Extract from the journal of Commander J[ohn]. C. Beaumont, U. S. Navy.
U. S. S. Mackinaw,
James River, June 17, 1862 [sic, 1864].
The USS Mackinaw drove off Confederate artillery along the James River near Wilcox’s Wharf on June 17, 1864.
Calm and pleasant; air 72° to 88°. At about 4:30 p. m. steamer Winans1 came down the river and reported having been fired into from near Wilcox’s Wharf. At 4:35 the rebels opened upon us. Got under way and steamed up to Wilcox’s and soon dispersed them. Pontoon bridge taken up.2
- SOPO Editor’s Note: I don’t often correct the Official Records, because they were amazingly well edited, but this is one of those rare cases. Here the steamer which was attacked is actually the Amanda Winants. See Merchant Steam Vessels of the United States 1790-1868 “The Lytle-Holdcamper List”, page 8 and Gibson and Gibson’s Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels, Steam and Sail, Employed by the Union Army, 1861 – 1868, page 14 for descriptions of the Amanda Winants. See also an article from the June 21, 1864 Philadelphia Inquirer, page 1, column 3, which indicates the vessel was fired at ten times by a Confederate artillery battery, with one shot passing through her hull near the water line. ↩
- Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series 1, Volume X, p. 158 ↩