Security· American Civil War
Frying Pan Shoals Rescue
A feat of seamanship rather than a battle, but one that saved a valuable warship.
In August 1864 the frigate USS Wabash, on blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, was endangered on the treacherous Frying Pan Shoals at the mouth of the Cape Fear, the shifting sandbanks that had wrecked many a ship trying to work the approaches to the port. The Marine detachment aboard was credited with the vigilance and quick action that kept the frigate off the shoals and brought her clear of the danger. No fighting and no casualties were involved; the peril here was the sea and the sandbar, not the enemy. The episode is a reminder that much of a ship's Marine guard's service was simply the hard, watchful work of keeping a wooden warship safe on a dangerous blockade station, where the coast itself could destroy a vessel as surely as Confederate guns.
Podcast episodes on American Civil War
Record no. 427