Item #7503 Union Aquatic Theater, Onboard U.S. Steam Gunboat Port Royal. Harbor of Apalachicola, Florida: Printed by Bishop’s Cheap Hand Press [manuscript “imprint”], circa 17 April 1863. Manuscript broadside in red, blue, and black ink, 12.5” x 7.75”. John A. Stammers.
Union Aquatic Theater, Onboard U.S. Steam Gunboat Port Royal. Harbor of Apalachicola, Florida: Printed by Bishop’s Cheap Hand Press [manuscript “imprint”], circa 17 April 1863. Manuscript broadside in red, blue, and black ink, 12.5” x 7.75”.
Union Aquatic Theater, Onboard U.S. Steam Gunboat Port Royal. Harbor of Apalachicola, Florida: Printed by Bishop’s Cheap Hand Press [manuscript “imprint”], circa 17 April 1863. Manuscript broadside in red, blue, and black ink, 12.5” x 7.75”.

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Union Aquatic Theater, Onboard U.S. Steam Gunboat Port Royal. Harbor of Apalachicola, Florida: Printed by Bishop’s Cheap Hand Press [manuscript “imprint”], circa 17 April 1863. Manuscript broadside in red, blue, and black ink, 12.5” x 7.75”.

[with] [Two autograph letters written aboard the Port Royal], Washington Navy Yard, 4 October 1862 and Apalachicola Bay, 24 July 1863. One letter initialed and one signed, 12mo (7.75” x 4.75”), 4 pp. and 2 pp. CONDITION.

A rare manuscript playbill, with appealing calligraphic lettering, advertising a shipboard theater performance given on the USS Port Royal while off the coast of Florida during the Civil War, accompanied by two letters by a Navy man and performer in the production.

John A. Stammers was living in Boston when he enlisted in the Union Navy in 1861. In October 1862 he shipped out of the Washington Naval Yard in Washington D.C. aboard the USS Port Royal. Stammers himself performs in the first two acts of the present production, which opens with the piece Luke the Laborer and includes characters such as Squire Chase, Farmer Wakefield, Luke the Laborer, Dick (played by Stammers), Dame Wakefield, Clara, Jenny, and Bobby Trott (the various women characters played by men, of course). An interlude follows including “Comic Song” and “Irish Jig.” Next is The Idiot Witness, with the characters The Sieur Arnaud, Hans Certhold, Earl of Sussex, Dame Tugscull, and Robert Tugscull (played by Stammers). The “evening’s entertainment” concludes with The Happy Man, with She He, Ram Rush, Fow Fum, and Sing Small. The performance was to commence at 7 PM precisely. In one of the two letters included here, Stammers describes the theater productions aboard the Port Royal: “We have a theatrical performance once in a while. I send one of the bills and an Epilogue [which he later notes he is not sending after all] that I recited before 2 ships company in honor of our first Lieutenant that was leaving us to go to Key West to take command of a gunboat. He is very fond of such sport and subscribed the sum of 50 dollars from the officers towards it. There is another gun boat here and have another theatre company on board. They give a performance every time we do, but they cannot beat us any way. They are called the Somerset Dramatic Association.” A line on the broadside just above the “imprint” reads “U.S. Somerset’s band is engaged,” indicating inter-vessel participation in such performances.

Built for the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, the USS Port Royal was a double-ended, side-wheel steam gunboat. The vessel was assigned to patrol rivers and other waterways of the Confederacy and to enforce the Union blockade. Port Royal was launched at New York in 1862 and in May steamed to Hampton Roads, Virginia, to join the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in support of Gen. McClellan's drive up the peninsula toward Richmond. She engaged Confederate batteries at Sewell's Point, VA, and took part in the Battle of Drewry's Bluff on the James River below the southern capital. After Gen. Robert E. Lee thwarted McClellan's advance, Port Royal shifted operations to the North Carolina Sounds. She was part of the Union Naval force which reconnoitered the Neuse River, North Carolina, and attacked Kinston in December 1862. The spring of 1863 found her operating along Florida’s coast. On 20 April—three days after this performance took place—a landing party from the ship raided Apalachicola, capturing cotton and ordnance. On 24 May a boat expedition captured the sloop Fashion carrying cotton in the same area. The Union party also burned a ship repair facility at Devil's Elbow, Florida and destroyed a barge. In ensuing months Port Royal continued to patrol the Confederate coast. In August 1864, she served with Rear Admiral David Farragut during the operations in Mobile Bay, Alabama. She then continued patrol duty through the end of the war.

Stammers writes both of these letters to his friend Henry “Harry” A. McCrennan[?] who lived in Boston. The first letter is dated 4 Oct. 1862 and includes a description of Port Royal. The second letter, dated 24 July 1863, is written from Apalachicola Bay, where the “Aquatic Theater” took place; Stammers enclosed the playbill with the latter.

PASSAGES FROM THE LETTERS

Washington Navy Yard, Washington D.C.; 4 Oct. 1862 “Friend Harry, I wish to inform you that all of our crew have been drafted and have been sent here. She is a splendid boat. She carries 8 guns and she was built in Maine. She is commanded by Captain Morris who fought the Cumberland against the Merrimack, and we are going down the Gulf on the Mediterranean they say. You will excuse me for not writing before for I had no time and did not get a chance to go out because we are to sail today. I am sorry that I can't get my likeness taken. Don't blame me Harry for it. I received your last letter you sent me hoping that I will have a good voyage of it. They say we are going to attack Mobile and Savannah [Georgia]. Don't write to me until you hear from me again. Give my love to all the boys. I will write as soon as we go in to port. Tell Pat Power that I am on this boat. … [P.S.:] She carries: 1 11 inch shell gun; 2 9 inch shell gun; 1 100 pd parrot rifle gun; 2 50 pd rifle guns; 2 24 pd Howitzers. The Monitor has just come. We sail today and good bye for a while.”

Apalachicola Bay or Key West; 24 July 1863 “Friend Harry I write these few lines to you hoping to find you in good health as this leaves me in at present. I have written some few letters to you but have not received any answer yet. And thinking that you have not received them, I thought to try once more to let you know that I am not forgetting to write to you, and I wish to hear from you as you can write. The last letter that I received from you was dated 16th and none since. We are here still and not doing much. We captured a sloop loaded with 650 bales of cotton, and sent it to Key West and brought some thousands of dollars. There is some talk of us going North for repairs in a few months, but I cannot tell how it is. Our boilers are leaking badly and we have to keep patching them I hope we will be sent North. We ought to have a life as well as the rest of them. We will be down here 11 months next month and can't get no liberty. Once in while we go ashore on an island of a Sunday and have a run in the wild woods. It is very hard to be away like me going on 3 years and without liberty. I am praying day and night that we will be sent North so I can get a chance to call and see you, but I can stand 1 year longer as it is my last year. Then I will be free once more. The weather is getting awful hot.…”

An engaging group of manuscripts providing vivid evidence of the theatrical entertainments staged aboard Civil War naval vessels.

REFERENCES: Port Royal I 1862-1866 at history.navy.mil

Item #7503

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