Background
Tunis Augustus Macdonough Craven, the son of Tunis and Hannah (Tingey) Craven, was born on January 11, 1813, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. He was the youngest brother of Rear Admiral Thomas Tingey Craven.
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Tunis Augustus Macdonough Craven, the son of Tunis and Hannah (Tingey) Craven, was born on January 11, 1813, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. He was the youngest brother of Rear Admiral Thomas Tingey Craven.
Tunis acquired his early education at the grammar school of Columbia College, New York.
In 1829 Craven entered the navy as a midshipman. In 1835 he was promoted to be a passed midshipman and in the last-named year was for the first time employed in surveying the coast, an employment, chiefly in connection with the United States Coast Survey, which lasted, with intervals of other duties, for more than twenty years.
He developed an aptitude for scientific work and in 1857-1858 was in charge of the expedition that surveyed a ship-canal route through the Isthmus of Darien from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean by way of the Atrato River. His report on this survey was published by the Federal Government.
His surveying duties were interrupted in 1846-1849 by his service as a lieutenant, to which grade he was promoted in 1841, on board the sloop Dale, of the Pacific Squadron, which cruised during the Mexican War off the coast of Mexico and California. In 1845-46 he was the chief editor of the United States Nautical Magazine, one of the first periodicals devoted to the interests of the navy and the merchant marine.
While in command of the steamer Mohawk of the home squadron, 1859-1861, he captured off the coast of Cuba the slaver Wildfire, with more than five hundred nAfriacan-Americans on board. In 1860 he saved the crew of the Bella, a Spanish polacca, that had been wrecked on a Cuban island. Early in the Civil War as commander of the steamer Crusader, Craven had an important share in saving Key West for the Union.
In September 1861, soon after he received his commission as commander, he took command of the new sloop Ticscarora, with orders to report to the American minister in London, Charles Francis Adams. He cruised in European waters for more than a year in search of Confederate commerce-destroyers. While he made no captures, he kept so close a watch on the Sumter that her officers and crew abandoned her at Gibraltar. In the summer of 1863 he was placed in command of the ironclad Tecumseh and later joined Rear Admiral Lee’s James River flotilla. He was among the first to reach City Point.
Ordered to reinforce Rear Admiral Farragut, Craven arrived in Mobile Bay the evening before the attack was made on the Confederate defenses, August 5, 1864. The Tecumseh, one of the foremost vessels in the advance, fired the first shot and three-fourths of an hour later struck a mine and went down almost instantly, carrying with her Craven and all on board with the exception of two officers and thirteen men. One of the survivors was the pilot, John Collins, who owed his life to the courtesy of his commander. The two men reached the ladder leading to the top of the turret at the same time, and Craven, stepping aside, said to Collins, “After you, pilot. ” The delay of a few moments was fatal.
Craven was married in 1838 to Mary Carter of Long Island, who died in 1843. A few years later he married Marie L. Stevenson of Baltimore.