Living history: Tidewater association helps bring region’s maritime past to life

When it comes to accurately explaining and depicting maritime history in the region, the Tidewater Maritime Living History Association has covered it all.

Over the years, they have portrayed the crew of the USS Monitor at the Monitor Center at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News aboard the reconstructed vessel adjacent to the museum.

Sailors have contributed to the Battle of Plymouth battle reenactment aboard replica steam launches at the Port of Plymouth Museum on the Roanoke River in North Carolina.

The association has also engaged visitors with living history displays at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum during a port visit with the USCG Eagle and during Makers Fest.

“TMLHA always offers excellent displays on 19th century naval history,” said Ross Patterson II, curator of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum. “Visitors have always been engaged via their educational activities, displays of accurate reproduction equipment, and through the immense knowledge of TMLHA members.”

Most recently, the association participated in the annual Military Through the Ages program at Jamestown Settlement in Williamsburg. They often win blue ribbon awards for their depth of knowledge, degree of accuracy, and expertise regarding nautical history – particularly during the mid-19th century in the Hampton Roads area.

Allen Mordica of Chesapeake, a retired Coast Guard officer, co-established the unit and continues to pilot the organization through the annual shoals of living history presentations, battle reenactments, and maritime-related educational events.

“The Tidewater Maritime Living History Association has been around for 23 years now,” said Mordica. “Our whole charter is to give an accurate yet positive view of sailors, their lives, their culture, and their activities aboard ship in peace and in war,” he said. “We do that through doing demonstrations as we’re doing today. We will go to battle re-creations, reenactments we would call them.”

Mordica and his crew generally shy away from battle reenactments. He believes there’s a social stigma in calling someone a reenactor. There’s a negativity to it according to Mordica.

“What we do is more educational. We’re here to teach the public. The people seem to eat this up. They love to learn more things about the lives of sailors,” explained Mordica. “Virginia is a maritime state. America is a maritime nation. The history of our country is wrapped strongly around the nautical world.”

While most living history groups choose a specific regiment, tribe, or ship to portray all the time, Tidewater association members found the prospect of invariably depicting a particular vessel too limiting.

At the Mariners’ Museum, they depicted the crew of the famous ironclad USS Monitor. While presenting a living history program at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, they might portray the crew of the flagship USS Minnesota.

“Today we are representing the crew of the USS Aroostook, an Unadilla-class steam powered patrol boat that operated here in the James River,” said Mordica. " The Aroostook in 1862 anchored here at Jamestown and sent a landing party ashore, where we’re standing right now, to destroy an abandoned Confederate gun battery and magazine.”

The USS Aroostook was assigned to the small Union flotilla on the James River commanded by Commander John Rodgers on the lightly ironclad flagship USS Galena. The USS Port Royal also served on the task force.

Following the Battle of Hampton Roads and the destruction of the CSS Virginia, the diminutive Union flotilla added the ironclad USS Monitor and the US Revenue Steamer E. A. Stevens to the force.

Together the Federal flotilla steamed up the James River to attack Fort Darling at Drewry’s Bluff, the prime Confederate obstacle between Federal forces and Richmond. The Union attack on Fort Darling failed. Confederate gunners from the scuttled CSS Virginia helped repel the Federal naval attack from Drewry’s Bluff.

Virginia Beach resident Kurt Eberly regularly participates in the Military Through the Ages event with the association. He enjoys setting up camp and doing the two-day event. Jamestown Settlement provides the living history units with a meal on Saturday night as well as supplies such as firewood, straw and water.

“In the spring of 1862, the Union flotilla was formed to accompany McClellan’s army as it moved up the Peninsula here,” said Kurt Eberly, who portrayed the ship’s paymaster during the military event. “It was protecting his flank and also clearing the river of any Confederate torpedoes or craft or gun emplacements on both sides of the river. The USS Aroostook destroyed the Confederate installations here on Jamestown Island. We’re representing (the crew of) a ship that operated right here during the war.”

As paymaster, Eberly’s primary duties included buying supplies for the ship and paying the sailors. Paymaster Eberly handled the money and dealt with the contractors and buying food for the crew. Union sailors were paid in greenbacks. A sailor was paid $18 per month, five dollars better than the army, according to Eberly.

