The Smithsonian
Collections
Timeline
Resources
Slavery & Abolition
Abraham Lincoln
First Blood
Soldiering
Weapons
Leaders
Cavalries
Navies
Life & Culture
Appomattox
Winslow Homer
Mathew Brady
Home
Site Index
Comments
     
 


 

 

 




 

John Adolphus Bernard Dahlgren (1809–1870)


At the start of the Civil War, Lieutenant John A. B. Dahlgren was commanding the Washington Navy Yard, where for more than a decade he had been developing guns for the U.S. Navy’s ordnance department. Dahlgren is best remembered for designing a heavy, smoothbore, muzzle-loading gun called the Dahlgren gun. The nine-inch version became the most popular gun to be mounted on vessels of war. Promoted to captain in 1862, Dahlgren requested duty at sea the next year. In July 1863, following his promotion to rear admiral, he took command of the navy’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and assumed responsibility for the blockade of Charleston Harbor. Dahlgren’s forces succeeded in silencing Confederate batteries on Morris Island and at Sumter and in securing a safe anchorage for the monitors inside the bar. This action put a halt to blockade running at the port.

Photographed aboard the USS Pawnee in Charleston Harbor, Dahlgren leans against one of the cast iron guns of his own design which bears his name.


Mathew Brady Studio (active 1844–1883)
Albumen silver print, circa 1865
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

 

Home SI