November 4, 1864 - U.S.S. Key West Scuttled

November 4, 1865

U.S.S. Key West Scuttled 

Jacksonville, Tennessee (though the marker is in Key West, FL)

* The markers don't mention him, but that was actually Nathan Bedford Forrest shelling the Union ships with rifled artillery from shore. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=226183

Key West-Florida Keys Historical Military Memorial

Once called the "Gibraltar of the Gulf of Mexico, Key West occupies a vital strategic position in defense of the United States. In 1822, Lieutenant Matthew Perry, U.S. Navy, raised the American Flag over Key West, taking formal charge of the island in the name of the United States.

This memorial is a time-line of significant military engagements in which Armed Forces members from the Keys participated.

Each pedestal recounts the military actions depicted in the time-line beginning with the Antipiracy Campaign. Next came the Second Seminole War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War lI, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Drug War.

With the arrival of the antipiracy squadron in 1823, Just one year after Key West was first settled, military units have maintained an almost continuous presence on the island and military personnel have been an integral part of the community. In four successive wars, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and Il, the Key West base underwent rapid expansion in size, facilities, and personnel, reaching a peak of over 6,000 acres and more than 15,000 military personnel in World War Il. In each of these conflicts, military forces based in Key West played a vital role in training and in operations against the enemy on land, sea and in the air.

The presence of a large number of ships, aircraft, and submarines together with extensive shore facilities at Key West at the outbreak of the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, was a key factor in the success of the blockade, which averted a nuclear war.

The unique situation of Key West at the gateway to the Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean ensures that the U.S. military will always be here, ready to answer the call to duty in any future conflicts or crisis.

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USS Key West

#32

The first Key West was a wooden stern-wheel steamer built in California, Pennsylvania, for private use in 1862, and was later acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War, and converted to a "Tin Clad" for military use. She was commissioned into the Navy on 26 May, 1863, at Cairo, Illinois

From Cairo, she departed for patrol and convoy duty escorting troop transports and supply ships on Confederate waterways and on the Tennessee River. While supporting Union Army efforts and protecting Federal positions in the Tennessee Valley from Confederate cavalry raids, her guns engaged hit-and-run batteries and bands of riflemen. She withstood hits from Confederate artillery, and continued her duties.

On 4 November, 1864, Key West was caught in a narrow, shallow section of the river near Jacksonville, Tennessee, by a Confederate force. After a vigorous action in which Key West was hit 19 times by rifled artillery, she and two other Union gunboats, riddled and almost out of ammunition, were set afire and scuttled.

BONUS: Remember The Maine...was an accident! Here's its gun sight. And a memorial from the Key West Cemetery that is apparently not a historical marker, but here it is.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=243712

The Key West Cemetery

-Circa 1847-

The cemetery consists of 19 acres and approximately 100,000 individuals are buried on the grounds. It was created after the devastation of a previous city burial site during the 1846 Havana Hurricane. Each grave site can hold up to five bodies, two below ground and with three more above ground in enclosed graves. The cemetery is divided among parcels that reflect the cultural diversity that built and continues to characterize the Key West community today.

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Also in the previously mentioned Mallory Square, more on the Union Blockade and Key West

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=246010

Civil War Union Blockade

Circa 1861

Following President Lincoln's order for a naval blockade of Confederate ports in 1861, the U.S. Navy established the East Gulf Blockading Squadron based at Fort Jefferson, Fort Taylor, and the port of Key West. The squadron's area of operations stretched from Cape Canaveral to Pensacola. More than 1,500 blockade runners' ships were intercepted from 1861 thru 1865. Many historians believe Key West's strategic location and the squadron's success in blockading southern ports severely reduced Confederate supply lines and shortened the duration of the Civil War.

 

Erected by Florida Department of State - Division of Historical Resources. (Marker Number 47.)

Sources:


https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/k/key-west-i.html