York in American History: The Confederate naval raid on Maine

Note: This article illustrates just how fearful the citizenry of York had become in the summer of 1863 about the possibility of a raid on the town by a Confederate rebel ship, wreaking havoc, burning the town, and capturing innocent citizens.

"Our harbor and river is entirely defenseless," men from York wrote to Maine's military authority on July 13, 1863, "and a boat of ten men might come in from some prowling pirate, and burn our fishermen and coasters, and lay our town in ashes.” In the same month that would be known for the decisive battle at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the defeat of General Lee's invasion of the North, York was suddenly preoccupied with the threat posed by "some prowling pirate," but why then?

The front-page headline of the New York Tribune from late June may provide an answer: MORE DESTRUCTION BY REBEL PIRATES, the newspaper declared to the readership with alarm. At about the same time, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles received a dispatch from the governor of Massachusetts that again sounded very much like the appeal from York. "A Rebel vessel," Governor Andrew warned, "manned by as daring a crew as that of the Tacony, might burn half the towns along Cape Cod."

For three weeks in June 1863, 23-year-old Confederate naval officer Charles W. Read dominated the public's attention as he advanced north along the Atlantic seaboard in a succession of ships, with a small crew, a single cannon outfitted with multiple "Quaker guns." As the name implies, they were not guns but wooden spars carefully disguised to appear as the real thing.

In 21 days, Read made 22 captures, with many of these ships briefly boarded and then burned. The narrative culminated outside Portland, Maine, in the early afternoon of June 27, when Caleb Cushing, a revenue cutter Read had taken out of the city, exploded and sank after the powder magazine was ignited by a deliberately set fire. The Confederate crew, who had taken to boats to escape from the burning vessel, were apprehended.

In early May, Read, who was then serving upon the Confederate commerce raider Florida, had proposed to the captain of that ship that he depart as master of the recently captured Clarence and conduct his own raiding effort. By the time he reached Maine in late June, he had transferred to two other ships, the Tacony and the Archer.

As a master of the Clarence, he had made the first of his successful, bloodless captures, but on June 12, off the coast of Virginia, he encountered the Tacony, a three-masted bark he perceived as being a better ship, and so decided to make the transfer. The government in Washington, now fully alerted to his actions, responded by sending orders to the major seaports of the Atlantic coast for fast ships to go in pursuit.

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June 20th and Read had sailed as far north as Nantucket. Two days later, Read made the successful capture of five fishing vessels at Georges Banks. He transferred his crew from the Tacony to the Archer on June 24, only days before the climactic episode outside Portland. "It is my intention," Read had confided to his journal, "to go along the coast with a view of burning the shipping in some exposed harbor." Thus, York's anxieties seemed justified.

The prelude to the final raid commenced with the capture of two Falmouth fishermen, Albert Bibber, and Elbridge Titcomb, who were well enough informed on local navigation challenges to enable Read to approach the major Maine port city. "All I want of you," Read said to the two fishermen, "is to take this vessel in and out of Portland." The Archer safely passed into the harbor without arousing any suspicion.

At 1:30 a.m., Read and most of his crew took two boats from the Archer, which was still manned by three men, and moved to board the Caleb Cushing. One of the men on the revenue cutter later recalled a voice loudly exclaiming, "Surrender in the name of the Southern Confederacy!" The Cushing's crew were taken prisoners and handcuffed.

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Despite having made the successful capture, it was soon realized that it would be necessary to have the Cushing towed out of Portland, as there was little wind blowing over the water. This obviously slowed their progress and, unfortunately, prevented them from having a sufficient head start to reach their target and escape capture, given their closeness to the city and the quick discovery of the capture.

Three fast ships, the Chesapeake, Forest City, and the Casco, were ordered out, and soldiers were summoned to be included as passengers. As they came close to the Cushing, the ship's cannon was fired, but Read had never learned where the larger part of the armaments was stored and had nothing left to fire after the initial barrage. Desperate, he turned to anything to fire from the guns and a Confederate man brought a ball of Dutch cheese found below decks, which was stuffed into the 32-pounder cannon barrel. In contrast to the earlier rounds, this one hit one of the pursuing steamers, splattering cheese fragments over her perplexed defenders.

The revenue cutter was set on fire, and the Confederates took to boats and were apprehended. Angry crowds had gathered in Portland and had to be restrained to save their lives. They were destined for prison and within weeks were inmates of Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.

Read, born in Mississippi in May of 1840, had graduated from the Annapolis Naval Academy in June 1860, at the bottom of his class with a long history of demerits. Still, he demonstrated his competence as an officer on two Confederate ships in 1862, the McRae, and the Arkansas, an ironclad. "He had acquired a reputation for gunnery, coolness and determination at the battle of New Orleans. When his commander T.B. Huger was fatally wounded, he continued gallantly to fight the McCrae until she was riddled and unfit for service..." Such was the man who led the naval raid upon Maine.

James Kences is the town historian for the town of York. 

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York in American History: The Confederate naval raid on Maine