The opening phase of what came to be called the Burnside Expedition, the Battle of Roanoke Island was an amphibious operation of the American Civil War, fought on February 7–8, 1862, in the North Carolina Sounds a short distance south of the Virginia border. The attacking force consisted of a flotilla of gunboats of the Union Navy drawn from the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough, a separate group of gunboats under Union Army control, and an army division led by Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. The defenders were a group of gunboats from the Confederate States Navy, termed the Mosquito Fleet, under Capt. William F. Lynch, and about 2,000 Confederate soldiers commanded locally by Brig. Gen. Henry A. Wise. The defense was augmented by four forts facing on the water approaches to Roanoke Island, and two outlying batteries. At the time of the battle, Wise was hospitalized, so leadership fell to his second in command, Col. Henry M. Shaw.
Sketch showing route of Burnside's forces to Hatteras Inlet. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1866
Attack on the Confederate Batteries at Roanoke Island by the Federal gun-boats; on board the Spalding were General Burnside and the war correspondent Frank Vizetelly
Union troops assault the Confederate three-gun battery
The Union Navy was the United States Navy (USN) during the American Civil War, when it fought the Confederate States Navy (CSN). The term is sometimes used carelessly to include vessels of war used on the rivers of the interior while they were under the control of the United States Army, also called the Union Army.
USS Conestoga, a converted gunboat that served on the Mississippi River.
Part of the crew of USS Monitor, after her encounter with CSS Virginia (ex-USS Merrimack)
Crewmen of USS Lehigh in 1864 or 1865.
"The Splendid Naval Triumph on the Mississippi, April 24th, 1862" (Currier and Ives lithograph)