In a letter dated February 16, 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant took time from his busy schedule in Nashville to reply to a recent message from one of his closest childhood friends, Daniel Ammen. The two had grown up together in Ohio, where local lore held that Ammen once saved a young Grant from drowning after he fell from a log into White Oak Creek near Georgetown. While Grant went on to West Point and an army career, Ammen found his way into the Navy and rose to become a respected senior officer.
Grant’s reply was informal, the tone of old friends who had no need for ceremony. He thanked Ammen for advice on navigating political entanglements, a timely comment as word arrived that the U. S. House of Representatives had revived the rank of lieutenant general, a position clearly intended for one man alone.
Grant was heading to Washington. In the letter, Grant also touched on naval affairs, praising the bravery of the gunboat commanders who had been his mainstay along the western waterways. These men had played decisive roles at Belmont, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and numerous other points along the Mississippi, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers. Grant wrote: “I think Porter, Phelps, and some of the younger officers are the ablest men I have ever met.
Certainly I cannot complain of them, for I never asked anything of them that was not done, whatever the danger. ”
The two naval officers Grant singled out deserve closer attention. One is well known to Civil War students; the other has remained largely in the shadows of history. David Dixon Porter served from 1813 to 1891 and came from a distinguished military family that included his adoptive brother, David G.
Farragut. His wartime service spanned from the relief of Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida, in 1861, to commanding the mortar flotilla at New Orleans in 1862, and leading the fleet during the Vicksburg campaign in 1863 as an acting admiral. He later took part in the Red River campaign in Louisiana in 1864 and the capture of Fort Fisher in January 1865. Porter and Grant worked together effectively throughout the war.
The other officer Grant mentioned, Phelps, remained largely in history’s shadow, yet Grant placed him on the same level as Porter. Seth Ledyard Phelps was twelve years younger than Porter. His military roots traced back to his grandfather, who served in Washington’s army during the Revolution and endured the hardships of Valley Forge. Phelps’s father fought in the War of 1812.
Phelps was drawn to warships and began his career in 1842 as a midshipman aboard the Independence, the first ship of the line commissioned by the U. S. Navy. Over the next two decades, he served around the world, including a tour off West Africa to disrupt and end the illegal slave trade, and service in the Mediterranean and the Mexican War, where he served on gunboats supporting General Zachary Taylor’s army.
During the Civil War, Phelps helped build the so-called brown-water navy and played a key role in battles along the Mississippi, Tennessee, Cumberland, and other rivers. Initially a lieutenant charged with helping convert civilian river steamers into fighting vessels, he commanded the wooden gunboats Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington. He became thoroughly familiar with the Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland Rivers, using knowledge that made him invaluable as Union forces pushed deep into Confederate territory. Phelps made reconnaissance missions into enemy territory to study Confederate defenses at Fort Henry and discovered the fortifications being built at Fort Donelson.
When Union forces attacked Fort Henry in February 1862, Phelps and his wooden gunboats supported the ironclads of Flag Officer Andrew Hull Foote. After the fort surrendered, Phelps pushed further up the Tennessee River, cutting communications, destroying railroad tracks, seizing supplies, and chasing Confederate steamers. Days later, he returned to the Cumberland River for the attack on Fort Donelson. Confederate batteries hammered Foote’s ironclads and wounded the flag officer.
Phelps, working as acting fleet commander, helped prepare the damaged fleet to resume fighting before the Confederate garrison surrendered. That service led Phelps south along the Mississippi River. At Fort Pillow in 1863, north of Memphis, he commanded the ironclad Benton when Confederate rams suddenly attacked the Union fleet. Two federal gunboats were rammed and sunk in the confused fight.
Phelps responded by strengthening Union vessels with railroad iron and logs, adding protection to their vulnerable rudders. His river war eventually brought him to Vicksburg. In August 1862, he led a campaign downriver from Memphis that captured the Confederate transport Fairplay near Milliken’s Bend. Its cargo included 1,200 Enfield rifles, 4,000 infantry rifles, ammunition, and badly needed military supplies intended for Confederate forces.
From Fort Henry to Vicksburg, Phelps helped prove that Union gunboats could scout ahead of armies, fight Confederate troops and ships, disrupt supply lines, and steadily open the western rivers to federal control. A notable photograph shows Phelps in uniform with non-standard insignia for his rank at the height of his career. Broad stripes appeared on his sleeves in 1862 and 1863. A star also appeared on the sleeves, but not with the broad stripes.
The official star was five-pointed, not the six-pointed version Phelps wore. His shoulder straps bear the correct twisted anchor but lack the oak leaf at each end. The long gloves and tall boots are rarely seen in photographs of naval officers. After the war, in 1875, President Grant nominated Phelps to serve on the temporary board of commissioners in Washington, D.
C. Phelps first became president of the permanent board three years later. In 1883, President Chester A. Arthur appointed Phelps as his minister to Peru.
That appointment proved to be his last. Two years later, he died from a fever contracted during a hunting trip in the Andes. He was 61 years old. His remains were brought home and buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Washington, D.
C.