Combat· American Civil War
USS Underwriter capture, New Bern, NC
The most successful joint Confederate cutting-out raid of the war, with Confederate Marines among the boarders.
On the night of 1 February 1864, while General Pickett attacked New Bern, North Carolina, from the land, Commander John Taylor Wood led a party of Confederate sailors and Marines in small boats against the Union gunboat USS Underwriter, a side-wheel steamer of about eighty-five officers and men lying in the Neuse River. The raiders pulled out of the dark and boarded before the gunboat's guns could be brought to bear; in the sharp fight on her deck the Underwriter's captain, Westervelt, was killed, and the ship fell into Confederate hands. Unable to carry off the prize under the fire of nearby Union batteries, Wood set her afire and withdrew upriver, his mission accomplished. The raid was a model boat action and the most notable combined operation of the Confederate sea services.
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Record no. 458