Detail from Library of Congress
photo: LC-DIG-cwpb-01513
The USS Onondaga,
Trent's Reach
The
Onondaga’s captain said that he had gone downriver for fighting room. His commander felt
it best to keep an enemy fleet trapped in a narrow channel. If the captain had been
at the obstructions at dawn, he would probably have become the man who took
out three Confederate
ironclads in one fight. Instead, on March 18, 1865, he was judged guilty by a court martial.
With victory in the air, however, the Secretary of the Navy found technical errors by the court
and rejected the conviction.