Henry Lewis, the Nashville, the First Naval Shot, and the Opening of the Civil War

In the spring of 1861, the U.S. Mail Steamer Nashville was exactly what her name and registry claimed her to be — a civilian “packet” steamer, meaning a privately owned vessel that ran on a fixed schedule under contract to carry U.S. Mail, while also taking paying passengers and commercial freight between set ports. Her route was the busy New York–Charleston line. Built in 1853 at Greenpoint, Brooklyn for the New York & Charleston Steamship Company, she was a 215½-foot, brig-rigged, side-wheel steamer of about 1,221 tons, designed for speed and reliability, with engines from Novelty Iron Works. For nearly eight years she kept her schedule without incident, the familiar link between two cities that, by early 1861, were about to be on opposite sides of a war.

Among her crew by 1860 was Greatx2 Grandfather Henry W. Lewis, a Brooklyn seaman whose occupation is recorded as “seaman” in the census that year. This was his livelihood — a berth on a commercial mailboat, not a military commission. For him, the work was about steam schedules, cargo manifests, and the routine of coastal service. But in January 1861, the political landscape shifted. South Carolina had seceded in December, and Major Robert Anderson’s move to Fort Sumter had turned Charleston Harbor into an armed camp. Rumors circulated in New York that coastal packets were secretly carrying arms south. On January 30, before Nashville sailed for Charleston under Captain Murray, New York City police boarded her. As the New York Times reported the next day, “A deputation of the police were on board to detect any shipment of arms… but nothing of a warlike character was seen to go on board.” She departed “at her usual hour” with a modest cargo of beef, pork, and flour, and a handful of passengers. The inspection undercuts later family lore that she was already acting as a privateer or smuggler; the record shows she was simply a mail steamer on schedule.

In early April, President Lincoln ordered a naval expedition to resupply Fort Sumter. The revenue cutter Harriet Lane, temporarily placed under Navy command, was among the ships sent. Her orders included delivering supplies to Sumter and intercepting any vessel suspected of aiding the Confederates. She anchored off Charleston Bar on April 11.

On the morning of April 12, 1861, the Nashville lay off Charleston Bar, waiting for daylight and deeper water before attempting to cross into the harbor. She flew no colors, a practice not unusual for a civilian packet idling offshore, but one that also kept her from declaring allegiance in a harbor bristling with tension. Serving as lookout high above the deck, Henry W. Lewis had a clear view across the dark water. At about 4:30 a.m., he saw the flash of the first gun of the Civil War, fired from Fort Johnson on James Island. The shot splashed into the water roughly half a mile from the Nashville, followed by another that landed within a quarter mile.

Not wishing to become a casualty in the sudden exchange, Captain Murray put the ship about to withdraw from the bar. As the Nashville swung toward open water, she crossed paths with the Federal revenue cutter Harriet Lane, moving in to intercept. Murray’s first command to his chief engineer was sharp and urgent: “Shake her up, Hood!” From his perch, Lewis saw the cutter fire a blank shot to signal them to stop. When the Nashville did not slow, the Harriet Lane fired again—this time with a loaded shell. The crew quickly ran up the American flag, an act later immortalized in Howard Koslow’s commissioned painting The Cutter Harriet Lane Fires Across the Bow of Nashville. With the second shot, Murray gave another crisp order to the engine room: “Stop her, Hood!”

The Harriet Lane came alongside and, after what were apparently only perfunctory questions, released the mail steamer. With tensions eased, both ships lay off the bar for the next thirty-four hours, watching the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Lewis later recalled that they “watched… the entire bombardment.” There were no fatalities during the fighting itself, but on April 14, during the 100-gun salute to the flag as part of the surrender terms, a gun exploded, killing Private Daniel Hough instantly, mortally wounding Private Edward Galloway, and injuring four others.

The Confederate flagflies over Fort Sumternear Charleston Harboron April 14, 1861

When the guns fell silent and Anderson’s garrison prepared to evacuate, Nashville steamed into the harbor. Henry Lewis, Captain Murray and others rowed out to Fort Sumter.  Henry took a dented grapeshot as a souvenir. But the ship’s troubles were just beginning. Confederate authorities seized her in port. The passengers and much of the crew were eventually released and sent north. The Liberator of May 3, 1861, reported: “Schooner B. D. Pitts, from Charleston, brings 21 passengers, including the crew of the steamer Nashville, and James Tracy, a native of Ireland, wife and five children. Tracy… had a small farm, which was confiscated because he refused to fight against the flag which he had sworn to protect. He was seized and tied to a fence… and given 500 lashes. [His] wife was kicked and otherwise ill-used. Tracy served in the Mexican war under Gen. Scott.”

The Liberator (Boston, Massachusetts) · Fri, May 3, 1861 · Page 3

Captain Murray remained aboard the Nashvillefor several days after the surrender, even as Confederate officers began to assume control. Some have suggested — though the record is silent on his motives — that he stayed because he regarded Nashville as “his ship” and wished to protect her, much as a captain might remain with her in danger at sea. There is no evidence he ever took her to sea under Confederate orders, and little is known of him after the war; he appears to have deliberately stayed out of public notice. Within days, he was relieved of command by Confederate officers.

The Confederate government agreed to pay the New York & Charleston Steamship Company $100,000 for the vessel, which Southern papers portrayed as a legitimate purchase. In reality, the Northern owners never received usable payment. Renamed CSS Nashville, she ran the blockade to England in late 1861 under Lt. Robert B. Pegram, became the first Confederate warship in British waters, and captured and burned the Harvey Birch in the English Channel. Sold into blockade-running as Thomas L. Wragg, later refitted as the privateer Rattlesnake, she was destroyed by the Union monitor USS Montauk in the Ogeechee River on February 28, 1863.

For Henry W. Lewis, his time aboard ended in Charleston Harbor, but his testimony fixed Nashville’s place in Civil War history. He was a working sailor who saw the war begin not from a distant hilltop or newspaper office, but from the deck of a ship that found herself under fire — a mail steamer in the wrong place at the wrong time, caught in the split-second decisions and strange encounters that mark the opening act of war.