Mountain Sailor

Early in 1861, Buncombe County farmer William Riley Powers joined the Rough and Ready Guards (Co. F, 14th North Carolina Infantry). The regiment was assigned to southeastern Virginia. There, Confederate Gen. Benjamin Huger discharged Pvts. Powers and William Pleasant Craig, also of Buncombe, ordering them "to go on board the Merrimack" on February 18, 1862.



Merrimack was an abandoned Union frigate that the Confederates raised, refitted with four-inch iron plates and a gun turret, and renamed CSS Virginia. Lacking qualified sailors, the Confederates transferred soldiers to the navy to man the vessel. Powers and Craig were given the rank of "landsman" as unskilled recruits and assigned the dirtiest, heaviest, and most menial tasks.



Virginia was poorly ventilated and very crowded. Surgeon Dinwiddie Phillips wrote, "Most of our crew being volunteers from the army and unused to ship-life, about twenty per cent of our men were usually ashore at the hospital, and our effective force on the 8th of March was about 250 or 260 men."



On March 7-8, 1862, Virginia successfully engaged the Union warships Cumberland and Congress, part of the blocking force at Norfolk. The Federals however had also constructed an "ironclad" ship, USS Monitor. On March 9, Monitor engaged Virginia at Hampton Roads, the first battle ever between armored vessels, and fought to a draw. In May, to avoid capture, Virginia's crew scuttled her. Powers had served with Virginia from launch to destruction. His subsequent service is not known. After the war, he returned to Buncombe County and is buried in the churchyard across the street (use crosswalks to the left and right).



(captions)

(upper center) Riley Powers, back row, second from the right, with Zebulon B. Vance to his right, at 1890 Confederate reunion - Courtesy North Carolina Collection, Pack Memorial Library, Asheville

(lower right) Battle between CSS Virginia and USS Monitor, Hampton Roads, Va., March 8, 1862 - Courtesy Library of Congress

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