USS Eastport, Albumen Photograph of Brown Water Navy Ironclad Gunboat

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American Historical Ephemera and Photography

By Cowan's Auctions

Nov 19, 2020

Set Reminder 2020-11-19 10:00:00 2020-11-19 10:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : American Historical Ephemera and Photography https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/cowans/american-historical-ephemera-and-photography-5894
Cowan’s Auctions, a Hindman Company, is pleased to present the November 19 Fall Auction, featuring over 400 lots of historically significant photography, manuscript material, artwork, and other ephemera dating from the 18th through the early 20th century, including the Civil War. Cowan's Auctions dawnie@cowans.com

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• Lot Description
  Albumen photograph, matted to 9.75 x 8 in., featuring the USS Eastport. Uncredited, n.d. Applied printed caption reads, "United States Iron Clad Ram / EASTPORT / Lieutenant Commander S. Ledyard Phelps, US Navy."
  
  What became the USS Eastport started as an incomplete steamer taken over by Confederate naval authorities at Cerro Gordo, Tennessee with the intension of being converted to ironclad warship.  Still under construction she was taken by Union gunboats on February 7, 1862 and towed to Cairo, Illinois where her captors completed Eastport as an ironclad gunboat of 700 tons.  Eastport joined the growing Western River Flotilla in late August steaming between Island No. 10 and the mouth of the White River in Arkansas, seeing no action.  While at Cairo undergoing repairs she was turned over to the Navy on October 1, 1862 and joined the Mississippi Squadron.  In mid-winter 1863 USS Eastport was assigned to Vicksburg operations but struck bottom while steaming to take up station and was forced to return to Cairo for repairs that lasted until June.  On 19th June she headed for Helena Arkansas with supplies and spent the rest of her abbreviated career as a convoy and patrol vessels among the tributaries of the Mississippi.  Just before the start of the ill-fated Red River Campaign Eastport was party to the capture of over 14,000 bales of Southern cotton later sold by the government for a princely sum at prize court auction.  Eastport then steamed down to the mouth of the Red River to take party in the grandiose combined operation assisting in the capture of Fort De Russy.  She snaked about the reaches of the Red River above Grand Ecore and down again repeating the movement in routine patrol.  On April 15, 1864 USS Eastport ran on to a floating torpedo and was mined.  Considerable effort was expended by the crew to secure the ship and bring her away for repairs but she was deliberately blown up and destroyed by her captain on April 26 to prevent capture by Rebels.  
  
  The Richard B. Cohen Civil War Collection 
  
  Lots 37, 69-98, 295 
  
  Cowan's enthusiastically presents the second installment of collector Richard B. Cohen's matchless archive of Civil War Brown Water Navy photography. Richard was known to many in the field - indeed some of these images may resonate from a bygone transaction or "show and tell' - but to those who knew him best he'll be remembered as a "disciplined collector who maintained a relatively narrow focus having built an important, perhaps unsurpassed collection in his area of specialization." This catalogued portion of the core collection is a seamless continuation of high quality photography highlighted by an array of Brown Water Navy warships in desirable carte-de-visite format. We counted no fewer than 22 different Mississippi River vessels, some battle-weary and familiar, others obscure, but all identified with many named in period ink. Research confirmed that several of these CDVs were signed by an officer who had served aboard the ship conveying the historic connection and spirit of "wooden ships and iron men." The last of the larger format albumen warships are also included - the USS Blackhawk, Eastport, and Louisville. A fine quartet of lots feature sought-after enlisted sailors. We proceed with eight additional lots of multiple identified officer cartes, the myriad of navy rank insignia during the Civil War both complex and instructive. We think it opportune to quote a comment from a previous buyer who emailed that, "...I draw inspiration from their BWN service when known, and when not offering (him) the opportunity to reconstruct an aspect of overlooked Civil War naval history." Now comes the time to further disperse Richard B. Cohen's collection and recycle the photography to the care of the next generation, and in so doing we salute a lifelong endeavor unlikely ever to be duplicated.

  Condition

  Sepia toned with strong clarity, undamaged mount edges showing moderate wear, G. With portions of missing albumen concentrated in upper right field and along center right border where a 5/8" section is chipped away, neither encroaching upon vessel. 
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