulled by each heavy shot from Sassucus's broadside and surrendered. Cotton Plant withdrew back up the Roanoke, and Albemarle continued the fight alone.
Smith, despite an advantage in numbers, could do little damage to the single Confederate ship. Shots glanced off Albemarle's sides. Lieutenant Commander Francis Asbury Roe of Sassucus, seeing Albemarle at a range of about 400 yards (370 m), decided to ram. The Union ship struck the Confederate ironclad full and square, broadside-on, shattering the timbers of her own bow, twisting off her own bronze ram in the process, and jamming both ships together. With Sassucus's hull almost touching the end of the ram's Brooke rifle, Albemarle's gun crew quickly fired two point-blank rifled shells, one of them puncturing Sassucus's boilers; though live steam was roaring through the ship, she was able to break away and drift out of range. Sassacus by now was too damaged to function and drifted down river. Miami first tried to use her spar torpedo and then to tangle the Confederate ram's screw propellers and rudder with a seine net, but neither ploy succeeded.
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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