Background
Peirce Crosby, a son of John P. and Catharine (Beale) Crosby, was born on January 16, 1824 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, of English ancestors prominent in Pennsylvania since 1682.
Peirce Crosby, a son of John P. and Catharine (Beale) Crosby, was born on January 16, 1824 in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, of English ancestors prominent in Pennsylvania since 1682.
He was educated in private schools and entered the navy as midshipman, June 8, 1838.
After service in the Mediterranean, he was attached to the Coast Survey and was then in the Decatur and Petrel in the Mexican War, participating in the operations against Tabasco and Tuxpan.
Following three years in the Relief on the African coast, he was made lieutenant, September 3, 1853, and until 1857 was in the Germantown in the Brazil Squadron.
In the Civil War he did energetic work, April and May 1861, in command of tugs protecting trade in the Chesapeake, and then had special duty under Gen. Butler as harbor-master at Hampton Roads.
Under Butler and Flag-Officer Stringham he commanded the tug Fanny in the capture of Hatteras Inlet, rendering excellent service, August 28, in rescuing two barges laden with troops which had stranded in a heavy sea. After an attack of typhoid, he took command of the steamer Pinola at Baltimore, December 18, 1861, and thence joined Farragut below New Orleans.
On the night of April 20, 1862, the Pinola, under Crosby, and the Itasca attempted to break the barrier of chains and hulks stretched across the river below New Orleans. Under a heavy fire from the Confederate forts, later checked by Union mortars, the Pinola placed mines in one hulk, but, in the confusion of separating the two vessels, the wires were broken and the charges failed to ignite. Then with much difficulty she released the Itasca, which had grappled another hulk and run aground with it above the barrier, and the two steamers retired after making a gap wide enough for passage of the fleet.
While running the forts below New Orleans, and again later at Vicksburg, the Pinola, being in the rear of Farragut’s column, encountered a severe fire. In October, despite Farragut’s protests at losing a dependable officer, Crosby was chosen by Admiral S. P. Lee as fleet captain in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in which arduous and responsible position he served from January to October, 1863.
Later he commanded the Florida from March to November 1864, the Keystone State in the same squadron, capturing nine blockade- runners. He was in the Metacomet in the Gulf Squadron from December 1864 to August 1865, participating in the later operations leading to the capture of Mobile and sweeping up 150 torpedoes below the city with nets of his own devising, a service which earned Admiral H. K. Thatcher’s praise as requiring “coolness, judgment, and perseverance”.
From 1865 to 1868 he was in the Shamokin in the South Atlantic, and after promotion to captain, May 7, 1868, held several navy-yard positions until commissioned commodore, October 3, 1874. In March 1882 he became rear admiral. After commanding the South Atlantic Squadron for a year and then the Pacific Squadron, he retired in October 1883, living afterward in Washington.
Admiral Peirce Crosby died at Washington, D. C. , on 15 June 1899 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Crosby had a fine military figure, standing over six feet and weighing over two hundred pounds.
Quotes from others about the person
In Admiral John Upshur’s words, he was “brave as a lion and had the tenderness of a woman. ”
He was married four times: on October 16, 1850, to Matilda Boyer of Lexington, Virginia, who died in 1853; in March 1861, to Julia Wells who died in 1866; on February 15, 1870, to Miriam Gratz, who died in 1878; and on June 24, 1880, to Louise Audenried.