LeRoy Fitch; The Civil War Career of a Union River Gunboat Commander
By Myron J. Smith Jr

Illustrated, index, bibliography, 432 pp., 2007. McFarland, P.O. Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, $55 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Patrick E. Purcell
Patrick E. Purcell, a graduate of Northeastern University, is a retired railroad manager. He is a former president of the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table in Philadelphia and was on the Board of Governors of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.

Review:
In his memoirs published in 1904, Rear Adm. Winfield Scott Schley wrote of his experiences on the lower Mississippi during the Civil War, observing “there was hardly a day” during 1862 and 1863 when there was not an engagement between Union vessels and Confederate forces on land.

What was true of the Mississippi was also true of the Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee rivers from the early days of the war through April 1865. Little has been written about the so-called “Brown Water Navy,” yet it carried on a daily struggle with regular Southern units and guerillas and provided a vital role in the ultimate Union victory.

Occupied by federal forces on Feb. 25, 1862, the city of Nashville would become a major base for the campaigns that would follow. Located deep in hostile territory, its rail connections would be vulnerable to Confederate cavalry raids. The Cumberland River became a vital supply route, but passing boats were often hit by a surprise ambush with artillery and small arms fire.

The Confederates regarded these attacks as perfectly legitimate actions, but the federal navy considered these hit and run raids dishonorable and cowardly. Retaliation often followed.

Those who frequently suffered were the residents of nearby communities. Admiral Farragut ordered Bayou Sara and Donaldsonville, La., on the lower Mississippi burned; gunboats destroyed Palmyra, Tenn., on the Cumberland in Aril 1863.

Myron Smith provides a very detailed account of this struggle with his biography of LeRoy Fitch. A native of Longansport, Ind., and an 1856 graduate of Annapolis, he was sent to Cairo, Ill., in March 1862. (His much older half-brother, Col. Graham Newell Fitch, a former U.S. Senator, was already active in the area, commanding the 46th Indiana Infantry.)

Fitch, although only a junior officer (he was promoted to lieutenant commander on Sept. 21, 1862), was given a great deal of responsibility and proved to be efficient and hard-working. Given the command of a naval district comprising the Cumberland and part of the Ohio River, for the remainder of the war, he oversaw the operation of a fleet of lightly armored and shallow draft vessels dubbed “tinclads.”

Regular patrols were set up and supply boats were escorted in scheduled convoys by the gunboats. During John Hunt Morgan’s raid into Indiana and Ohio in July 1863, Fitch’s gunboats prevented Morgan from recrossing the Ohio, and led to his surrender a few days later.

The river traffic was hampered with numerous rapids and shoals and frequent low water. (The Ohio had only 30 inches of water over the bars during the drought of 1863.) In spite of rebel attacks and these obstacles, the needed supplies reached army bases with a minimum of loss.

Fitch’s postwar service included a short tour as an assistant professor at the Naval Academy, a cruise commanding the USS Marblehead in the Caribbean, and service as commandant of the Pensacola Navy Yard. He died at Logansport while awaiting orders on April 13, 1875.

The name of LeRoy Fitch briefly emerged from obscurity when a destroyer, USS Fitch was christened at Boston on June 14, 1941.

All but two chapters of the book involve Fitch’s career during the Civil war. The author has obviously done a tremendous amount of research on this project. Some readers will probably be deterred by the voluminous detail, but those interested in the brown water navy and the campaigns in the Kentucky-Tennessee area will find it a valuable source of information.

A map showing the location of the various navigation obstacles and now abandoned communities mentioned in the text would have been most helpful.