The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most capable navy in the world and it has been estimated that in terms of tonnage of its active battle fleet alone, it is larger than the next 13 navies combined, which includes 11 U.S. allies or partner nations. with the highest combined battle fleet tonnage and the world's largest aircraft carrier fleet, with eleven in service, and two new carriers under construction. With 319,421 personnel on active duty and 99,616 in the Ready Reserve, the Navy is the third largest of the service branches. It has 282 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of March 2018, making it the second-largest air force in the world, after the United States Air Force.
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North (Union) and the South (Confederacy). The most studied and written about episode in U.S. history, the Civil War began primarily as a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States. The loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery.
An acting rank is a military designation allowing a commissioned or non-commissioned officer to assume a rank—usually higher and usually temporary—without the pay and allowances appropriate to that grade. As such, an officer may be ordered back to the previous grade. This situation may arise when a lower-ranking officer is called upon to replace a senior officer, or fill a position higher than the current rank held.
Isaac D. Seyburn was born in Wales in March 1824. He was 5ft 6in (1.68m), 135lb (61kg). had blue eyes and dark hair. By profession, he was a "Master Mariner."
On March 15, 1848, he was married in Pittston, Maine, to Mary Ann Rogers who was born in New York City on November 20, 1828. She was a daughter of John Rogers (1800–1863) and Elizabeth Carroll Reynolds (1806–1871). Elizabeth C. Reynolds' family is descended from Christopher Reynolds who settled in what is now Isle of Wight County, Virginia (on the south shore of the James River about 10 miles (16km) west of Newport News), before 1630 and received a land grant of 450 acres (1.8km2) in 1636. Her grandfather, Bernard Reynolds (1763–1833), served in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
Pittston is a town in Kennebec County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,666 at the 2010 census. The town was named for the family of John Pitt, who were early settlers. Pittston is included in the Augusta, Maine micropolitan New England City and Town Area.
The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States located between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's estimated population as of 2018 is over 8.5 million.
Isaac and Mary Ann Seyburn had five children, Emily Williamson Seyburn (1853–1934), Mary Catharine Seyburn (1854–1893), Stephen Young Seyburn (1856–1923), Edward Isaac Seyburn (1860–1931) and John Rogers Seyburn (1867–1905) who were all born in Maine.
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Maine is the 12th smallest by area, the 9th least populous, and the 38th most densely populated of the 50 U.S. states. It is bordered by New Hampshire to the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and northwest respectively. Maine is the easternmost state in the contiguous United States, and the northernmost state east of the Great Lakes. It is known for its jagged, rocky coastline; low, rolling mountains; heavily forested interior; and picturesque waterways, as well as its seafood cuisine, especially lobster and clams. There is a humid continental climate throughout most of the state, including in coastal areas such as its most populous city of Portland. The capital is Augusta.
Seafaring career
In 1854, Seyburn acquired a brig, a two-masted, square-rigged merchant ship of about 116 feet (35m) that he named the Emily W. Seyburn after his first child who had been born the year before. The brig was registered in Pittston, Maine. There are records of its periodic arrival in New York between 1854 and 1860 carrying cargo under charter, e.g., coal from Newcastle upon Tyne in England, flour from New Orleans, nickel and hides from Montevideo in Uruguay. By 1857, the brig was either sold or another Master was hired to sail her because records indicate that Seyburn thereafter was Master of the ship Stephen J. Young (1856–1857), and Master of the ship Lew Chew (1857–1861). Stephen J. Young was the son of Stephen Young, the ship's owner; he was also the owner of the Lew Chew; Seyburn's eldest son was named after him.
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and maneuverable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Brigs fell out of use with the arrival of the steam ship because they required a relatively large crew for their small size and were difficult to sail into the wind. Their rigging differs from that of a brigantine which has a gaff-rigged mainsail, while a brig has a square mainsail with an additional gaff-rigged spanker behind the mainsail.
Newcastle upon Tyne, commonly known as Newcastle, is a city in Tyne and Wear, North East England, 103 miles (166 km) south of Edinburgh and 277 miles (446 km) north of London on the northern bank of the River Tyne, 8.5 mi (13.7 km) from the North Sea. Newcastle is the most populous city in the North East, and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is a member of the UK Core Cities Group and is a member of the Eurocities network of European cities.
