Union Navy burns and abandons the Gosport Navy Yard
April 1861, Portsmouth, Virginia.
- Date
- April 1861
- Where
- Portsmouth, Virginia
- What happened
- Burned
- Event
- 1 of 174
Fearing Confederate capture, the yard commander ordered the shipyard burned, and the Navy burned the frigate Merrimack to the waterline and sank her. William Mahone, president of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, ran one train back and forth with great noise to fake arriving troops. Confederates took the yard and 1,195 heavy guns, later used from Hampton Roads to Fort Donelson and Port Hudson, and rebuilt Merrimack as the ironclad CSS Virginia.
The line
Nearby
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