The first engagement in which William Cushing distinguished himself was at the battle of Crumpler’s Bluff, which was in Franklin, Virginia. Federal officers designed a combined army-navy operation against elements of Longstreet’s army camped near Franklin on the Blackwater River in October 1862. While Navy gunboats under the command of Charles Flusser made their difficult …
William Cushing‘s last engagement was at Fort Fisher, in January 1865. Located on a piece of land separating the Atlantic and the Cape Fear River in southern North Carolina, the fort protected shipping bringing goods across the Atlantic and up the river to Wilmington, which, in 1865, was the confederacy’s last open port. The fort, …
That’s pronounced Curry.
At Plymouth, I reached the site of William Cushing‘s great triumph, the place where he sank the CSS Albemarle with a manual torpedo, a perfectly ridiculous offensive weapon. At a lovely little museum devoted to the event and to the Albemarle‘s earlier triumphs and to otherCivil War events in Plymouth, I met some wonderful people, …
From most of what I saw, North Carolina is a long series of two-lane blacktops bracketed by fields of weeds. I don’t know why people object to immigrants coming to America; there seems to be ample room for them in North Carolina. But there were some things to see: a place called Tarheel Barbecue, where, …
Intermittent deluges blinded on the endless two-lane blacktops of northern North Carolina.
Went for a pleasant three hour cruise around Hampton Roads. The tour info was a little lighter than I had hoped, but on the bright side, it was nice to spend a cool and breezy three hours on the water (when it was hot and stiflingly humid on lsnd.) We saw many US warships tied …
The Maritime Museum at Newport News is just splendid. The museum has a lot of terrific artifacts, including the pricelss eafle figurehead from the USS Lancaster, and a whole exhibit on Nelson and his battles at Copenhagen, the Nile and Trafalgar. The highlight is the the terrific exhibit on the Monitor and the Virginia, including …
Spent the day at the Naval Academy, viewing the library’s special collection of material relating to the Civil War hero William B. Cushing. I visited Cushing’s grave, above, and the Academy museum at Preble Hall. Highlights included the original `Don’t Give Up the Ship’ flag flown by Oliver Hazard Perry aboard the USS Niagara in …
Molly took me to the ballgame yesterday. It was a very hot Sunday afternoon, and we had excellent seats, in the shade the whole game. The Yanks played well, with Hiroki Kuroda pitching seven scoreless innings. We did not hit much, but we did manage to nudge across one little run. As the game went …