Jacksonville

The 158-foot US gunboat Ottawa steamed into possession of Jacksonville, Florida, on this date in 1862. Commanded by Lt. Thomas H. Stevens (the son and father of senior naval officers, who himself would retire as an admiral), the Ottawa had fought at Port Royal the year before. From Jacksonville it went on patrol down the wide St. John's River into the interior of northern Florida. 

Stevens' next service was providing close support to the Army in Gen. George McClellan's Peninsula Campaign in Virginia. After a spell of vigorous blockade enforcement, Stevens was in in 1863 bombarding Charleston harbor. The next year, he commanded the ironclad Winnebago in the Battle of Mobile Bay.

Control of Jacksonville, meanwhile, passed back and forth several times during the course of the war. One Union soldier who went through it several times was Col. James Montgomery, whose biography I am currently writing.