HOW TO WATCH: To register for this FREE lecture, copy and paste this link into your browser: https://www.marinersmuseum.org/event/the-ship-that-tried-to-save-the-union-uss-pawnee/

Presenter

John V. Quarstein
Director emeritus of the USS Monitor Center

The gunboat Pawnee was part of a force tasked with reinforcing Ft. Sumter, but it arrived too late to save the fort. Six days after Sumter’s surrender, Flag Officer Hiram Paulding used Pawnee as a relief force to save Gosport Navy Yard from capture by the Confederates. Paulding arrived too late to stop the abandonment of the largest navy yard in the United States. Union soldiers, Marines, and sailors then helped lay waste to Gosport. Unfortunately, the yard’s destruction was not complete, which enabled the Confederate Navy to build CSS Virginia.