From the July 15th Long Recall, the Civil War Blog as it happened in the newspapers. I look at this every day.
This was a letter from the US steam frigate Niagara off Fort Pickens, Florida, written June 25, 1861.
Not much happening off Mobile so left that station to the USS St. Louis to blockade on the night of June 11th and arrived at Fort Pickens on the 12th. They took the prize schooner "taken from the Mobileans right under the nose of Fort Morgan"
On the new station at Pensacola, the ship took on 100 new men from the US transport South Carolina and had begun training them in gunnery and other shipboard duties. Quite a bit of gunnery practice.
On the 15th, the USS Sabine left for Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
The Niagara's crew also helped land guns and munitions at Fort Pickens from the steamers Star of the South and Thomas Swain. All these new guns were rifled.
Receiving news of Rebel activity from deserters and they were erecting batteries at various points opposite Pickens.
This letter gives a good idea what blockade duty was like. It wasn't all just sitting there and waiting to catch sight of a blockade-runner.
Life on Blockade Duty. --Old B-R'er
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