Review - " I Am Fighting for the Union: The Civil War Letters of Naval Officer Henry Willis Wells " edited by Robert Browning

[I Am Fighting for the Union: The Civil War Letters of Naval Officer Henry Willis Wells edited by Robert M. Browning, Jr. (University of Alabama Press, 2023). Paperback, maps, photos, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. Pages main/total:xxxiii,304/368. ISBN:978-0-8173-6105-1. $34.95]

When eminent Union Navy historian (and retired chief historian of the U.S. Coast Guard) Robert Browning was researching his monumental studies of the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and West Gulf Blockading Squadrons, he uncovered (or rediscovered) a true gem in the service correspondence of Henry Willis Wells. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Wells was twenty years of age when he was appointed Master's Mate on the USS Cambridge in August 1861. Assigned at various times to the Cambridge, Ceres, Montgomery, Gem of the Seas, Rosalie, and finally Annie, the young junior officer found himself at a number of important naval stations between Norfolk, Virginia and the southwest coast of Florida. In performance of his duties, Wells gained a broad perspective of the U.S. Navy's blockade enforcement between the summer of 1861 and his untimely demise at the end of 1864.

Henry left behind for posterity over 200 letters to his family, the depth of which offer today's Civil War navy researchers a treasure trove of information. Their value is enhanced through Browning's endnotes, which identify individuals, vessels, places, and events mentioned in the letters. The frequency of Wells's letter writing and the depth of his observations leave behind an invaluable record of the day to day life of a junior officer on blockade duty during the Civil War. When discussing both major and minor events, Wells often expounds at great length. For example, he wrote a very long and detailed account of his observations of the famous Hampton Roads engagement of 1862. In that letter, Wells also describes his own ship's actions in suppressing enemy shore batteries and escorting a disabled vessel to safety. Much of Well's service was spent in the rivers and sounds of tidewater North Carolina, and he also penned a detailed account of the fighting there at Washington in 1863. In that engagement, Wells commanded a naval shore battery that helped repel the Confederate attack, and for that success he earned well-deserved plaudits. Numerous incidents of blockade enforcement are detailed in the Wells letters. In writing about failures to catch incoming or outgoing runners, Wells was frequently critical of a perceived lack of drive at the captain level. Henry also participated in a number of shore landings, and during one of those actions he was captured while trying to save a launch caught in the surf. Fortunately for him, the period of incarceration within the walls of the infamous Libby Prison was relatively brief.

Occupying a middle position within a Civil War navy ship's hierarchy of rank from captain on down to landsman, Wells interacted on a daily basis with senior officers and ordinary seamen alike. Writing from that perspective reveals many insights into shipboard life, crew relations, and, as often occurred, internal tensions. As referenced above, Wells was frequently critical of the officers above him and was not afraid to air his grievances aloud. In addition to questioning the competence and aggressiveness of more than one captain, Wells on multiple occasions expresses anger and dismay at his seemingly blocked path to promotion. At one point, his captain refused to write a letter of recommendation due to Henry's age, even though men younger than Wells, and with far less seafaring experience (before or during the war), were promoted around him. Like many frustrated officers in the blockading service, Wells pined to test his mettle in ship versus ship action aboard a modern man-of-war. But that was not to be.

On the Cambridge, Henry's complaints about fellow officers and his constant war with messmates over food matters indicate he might have been a difficult person to get along with when disagreements arose. One officer he did unabashedly admire was Lt. William Gwin, who, as students of the Brown Water Navy well know, subsequently made a name for himself commanding gunboats on the western waters before meeting his end in action there. Wells practically worshiped his memory. In his mind, none of the other officers which which he served during the war measured up to Gwin's example.

As mentioned in his letters, Wells was strongly antislavery in sentiment and ideology. Nevertheless, he was dismayed to learn that someone on the home front accused him of being a Copperhead. While Wells was skeptical of black citizenship and equality, he felt nothing but contempt for Peace Democrats and was angered that his loyalty was being questioned back home. On an interesting related note, Wells expresses thanks that the crew with which he served at the time of the presidential election of 1864 was not able to vote in it, as polling of his shipmates indicated that McClellan would have been the clear winner over Lincoln.

Eventually, Wells's exemplary service would earn him promotion to Acting Ensign and his own ship commands in late 1864, first with the Rosalie and then the Annie (both rather modest tenders). While at sea commanding the latter, Wells and the entire crew were lost, assumed killed during what investigators concluded to be a magazine explosion of unknown origin. With the tragic event leaving no witnesses nor wreckage to be examined today with modern forensics, the full story of the Annie's demise remains a mystery that will never be definitively solved.

Though Henry Wells was never able to live the life he might have imagined for himself, his letters leave behind a richly informative legacy of Civil War naval service that historian Robert Browning has significantly rescued from obscurity. In terms of sheer numbers, the body of published Union naval correspondence remains disproportionately small in comparison to that of those who wrote about their army service, but the Wells letter collection at least qualitatively narrows that unfortunate gap. Worthy of the highest recommendation, I Am Fighting for the Union is a letter collection possessing value rarely equaled in the entire Civil War naval library.