The preparation and service of food, known as Navy chow, were essential elements of daily Navy life aboard ship and ashore. Cook Eric Jeanneret offered camp visitors an enlightening look at mess service and food preparation during the mid-19th century in the Union Navy.

“We’re representing the USS Aroostook (The Old Rooster). She was a 90-day gunboat. She was a wooden steam gunboat. She sailed in the James River with the Monitor. She actually came ashore at Jamestown Island,” said Jeanneret, a retired Navy veteran and a resident of Norfolk’s River Oaks subdivision. “We’re representing a landing party that came ashore to destroy Confederate property.”

Food typical of Federal Navy fare during the Civil War is spread out on the exhibit table before Jeanneret. Salt pork, sea biscuit, and beans were staples for the enlisted men and were provided at government expense. Officers paid for their own food and their fare varied from the members of the crew.

“Sailors complained, but they always complain. Really, the food wasn’t that bad. The officers did eat very well,” said Jeanneret. “A lot of times the officers’ fare was classified as being as good as a hotel meal ashore.”

An assortment of canned foods, peaches, lobster, pork and beans, milk, added variety to the crew’s generally bland diet. According to Jeanneret, Van Camp’s pork and beans have been around since 1861. An Indianapolis merchant discovered that baked beans and tomatoes made a good meal. He began canning the pork and beans and selling them to Union troops as they went off to war. Borden’s condensed milk has been available in cans since the 1850s.

“One of the most unusual (canned foods) is canned lobster. Lobster – back then – was not regarded as the delicacy that it is today. It was actually thought of as a trash food,” said Jeanneret. “It was said that lobster as a food was only fit for convicts and sailors. One of the reasons we know lobster as a delicacy today is the canning process and the railroads.”

In the Navy, sailors could generally count on getting three meals a day. Sailors were also provided a “spirit ration,” rye whisky with lemon juice and sugar had replaced rum. When the “spirit ration” was officially terminated in September of 1862, Union sailors were paid an extra nickel per day to temper the resentment.

“We’ve got a coffee grinder and coffee beans. We’ve got a pot of coffee brewing right now. We can drink coffee all day,” said Jeanneret. “The crackers are known as sea biscuits. The Army calls it hardtack. Hardtack is normally square and it comes in a crate. Sea biscuit is round and comes in a barrel.”

Nearby, Connor Jeanneret, Eric’s son, is preparing a pot of bean soup for the enlisted crew. Officers will enjoy a three-course meal, with a starter of oyster soup, a main course of fried steak and ale and a dessert of ice cream and bread pudding. They’ll also have a choice of beverages, apple cider, spiced wine or coffee.

“This would have been known as a launch stove, a box stove. It was a stove that could be easily transported onto a ship’s launch, two guys could handle it, and they’d bring it along on shore parties to cook on,” said Connor Jeanneret, the unit’s assistant cook. “This style of stove came about in the 1840s. It’s wood-fired. I’ve finished preparing the enlisted meal of bean soup and sea biscuit.”

During the Civil War, the Marine Corps’ primary contribution was serving aboard ships assigned to blockading squadrons and operating in river flotillas. Chris Johnson, a living historian and active duty Coast Guardsman from Chesapeake, portrays a Marine assigned to the USS Galena.

“The Galena was the flagship of a flotilla headed up the James River. She turned broadside to Fort Darling at Drewry’s Bluff and was basically a sitting duck,” said Johnson. “There were obstructions in the river that she couldn’t pass. She was hit four to six times.”

Although the Galena was technically an ironclad, the iron was too thin and easily breached. One of the shots from Fort Darling penetrated the hull and eliminated a Navy gun crew. The Marines who had been taking out sharpshooters on the river banks crewed the gun and continued firing at Fort Darling.

“One of those Marines, Corporal John Mackie, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor,” noted Johnson. “That was the first time a Marine was awarded the Medal of Honor.”

Homer Lanier is the visitor experience manager with the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, the organization that sponsors the annual MTA event at Jamestown Settlement.

“The Tidewater Maritime Living History Association is very squared away when it comes to presenting their history and their material culture, all the things they bring with them,” said Homer Lanier. “Their uniforms are spot on as they would have been during the time of the American Civil War. They are an excellent group. They are historians who are genuinely excited to share their expertise.”