See the related images at the Naval Historical Center:
Crew Composition
There were plenty of officers to man the Virginia. Manning
the crew was another matter. The South had no merchant marine and few
U.S. Navy sailors were in the South at the time of the secession.
From a New Orleans regiment of Gen. Magruder's army at
Yorktown, Lt. Wood selected 80 sailors from 200 volunteers who had
seen service on ships that visited New Orleans. There were a few
seamen who had escaped from the Confederate flotilla in Pamlico Sound
at the fall of Roanoke Island. Another 120 volunteers came from the
Army batteries in the Tidewater region. Foreign citizens were also
employed.
The crew of about 300 was "as gallant and trusty a body of men as
any one could wish to command, not only in battle, but in reverse and
retreat." [Wood]
On the Virginia two (or perhaps three) were killed (by the
Cumberland) and eight or nineteen wounded on March 8, 1862
(eight per Jones in his report to the Confederate Congress March 10,
1862; nineteen per Jones, in 1874 quoting "the official"). Among the
wounded were Captain Buchanan and Lt. Minor. None were killed or
wounded during the battle with the U.S.S. Monitor.
Crew Members
The C.S.S. Virginia was designed to have a crew of over
300. The Virginia's surgeon, Dinwiddie Phillips indicates that
"Most of our crew being volunteers from the army and unused to
ship-life, about twenty per cent of our men were usually ashore at
the hospital, and our effective force on the 8th of March was about
250 or 260 men."
Volunteer Aide: Lt. Douglas
French Forrest, C.S.A. (later, CSN) Son of
Commodore French Forrest (commanding Norfolk Naval Yard), he was
aboard as a volunteer "Naval Aide de Camp," in Buchanan's quarters
on March 8. He did not return to the Virginia after taking the
Congress flag to Richmond so was not present on March 9. (From the
Introduction to Douglas French Forrest: Odyssey in Gray, A
Diary of Confederate Service 1863-1865, William N. Still, Jr.,
Editor)
Captain Thomas
Kevill of the United Artillery of Norfolk (in
charge of a field artillery unit of whom 31 members manned some of
the guns on the C.S.S. Virginia). Kevill's company was
Company E of the 41st Regiment of the Virginia Infantry (later
with the 19th
Virginia Battalion Heavy Artillery).
Signal Corps: Sergeant George
E.Tabb (Norris lists him as Lt.)
Pilots:
William
Parish (Acting Master at the time of the
battles)
135th Anniversary Celebration brochure (called
"Reunion brochure") from Portsmouth, March 8-9, 1997. This
information is apparently from the 125th Anniversary Celebration
and is probably due to Irwin Berent.
Amadon, George F. Rise
of the Ironclads. Missoula,
Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company. 1988.
(which cites C. Charles Vache, A History of Trinity Church of
Portsmount Parish, Portsmouth, Virginia (Portsmouth, Virginia:
Trinity Church, 1962).)
Buchanan, Franklin. "Report of Flag-Officer
Franklin Buchanan" in Chapter XIX, Records of the
Rebellion. (The
War Times)
Turner, Maxine. Navy Gray: A Story of the
Confederate Navy on the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers
who references Burth H. Flanders, "The Confederate Navy Yard at
Saffold, Georgia" in Collections of the Early County Historical
Society 1 (1971) page 22.
1
Smith also lists Bennett W. Green as an
assistant surgeon. The Muster Roll also lists James E.
Lindsay as an assistant surgeon.
