Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/881

Rh Walker Light Guard. In 1888 he was elected collector of city taxes of the city of Richmond, the civil office which he at present occupies.

Captain John A. Curtis, of Richmond, distinguished for adventurous and valuable service to the Confederate cause, was born at Hampton, Va., in 1834. From the age of fourteen years he was a student of seamanship, with practical experience afloat on the rivers, bay and coast. In May, 1861, at twenty-seven years of age, he enlisted as a private in Company A of the Thirty-second Virginia infantry, and was engaged with that command on the peninsula, fighting at Big Bethel. In the following October he was detailed, on account of his naval skill, to navigate a schooner on the James river, and from this position he was promoted in the summer of 1862 superintendent of transportation on the James river and Kanawha canal, under command of Maj. Kensie Johns. In the spring of 1863 he received a commission as acting master in the Confederate States navy. Reporting to Major Norris, chief signal officer at Richmond, he was assigned to duty in a species of secret service, crossing the James river to Day's Point for military information, which occupied him during the winter of 1863-64. Then reporting to Capt. John H. Parker, C. S. N., at Richmond, he was assigned to duty under Lieut.-Com. Hunter Davidson, in charge of the torpedo service on the James river. He was second in command of a daring expedition against the shipping at Newport News, sailing in a steam launch sixteen feet long and carrying a torpedo containing sixty-three pounds of powder, which he successfully exploded under the U. S. frigate Minnesota, damaging her so much as to compel her to go into dry dock at Washington. Master Curtis and the crew escaped unhurt though surrounded by warships and fired on with small arms. In July, 1864, he was called to Wilmington, N. C., to take part in a daring enterprise, which was no less than the liberation of the Confederate prisoners at Point Lookout. Two blockade runners were fitted up for this purpose, under the command of Com. John Taylor Wood, with Captain Curtis as acting master of one of the vessels. The expedition proceeded as far as the bar at the mouth of Cape Fear river, when they were ordered to return to Wilmington and the project was abandoned. Captain Curtis was then stationed at Smithville (now Southport), N. C., but was immediately ordered to Wilmington again for another important enterprise, and was assigned by John Pembroke Jones as acting master of the new cruiser Tallahassee, destined to work havoc among the Federal shipping. This was a double-screw steamer, formerly a blockade runner and called the Atlanta, 230 feet long, with iron hull, and was armed with one 100-pound Parrott rifle amidships, a 30-pound Parrott gun aft, and a boat howitzer on the forecastle deck, and sailed with 120 men. The Tallahassee left Wilmington August 6, 1864, receiving the fire of two blockaders, and made northward. On the 11th she was off Sandy Hook and began her work of destruction. She reached Halifax on the 18th, having burned sixteen vessels, scuttled ten, bonded five and released two. Leaving Halifax on the night of the 19th, the Tallahassee returned to Wilmington, again running the blockade, fighting her way in on the night of August 26th. Captain Curtis was then ordered to Richmond, and about September 1st was