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
Civil War naval service
On August 29, 1861, Isaac D. Seyburn volunteered for service in the United States Navy and was awarded a temporary commission as an Acting Master, a volunteer officer whose term of service was until the end of the Civil War. The naval rank of "Master" was later replaced by that of "Lieutenant (junior grade)." He reported for service in New York on September 10, 1861.
The master, or sailing master, was a historical rank for a naval officer trained in and responsible for the navigation of a sailing vessel. The rank can be equated to a professional seaman and specialist in navigation, rather than as a military commander.
Lieutenant , commonly abbreviated as LTJG or, historically, Lt. (j.g.), is a junior commissioned officer rank of the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. LTJG has a US military pay grade of O-2, and a NATO rank code of OF-1a. The rank is also used in the United States Maritime Service. The NOAA Corps's predecessors, the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps (1917–1965) and the Environmental Science Services Administration Corps or ESSA Corps (1965–1970), also used the rank.
Seyburn was seriously wounded in action aboard the steam sloop of warMohican during the Battle of Port Royal on November 7, 1861. The battle was a major Union victory and up until then the largest naval and amphibious force ever assembled by the United States. Seyburn was wounded when a 32-pound solid minie ball from defending shore batteries shattered the bones of his lower left leg just above the ankle. Seyburn was treated at the Naval Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, between November 14, 1861 and March 1, 1862. He never regained use of the leg, but was confined to crutches and endured pain for the rest of his life.
Despite his injuries, Seyburn continued with his naval service. During his convalescence, he was assigned to the Monitor Board in New York and was a member of the team supervising the construction of the Passaic-classmonitorWeehawken in Jersey City, New Jersey. At about the time the Weehawken was launched on November 5, 1862, Seyburn was ordered to the ironclad steamer Galena where he served until the end of her deployment on May 21, 1863 when the ship arrived in Philadelphia for repairs. Galena, commissioned on April 21, 1862, was one of the first three ironclads, each of a different design, built by the U.S. Navy during the Civil War; it was also the second, after the Monitor, to be put under fire.
On June 10, 1863, Seyburn was given command of the Kittatinny, a three-masted fore-and-aft schooner. While under his command, the Kittatinny was assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron under the overall command of Rear-Admiral David Farragut. The ship is credited with having chased an unidentified schooner ashore on September 22, 1863 where that vessel was burned by her crew, and with having captured the three-masted schooner, Reserve, on October 25, 1863 off Pass Cavallo, Texas.
On December 23, 1863, while on deployment off the coast of Texas, Seyburn was ordered to proceed with the Kittatinny to New Orleans. Shortly after his arrival, Seyburn submitted his resignation. In his letter, dated February 18, 1864, from the station ship Portsmouth, Seyburn indicated that he wanted to resign because he had been crippled by his wound and because "the high handed injustice practiced on me by the Commanding officers of the first division of this Squadron is to me insufferable." His resignation was accepted and Seyburn was honorably discharged on March 24, 1864 in Gardiner, Maine.
Post-war life
Following his discharge, Seyburn remained in Maine until sometime between July 1869 and March 1870 when he moved his family to Louisiana, principally due to the warmer climate, where he had acquired the Idlewild Plantation in Patterson, St. Mary Parish (some 80 miles (130km) southwest of New Orleans). Idlewild was a sugar cane plantation and Isaac D. Seyburn earned his livelihood as a planter. His wife, Mary Ann, died on March 19, 1880 and Isaac D. Seyburn died on March 6, 1895.
Postscript
Isaac D. Seyburn was of the Episcopal faith and attended services at the Holy Trinity Church in Patterson, Louisiana. When the church was deconsecrated in 1940, the stained glass window over the altar, known as the Seyburn Memorial, was acquired by St. Mary's Episcopal Church in nearby Franklin, Louisiana, where it remains today.
Idlewild Plantation remained in the family at least until Edward Isaac Seyburn's son, Edward Reynolds Seyburn, sold it in 1977. It was purchased by Dr. Walter H. Daniels. He and his wife Pam still reside in Idlewild. Dr. Daniels efforts got Idlewild Plantation listed on the National Register of Historic Places (Designation No. 82000459 of November 2, 1982).
One of the eight Flying Juniordinghies in the Vanderbilt Sailing Club fleet was named for Isaac D. Seyburn, who was the great great great grandfather of a former Commodore of the Club; another was named Lew Chew.
