Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/120

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\IRGJXIA BIOGRAPHY

the naval station at New Orleans, Louisi- ana. He was promoted to captain, October 23, 1862. He died in Virginia, in 1878.

Wilkinson, John, born at Norfolk, Vir- ginia, November 6, 1821. He entered the navy as a midshipman in 1837, attended the Philadelphia naval school, and was made a passed midshipman in 1843. I'or three years he served on the Oregon and the Portsmouth. In 1846 he was attached to the Saratoga, on dut\- in the Gulf of Mexico. Was commis- sioned master in June, 1850, and lieutenant in November of the same year. In 1858-59 he served on the Southern Star, on the Para- guay expedition, and was on coast survey duty from the latter year until the breaking out of the civil war in April, 1861, when he resigned and entered the Confederate navy as a lieutenant. He was assigned to duty at Fort Powhatan, on James river, and was thence transferred to the command of a bat- tery on Acquia Creek. In the spring of 1862 he was appointed executive officer of the Confederate States ram Louisiana, at New Orleans, and was taken prisoner when Farragut captured the city. In August, 1862. he was exchanged, and on the 12th left Richmond for England with funds to purchase a vessel, war munitions and ma- chinery for making Confederate paper money. He there bought the steamer

Giraffe (afterward the R. E. Lcr), with wj-.ich he ran the blockade at Wilmington, North Carolina. With the same vessel he after- wards made rejjeated voyages between Wil- mington and I'.ermuda, taking out cotton and bringing in arms and munitions of war. In October, 1863, he was instructed to or- ganize and command an expedition to re- lease the Confederate prisoners held at John- son's Island, his operations to be based from sume convenient point in Canada. In this he was defeated, the Canadian governor- general learning of the plot, and so guard- ing the lake ports that no force could be assembled, nor a vessel procured. In 1864 Captain Wilkinson commanded the iron- clad Albemarle, and later the same year was transferred to the Chiekamauga, with which he captured and destroyed a considerable numl)er of Federal merchant vessels, from which he took large quantities of valuable stores. In 1865 he commanded the blockade- runner Chameleon, which he took to Liver- pool, where she was seized just after the cessation of hostilities, and delivered to L-nited States authorities. Captain Wilkin- son published "The Narrative of a Blockade- Runner" (New York, 1877).

NOTE. — A number of military and naval officers of the period of (he Confederacy appear elsewhere under the title "Members of Congrress" and "Promi- nent Persons."