WALKER ARMINGTON’S UNION NAVEL CIVIL WAR DIARY

(Civil War Navel Diary) Armington, Walker, (writer); Green, Frances (typist and compiler - 1934). A historically significant and unpublished typescript shipboard diary meticulously documenting the wartime life of young Walker Armington as a Landsman Seamen Recruit in the Union Navy while serving on the USS Monongahela in the blockade of the Confederacy from 1862-1864. The vivid account relates the deprivations of enlisting in the Navy at Charleston Navy Yard, and the horrific conditions of the USS Princeton receiving ship, followed by blockade duty, the Battle at Port Hudson, Louisiana, and battery running engagements during the siege of Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. The closing portion of the ship’s log focuses on the expiration of Armington’s term of service, his forced reenlistment, stationed with the Monongahela off of Mobile, AL during blockade duty, and then afterword appended following the end of the log in August, 1863 detailing his participation in supporting the campaign up the Rio Grande in Texas.

1934 transcript, 4to. 111, [5] leaves typescript (carbons mixed w/ first strike pages) on very thin semi-translucent onion skin typing paper, 3 hole punched at gutter margin, w/ upper & lower holes backed w/ reinforcement rings throughout, occasional inserted typed annotations. Contemporary pebbled black cloth National Simplex Covers 3-ring binder, age toning, occasional minor creasing to corners, minor pulling and slight closed tears at the gutter margin center hole punch of a few leaves, still in VG condition, w/ tiny 32mo Christmas card hole- punched into the front indicating this was presented to “Rich”

“Rich” was Richard Henry Green (1902-1981), sign painter, animal control officer for Veterinary Dept. at Massachusetts State Univ. Shrewsbury, from “Fran” Frances Green (1905-1987), and their brother “Jim” James A. Green (1908-2000), and 1936 newspaper clipping “Worcester Honors G.A.R.” with photo depicting 96-year- old Walker Armington w/ his fellow veterans aged 89-93.

This exceptional typescript manuscript shipboard diary, transcribed in 1934 from Armington’s original daily journal, which dramatically documents a young New Englander’s experiences after enlisting in the U.S. Navy in the summer of 1862, and reporting to the receiving ship USS Ohio August 27, 1862. As a graduate from Providence, RI Scholfield’s Commercial Academy, and son of a prosperous factory owner, enlisting into the harsh Naval discipline and conditions of the Civil War Union Navy were quite the eye-opener for the young Armington, and he continued to comment and often resent military life until his mustering out May 25, 1864. His firsthand observations offer distinct and often gritty details of training life in the Civil War Navy. He notes in his first entry dated August 27, 1862 that after signing his paperwork, picking out his outfit costing 3 months pay, and comments further that “these are the most cut throat in and about these shipping offices that I ever saw.” He further quips about the condition of the USS Ohio that “I believe that there is tobacco juice enough squared in this ship in a day to float a seventy-four gun ship. The decks are covered all the time in cuds and juice.” The overcrowded, disorganized, and filthy shipboard training conditions induce him to frequently write about wanting to go home, continually maintain a daily journal, as well as worrying about finding clean water to wash, but nonetheless getting on. By September 7, 1862 he had transferred to the 1370 ton steamer receiving ship USS Princeton in Philadelphia, where he writes about seeing the “Great Eastern” while going into the Harbor, and also the “Ironsides” or USS Constitution, and hoping to be assigned to her as she was serving as a training ship at the time. Sept. 10-18, 1862 he laments about fate of sailors failing to address the Lieutenant as “Sir” being put into irons, another into the “Sweat Box,” and frequent deaths, including a body being covered with Union Jack flag, and buried the next day off the ship. He logs Sept. 24, 1862 that “the men are at work on the ship but do not get along very fast. They are lazy fellows and do not do one half the work they ought to. . .” and then he waits tedious months for his permanent assignment, through rain, sleet snow in Philadelphia Harbour while confined to the ship. While frequently worrying about not receiving any permanent assignment, on Jan. 7, 1863 he mentions that the USS Monongahela was getting ready to sail and he had a good chance to get on the ship. Reporting for duty onboard the Steam Sloop USS Monongahela Jan. 16, 1863, he writes that “she is a bark, carrying 200 men, battery with 200 lb. Riffle [probably a Rodman version of the Parrott cannon], 11 inch Parrott’s, four 12-pound Riffle [rifled] Howitzers, 2 24-lb. Howitzers, carrying seven boats.” Leaving Philadelphia by Jan. 21, 1863 the USS Monongahela sails South along the East Coast to Key West, Florida to join the blockade squadron under Admiral Farragut, before subsequently receiving orders to report to New Orleans, LA, captured only the year before by General Banks’ forces. They had been assigned to participate in the capture of Port Hudson, and to help force the surrender of Vicksburg, and secure the Mississippi River for the Union.

