USN to rename CHANCELORSVILLE....
Posted: Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:35 am
...To USS Robert Smalls (CG-62).
Mixed feelings here, and I'm going to try and explain why.
Short version - Robert Smalls was a slave in Charleston who worked his way up the docks to become a wheelsman (helmsman in all but name; slaves weren't permitted that title). Got himself and his family aboard the CSN steam gunboat Planter, and made a run for it - and making a stop to pick up more escapees. He headed for the USN blockade line, giving all the correct signals to the CSN posts along the way, and made it out in one piece, along with the code books and maps of the minefields.
He was 23 years old.
Continued to serve with the USN for the rest of the war, and later went on to be a Congressman.
That man absolutely deserves a ship named for him, and it's a genuine disgrace that it hasn't been done sooner.
The difficulty (difficulties, as you'll see) is this:
*Chancelorsville is being decommed in 2026. She may actually never deploy under that name even once. That tells me that this is utterly and overtly political posturing. Put that name on a Burke or Constellation.
*USNS Maury (TAGS-66) will also be renamed. Matthew Maury did groundbreaking work in oceanography and meteorology and designed the first electrically controlled sea mines...but he also ended up strongly supporting the Confederacy and is considered one of the founding fathers of the CSN. Okay, so be it.
*USS John Stennis (CVN-74) is not on the list of ships to be renamed. Senator John Stennis of Mississippi was a huge supporter of the USN, and helped push through appropriations for what became the Nimitz class. He was also an unrepentant segregationist who oversaw a lynching.
Mike
Mixed feelings here, and I'm going to try and explain why.
Short version - Robert Smalls was a slave in Charleston who worked his way up the docks to become a wheelsman (helmsman in all but name; slaves weren't permitted that title). Got himself and his family aboard the CSN steam gunboat Planter, and made a run for it - and making a stop to pick up more escapees. He headed for the USN blockade line, giving all the correct signals to the CSN posts along the way, and made it out in one piece, along with the code books and maps of the minefields.
He was 23 years old.
Continued to serve with the USN for the rest of the war, and later went on to be a Congressman.
That man absolutely deserves a ship named for him, and it's a genuine disgrace that it hasn't been done sooner.
The difficulty (difficulties, as you'll see) is this:
*Chancelorsville is being decommed in 2026. She may actually never deploy under that name even once. That tells me that this is utterly and overtly political posturing. Put that name on a Burke or Constellation.
*USNS Maury (TAGS-66) will also be renamed. Matthew Maury did groundbreaking work in oceanography and meteorology and designed the first electrically controlled sea mines...but he also ended up strongly supporting the Confederacy and is considered one of the founding fathers of the CSN. Okay, so be it.
*USS John Stennis (CVN-74) is not on the list of ships to be renamed. Senator John Stennis of Mississippi was a huge supporter of the USN, and helped push through appropriations for what became the Nimitz class. He was also an unrepentant segregationist who oversaw a lynching.
Mike