Sabotage of USS Greyhound Battles And Campaigns - 1864

Sabotage of USS Greyhound  "Hang-Dog-Looking Rascals"  November 27, 1864

The blockade runner Greyhound was captured by the USS Connecticut off the coast of North Carolina on May 8, 1864. The fast 372-ton iron steamship was condemned, sold at auction, and purchased by the U.S. government. Since Union Gen. Benjamin F. Butler's force was stationed along Virginia's James River, Butler took command of the ship to use it as a floating headquarters and for travel to his different units. Butler had the ship's salon redecorated and luxuriously furnished, and he designed and provided the ship's crew with fancy non-regulation uniforms. "The Greyhound", wrote Adm. David D. Porter, "deserved her name, for she was a long, lean-looking craft and the fastest steamer on the river."

During the fall of 1864, Butler and Porter were together at Dutch Gap on the James River planning an expedition to attack Confederate-held Fort Fisher in North Carolina when Porter received an urgent summons to come to Hampton Roads. Porter, who had noticed a lot of "hang-dog-looking rascals" lolling around Dutch Gap, accepted Butler's offer to take him up to Hampton Roads. Once the Greyhound was underway, Porter went to the ship's salon and was surprised too find six of the "rascals" there. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. One of them spoke up, saying, "We are just lookin' round to see how you fellers live. We ain't doin' no harm."

Butler had the men placed under guard, pulled into Bermuda Hundred to put them ashore, and then continued down the river. "We had left Bermuda Hundred five or six mile behind us," remembered Porter, "when suddenly an explosion forward startled us and in a moment large volumes of smoke poured out of the engine room." The crew abandoned ship as flames enveloped the Greyhound. It is believed that one of the suspicious-looking men had managed to deposit a bomb that looked like a lump of coal into the ship's coal bunker. The torpedo was shoveled into the boiler, where it exploded, destroying the ship within five minutes.