Following the loading of supplies, coal, and refitting in New Orleans, the USS Monongahela reaches Baton Rouge, LA March 13, 1863 where “our first Lieutenant left us to day and I hope will never come back to this ship. There is a large army here and to day they are moving up the river to attack Port Hudson. I expect we shall go up before long. . . We are all ready for a fight and the men are waiting for it.” He continues March 14, 1863 about weighing anchor at eight bells (possibly 4:00 AM), and taking the Kenio alongside, steaming up with the other ships to screen the fleet, which included the Hartford, Albatross in tow, Richmond with the Genesee, the USS Monongahela, alongside the Kenio, followed by the USS Mississippi steaming nearly “abreast the first battery when there was signal rockets sent up from the left bank, and in a moment a shell whizzed over us. It was not pleasant all to my ear, and made me dodge. Then came the order to stand by the guns and open on them, the vessels ahead commenced to and all along the shore was a blaze of fire. We commenced firing our Howitzers and kept it up until our ammunition was gone. . .” “I thought there was a ram into us when I heard them say we were aground. We were then within fifty yards off the batteries. We had not been aground three minutes when the shot and shell came into her like rain. They were mostly in amidship and did not trouble me much. . .” After managing to pull off the sandbar, and turn the ship around “the shot kept coming but we were fast getting out of range when all at once the engine stopped and we drifted broadside into a battery of ten guns.” After restarting the engines the USS Monongahela “headed down the river and put on all steam. As we were leaving I saw the shot sailing into the [USS] Mississippi in a continual stream. The mortars opened up at the same time as we and poured a continual stream of bombs into them. They would sail up into the air making a half circle and would land into the batteries. . . two shot struck a few feet under me and made me jump. We came down very fast but the shell came faster and knocked a hole in our stern. The sharp shooters opened on us and you could hear the bullets strike her sides like hail stones. . . While we were at ground there was a large black steamer came out to board us I think by the actions. We gave her two eleven inch and one 200 pound Riffle [rifled] shell which doubled her like a jackknife and she went to the bottom as we have since heard (Note. This last about the black steamer was the imagination of some one aboard at the time. So says Grandfather).” Armington continues “we received fifty five shots in all but are not disabled so that we can try them again. . . we suffered terribly in killed and wounded. There was six men killed and eighteen wounded. Nearly all were hit with something, but not enough to be counted among the wounded. . . a ten inch shell through just abaft the port to me. . . a shell exploded in the Port waist and killed four men. . . .” The log records March 15, 1863 that “I heard that one of my old messmates was killed and I looked around for. He was below on the berth deck and had just breathed his last. The top of his head was blown off by the bursting of a ten inch shell. . . we went ashore to dig graves for the dead. . . the officer in charge gave me a book and told me to read the service which I did. We then filled up the graves, put up the head boards. . . it was a mournful job.” He proceeds with his entries of how their captain, sailing master, and wounded were sent to Baton Rouge, that his ship had suffered the most of any in the action, and from March 17-21 they continued to “run the batteries, firing shells, and bombarding the emplacements.” March 21, 1863 is the first time Armington makes mention of African-American slaves trying to escape the carnage of the Civil War Vicksburg campaign, in conjunction with General Banks’ moves up the Mississippi River. He writes that the “Contrabands. . . that had come in from the Plantations about there. . . were all sizes and shapes and presented rather a melancholy look.” He continues on March 27, 1863 that “about a hundred Contrabands there that had come in expecting to find the army there, but they did not and could get no farther.” By May 12, 1863 Rear Admiral Dixon Porter made the USS Monogahela his command ship which was to “carry the blue flag. The admiral is down here and is to go up with us when we go. I do to think he is agoing to take us up by the batteries.” The Mississippi River Squadron continues to make repeated runs up and down the River, and combat continues on May 23, 1863 when “We went on up the river until we came to a small gun boat. They told us that the attack had commenced and was then going on. The Admiral was very much excited at this news for fear they would take the place before he arrived. So he put on all steam. . .” By May 24, 1863 the Confederates had deserted the lower batteries, and “the Army is hard at it and have them [Confederates} entirely surrounded so that they will bag the whole lot. The Bummers are at work and keep the men from repairing their works.” By June 1-6, the log notes that “there has been Contrabands coming down all the time and one day there was nearly two thousand come down and camped opposite the ships.”