Related Research Articles
Abner Read was an officer of the United States Navy who distinguished himself in the American Civil War. He died of injuries sustained while patrolling the Mississippi River, in command of the New London. At the time of his death, he had attained the rank of lieutenant commander.
The second USS Florida was a sidewheel steamer in the United States Navy.
Rear Admiral Alexander Murray was a flag officer in the United States Navy, who served during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War.
William W. Kennison (1825–1893) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
The USS Hartford, a sloop-of-war, steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy named for Hartford, the capital of Connecticut. Hartford served in several prominent campaigns in the American Civil War as the flagship of David G. Farragut, most notably the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. She survived until 1956, when she sank awaiting restoration at Norfolk, Virginia.
USS Stars and Stripes (1861) was a 407-ton steamer acquired by the U.S. Navy and put to use by the Union during the American Civil War.
The second USS Louisiana was a propeller-driven iron hull steamer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Stephen Young was one of the ships of the Stone Fleet, sunk in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina to be used as a blockade during the American Civil War.
USS Rachel Seaman was a wooden schooner purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Kineo was a Unadilla-class gunboat built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
The USS Beauregard began the war as a Confederate privateer. The Union Navy acquired the schooner from the prize court and outfitted the vessel for blockade duty.
USS Maria A. Wood (1861) was a schooner acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
USS Massachusetts (1860) was a large steamer acquired by the U.S. Navy prior to the American Civil War.
USS Kittatinny (1861) was a schooner acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.
USS G. W. Blunt (1861) was a schooner acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat as well as a dispatch boat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.
USS Norfolk Packet was a large schooner purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was assigned to gunboat duty in the inland waterways of the Confederate States of America.
USS Nyanza (1863) was a large steamer purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was assigned by the Union Navy to gunboat duty in the waterways of the rebellious Confederate States of America.
Commodore Isaac Mayo was a United States naval officer who served in the War of 1812, Second Seminole War, and Mexican War. Mayo is credited with influencing the location of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis and is noted for his controversial resignation and Presidential dismissal from the service at the start of the Civil War.
Commodore John R. Goldsborough was an officer in the United States Navy. Goldsborough was made a cadet-midshipman in 1824 and as such saw action in the Mediterranean against pirates. In one incident, while in charge of 18 men he attacked and captured a Greek pirate ship with a 58-man crew.
John Cummings Howell was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He rose to the rank of rear admiral and late in his career was commander-in-chief of the North Atlantic Squadron and then of the European Squadron.
References
Articles
The New York Times, "Marine Intelligence," October 23, 1854, March 25, 1857, March 22, 1858, September 18, 1858, February 8, 1860 (all on page 8)
The New York Times, "News from Washington, Naval Orders," November 15, 1862, page 1.
The New York Times, "Local Intelligence," May 24, 1863, page 6.
U.S. Federal Census, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910.
The Compendium of American Genealogy, 1600s-1800s, Volume VI, Lineage Records, page 660.
The New England Historic Genealogical Society, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, 1847-1994, Volume 90, page 358, Boston, 1936
The New England Historic Genealogical Society, Vital Records of Pittston, Maine, to the Year 1892
Office of the Secretary of State, Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana Death Records Index, 1804-1949.
Stephanie J. Richmond, National Archives and Records Administration, Old Military and Civil Records Branch, Textual Archives Services Division, Letter dated March 10, 2005, ref. 2503577/sr.
National Archives and Records Administration, Union Pension Applications, 1861–1938, Invalid Pension Application No. 943, Certificate No. 3369, the "Pension File" of Seyburn, Isaac D., U.S. Navy, Acting Master.
Maritime & Naval Records
Baker, William Avery, A Maritime History of Bath, Maine and the Kennebec River Region, Volume II, Appendix A - Construction Record, pages 916, 954 & 955, The Marine Research Society of Bath, Bath, Maine, 1973.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume 12, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from October 29, 1861 to May 13, 1862, pages 265- 266, U.S. Government Printing Office (USGPO), Washington, D.C., 1901.
Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Volume 20, West Gulf Blockading Squadron from March 15 to December 31, 1863, pages 434, 596, 641, 732, U.S. Government Printing Office (USGPO), Washington, D.C., 1905.
American Lloyds' Registry of American and Foreign Shipping, Ships, Lew Chew, No. 1495, page 62, Ferris & Pratt, New York, 1861.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
