The Powder Monkey

The centennial of the Civil War happened when I was a young boy growing up in New Orleans.  All of my friends were Southern patriots.  They would dress up in little Confederate soldier uniforms.  Maybe it was because of my contrarian nature, I don't know, but for some reason I decided to take the other side.  So there I was wearing a blue uniform, a little pretend Yankee soldier surrounded by little rebels.  Even my own family didn't understand my stance.  I was told that I was just like my great-grandpa, who'd been in the Union navy during the Civil War and had fought in the Battle of Mobile Bay.  Later I discovered that great-grandpa was only 16 years old at the time he supposedly took part in the war.  Surely he couldn't have fought in the Civil War. He was too young. Many years later I was checking some Civil War service records at a National Archives regional office.  While I was waiting for my colleague to finish I decided, what the heck, I'd do a search for great-grandpa and there he was on an index card.  The card said that he'd served on the USS Albatross and the USS Seminole. When I got home I did a little more research and discovered that the Seminole had been in the Battle of Mobile Bay when my great-grandpa was part of her crew. The old family story was true after all!  After receiving a copy of his pension records and doing a little additional research I was able to flesh out his story a bit.  I'd like to share it with you today.

A powder monkey on board USS New Hampshire 1864

Charles Henry William Ankesheiln was born in New Orleans in 1848. His parents had immigrated from the Kingdom of Hanover, now called Lower Saxony, not long before.  He went by the name of Henry.  He joined the crew of the USS Albatross, a small gunboat, at New Orleans in August 1863 as a 2nd Class Boy. He was just 15 years old, 3 years under the minimum age for regular enlistment, but the Navy would accept boys as young as 14 with the permission of a parent or adult guardian.  The Navy used them on board warships to fetch powder charges from the magazines. Because of this and their small size, Henry was 4 feet 7 inches tall, they were called "Powder Monkeys".

USS Albatross

In September 1863 the Albatross was sent to patrol station off Mobile Bay.  She spent her time there on station keeping watch for blockade runners coming in and out of Mobile.  When she wasn't doing that she was used as a dispatch vessel between New Orleans, where Admiral Farragut maintained his headquarters, and the blockade squadron off Mobile. In May 1864 the Albatross was sent North for a major overhaul and Henry was transferred to the USS Seminole.  Henry had progressed to earn a Landsman's rating on the Albatross.  On the Seminole, a slightly larger vessel, he was reduced to the rating of 1st Class Boy.

From May the Seminole cruised up and down outside Mobile Bay on blockade duty.  On occasion she chased blockade runners, shelled some of them and exchanged fire with the Confederate gunners of Fort Morgan, which was located at the entrance to Mobile Bay.  Henry's battle station for these encounters was with a gun crew and he would have been assigned to bring the powder charges up from the ship's magazine.  When not at his battle station Henry would have been dong whatever odd jobs were assigned him.

On August 5, 1864 Farragut led a fleet of 4 ironclads and 14 wooden ships, including the Seminole, pass Fort Morgan and into Mobile Bay.  The ironclad Tecumseh struck a torpedo (mine) and was sunk, leading to the famous quote attributed to Farragut, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"  I haven't been able to find out exactly what Henry did during the battle.  The official records state that the Seminole passed Fort Morgan lashed to the port side of the Lackawanna, which was a larger wooden warship. Since the Lackawanna was between the Seminole and the fort, the smaller ship was protected by the larger vessel from the guns of Fort Morgan.  But the gun crews of the Seminole worked some of the guns of the Lackawanna during the passage. So far I haven't been able to determine if Henry was with them, on the Lackawanna, or remained on the Seminole. But after passing the forts (and the mine field) the Seminole broke away from the Lackawanna.  The fleet was then attacked by the Confederate ironclad ram Tennessee. The Tennessee made a brief run at the Seminole.  The Seminole fired two broadsides at the Tennessee and she turned away. 

After the battle the Seminole joined the rest of the fleet in supporting the Federal infantry operations against Fort Morgan.  This involved occasionally shelling the fort and on August 25 she took part in the intense bombardment of the fort that resulted in its final surrender.

The Battle of Mobile Bay is largely ignored today.  In terms of numbers involved compared to the large land battles of the Civil War it doesn't match up but it was an intense fight, exemplified by the 93 medals of honor awarded to the Union sailors and marines involved in it.  On the other side the Confederate, outnumbered and outgunned put up atypical strong fight as well.  The Seminole suffered no casualties during the fighting but afterward lost several men while trying to clear the torpedoes from the entrance to the bay.

Henry left the Seminole in September 1864, his one year enlistment being up. He returned to New Orleans and was honorably discharged from the navy at the age of 16.  After the war he married and tried farming for a while.  Then he moved back to New Orleans.  He became a cooper.  He had 17 children but only 8 survived to maturity.  My grandfather was his second to youngest son.  In 1912 Henry Ankesheiln received a pension of 72 dollars a month for his service in the Civil War.  This amount was almost as much as the pay he had earned for his entire 13 months of service in the war.