Repeatedly steaming back and forth up and down the river from Donaldsonville to New Orleans, and back through Baton Rouge and Port Hudson, the campaign makes progress, although they continue to suffer casualties including their own Captain who “was hit very bad and is not expected to recover.” By July 7 they “went on up the River and a little above Donaldsoneville met the Admiral coming down. He gave us the news that Vicksburg was taken, and was very good to hear. . . we sent our Captain ashore, and one of our wounded men to the hospital.” They continue fighting remnants of both General Beauregard’s and Pemberton’s men in the ensuing weeks, suppress enemy batteries, before being directed back to New Orleans to rejoin the squadron blockading Mobile, AL and other ports. After liberty, long delays, and changeovers the USS Monongahela reaches the blockade fleet while Armington’s enlistment term is up, but then apparently has to reenlist due to the instituting of a draft in the North, remaining on picket duty until October, 1863 when the ship is assigned to take charge of the military expedition to Texas.

The original log ends there, and is followed up by summary appendix orally delivered to Frances Green by her grandfather Nov. 9, 1934 explaining their passage across the Gulf of Mexico to the Rio Grande. He writes of them sending big launches to aid the Army, but while landing the Union soldiers, the rough sea caused some of the boats to founder, and the Mexican Army stripped the “bodies of every stitch of clothing, and left them on the Beach.” At that point he received orders to transfer and report to the USS Philadelphia, returning to the East Coast, and mustered out as Paymaster’s Steward May 25, 1864. The USS Monongahela later served during the Battle of Mobile Bay August 5, 1864, and rammed the Confederate ironclad Tennessee. Following the Civil War, she was assigned to the West Indies, and ran aground in Nov., 167 at St. Croix, Virigin Islands. Repaired in 1873, she served another six years in the Pacific and Asia. After serving as a training ship, sailing store ship, and supply vessel, she eventually became a store ship at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was destroyed by fire March 17, 1908.

During Armington’s (1843-1937) time of military service 1862-1864, his parents and family had relocated to Springfield, MA, and Worcester, MA where his father’s shoe and leather factories operated. After his discharge he opened a grocery store in Worcester, MA, married Rebecca Foote in 1866, and continued as a prosperous merchant in the town until the Great Depression, and also was an active member in the local Grand Army of the Republic G.A.R. Civil War veteran’s fraternity. His grocery store located at 114 & 116 Front Street issued in 1878 “The Housekeeper’s Friend” which included recipes and medicine items offered for sale as an advertising promotion, with only 1 copy preserved at Michigan State. His Scholfield’s Commercial Academy manuscript bookkeeping ledger and graduation certificate are held by the Sturbridge Village Research Library. The MS ledger had been donated to them by his granddaughter, Frances Green (1905-1987) who was his daughter Edith Wood Armington Green’s (1877-1941) middle child, and worked in the 1930’s as a clerk and stenographer with a Shrewsbury, MA contractor, and later with an engineering firm as secretary following World War II. She served as a WAC from 1943-1946, and wrote a short memoir “Growing up in New England Mill Villages,” New England Galaxy, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Winter, 1972), pp. 36-44. Fortunately, this sole copy of her typescript transcription of her Grandfather’s journal has survived intact, and may have been intended to be published as part of a Great Depression-era local history, or American history WPA/ Federal Writer’s Project publication, but this cataloguer could find no evidence of publication, or survival of the Armington’s original The only other similar ship’s log/journal that appears to have survived to record the movements of the USS Monongahela, but much shorter, and not from onboard is that of Aaron Shimer Oberly, who served from Feb., 1863 through 1865, but according to his shorter diary seems to have frequently suffered illness, and other ailments which curtailed his observations. See: Diary & Letters, Auburn University, Alabama Mosaic (2025).