USS Fort Jackson (1863-1865).
Built as the civilian steamship Union (1862).

USS Fort Jackson , a 1850-ton (burden) wooden side-wheel cruiser, was built at New York City in 1862 as the civilian steamship Union . The U.S. Navy purchased her in July 1863 and, after conversion to a warship, placed her in commission as USS Fort Jackson in August of that year. A boiler casualty kept her out of combat service until late in 1863, when she joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. During the next year, Fort Jackson worked to enforce the blockade of the Confederate Atlantic coast. While performing this duty, she assisted in destroying the blockade runner Bendigo (3 January 1864) and captured the steamers Thistle (4 June), Boston (8 July) and Wando (21 October 1864).

In December 1864 and January 1865, Fort Jackson participated in the operations that finally captured Fort Fisher, North Carolina, thus ending blockade running into the port of Wilmington. She was transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in February 1865 and served off Texas until after the final surrender of Confederate positions there in June. USS Fort Jackson was decommissioned and sold in August 1865. She subsequently became commercial steamer North America and was not broken up until 1879.

Photographed during the Civil War, circa 1863-1865

Kindle Available

Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism
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Midshipman in Gray: Selections from Recollections of a Rebel Reefer

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Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama
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Duel on the Roanoke - The True Story of the CSS Albemarle
A 158-foot Confederate ironclad ship built in a cornfield 90 miles up North Carolina's Roanoke River, under the direction of an 18-year-old boy, and the deadly cat-and-mouse game between the two opposing captains.

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Halls of Honor
The U.S. Navy Museum takes you on an informed and entertaining romp through one of North America s oldest and finest military museums. The museum has been in continuous operation at the Washington Navy Yard since the American Civil War

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The Blue and the Gray
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The Civil War proved a backdrop for this 1982 miniseries. Complete and uncut three disc set. Two families divided by the War Between the States. A Southerner caught when he becomes a war correspondent for the Northern newspaper. He finds himself where history's in the making from the Battle of Bull Run to Abraham Lincoln's assassination

Blue Vs. Gray - Killing Fields
Relive the most vicious fighting of the Civil War, in which General Ulysses S. Grant forcibly reversed the tide of the conflict by paying with the blood of thousands. It was a desperate time for the Union