Wherein we learn the strategic value of a forgotten tributary
...................................................................................................................................................
On April 20, 1862, the Revenue Cutter Miami sat in Aquia Creek. The Miami was a sleek, 150 foot craft with a schooner-rigged screw-driven steamship that looked like a glamorous luxury yacht. She was. The Revenue Service (one of the forerunners of today's Coast Guard) had purchased her in January from Arthur Leary, owner of one of the largest lines of merchant vessels in the world (briefly in business with Sir Edward Cunard, son of the founder of the Cunard Line--to sneak a Titanic centennial in here, the unsinkable ship was built by White Star in response to Cunard's building of the Lusitania). Like the Harriet Lane, which had become the flagship of the Potomac Flotilla, the Revenue Service had outfitted the Miami for war.
Her arrival at the Navy Yard to receive her guns and ordnance the first week of April had drawn crows of admirers, including Abraham Lincoln, who insisted on a cruise to Alexandria with his family in her. On April 20, Lincoln was again on board, but this time with a more serious purpose. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase, and a gaggle of staff of various ranks were with him, all on their way to visit the Army of the Potomac on the Virginia Peninsula.
Lincoln had stopped at Aquia Creek to confer with the commander of the Department of the Rappahannock, Maj. General Irvin McDowell. McDowell had captured Fredericksburg the day before, the latest in a series of Union victories occurring everywhere except for the Virginia Peninsula (as a city on the Rappahannock, Fredericksburg is outside of the purview of this blog, but there is a remarkably exciting collection of official reports relating to the capture that are worth a read, if you like such things).
