The following letter was written by Wesley Sever who enlisted 25 June 1862 as a private in the U. S. Marines. He was listed as serving on a number of vessels throughout the war including the Uncle Sam, and the Black Hawk. Nothing more was found.

Eastport, a well modeled, fast Mississippi River steamer built at New Albany, Ind., in 1852, was acquired by Navy in January 1862 and underwent conversion to an ironclad gunboat at Cerro Gordo on the Tennessee River prior to duty with Lt. I. N. Brown’s flotilla. Her alterations were about half completed when on 7 February 1862 she was captured by the Union gunboats, Conestoga, Tyler, and Lexington, together with the materials to finish the job.

Eastport was sent in to Cairo, Illinois, and her conversion finished. She then served with the Union Army until 1 October 1862 when the ships of the Western Flotilla were turned over to the Navy and renamed the Mississippi Squadron. There were high hopes for the Eastport when she first joined the fleet but she was so heavily armored, slow and cumbersome, that she was unable to navigate shallow rivers in the Western theater. She steamed on western waters until sunk on 15 April 1864 in the Red River by a Confederate torpedo. Efforts to salvage her failed and she was blown up and destroyed to prevent capture on 26 April 1864.

Transcription

United States Gunboat Eastport
September 13th 1862

Dear Mother,

As I promised to write when I got to my destination, I will do so. We arrived here last night all safe and sound but pretty well tired out nevertheless. We are about 50 miles below Memphis waiting for the river to rise so we can go on to Vicksburg. But how long we shall be compelled to stay out in the river I cannot say. We stopped at Memphis on our way down but I could not get ashore to learn where James was. The boat was escorting a number of transports down loaded with secesh prisoners so I could not learn anything about where James was or his regiment but I shall write to him and see if I can get an answer.

There is no news here of any importance. It is all quiet. But it won’t be very quiet when we get over the bar in the river. We shall go direct to Vicksburg and there we shall have a pretty hard fight. Get this fleet down there and Farragut’s fleet from the Gulf and I guess Vicksburg will have to cave in.

This boat that I am on is the flag ship of the fleet. The Commodore is on board here. It is Commodore [Charles Henry] Davis. He is a very nice man. Everybody gives him a nice name. She is an iron clad with seven big guns, two on a side, two in the bow, and one in the stern, and her bow is fifteen feet of all solid iron which is calculated for a ram. We expect to lay out here in the river some four or five weeks yet and I will write you if anything turns up of any importance. Our work is nothing at all. It hardly keeps the blood in circulation.

Give my best respects to all the folks and write just as quick as you get this and give me all the news. Direct your letter to Wesley Sever, Cairo, Illinois, United States Gun Boat Eastport and I will get it all safe. Tell me where Thomas and Hank is.