'Scalded': Death of a 'most careful' river man at Fort Henry

Harper's Weekly illustration of the United States Navy's attack at Fort Henry on Feb. 6, 1862.

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Marshall Ford wasn’t a general or a politician. He didn’t give speeches or issue orders that changed the course of the Civil War. He was a pilot — the kind of man whose job was to know the river better than anyone else.

A married father of four, 49-year-old Ford hailed from the scrappy Second Ward of Allegheny City, across the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh. His wife, Rebecca, was the daughter of a Revolutionary War soldier; her mother was a niece of John Hancock, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. History brushed close to their family, even if fame never did.

Wartime view of USS Essex
(National Museum of the U.S. Navy |
Public domain)

“A most careful and competent officer,” a local newspaper called Ford. Among river men, that meant something.

On Feb. 6, 1862, aboard the ironclad USS Essex, Ford stood at his post guiding the gunboat up the Tennessee River toward Fort Henry, about 100 miles northwest of Nashville. Pilots like him memorized currents, sandbars and bends the way other men memorized prayers. In the chaos of a naval bombardment — smoke, noise, iron screaming against iron — Ford’s job was steady hands and calm judgment. If the ship ran aground, everyone aboard was in danger. 

When a Confederate cannonball punched into the boiler of the Essex, superheated steam tore through the vessel in an instant. Dozens of sailors suffered horrible burns. Ford never left his station; he was found dead, clinging to the wheel.

“Scalded to death,” one account noted. Twelve others aboard the Essex — 11 privates and another pilot — suffered the same fate.

Ford wasn’t a career soldier. He was a river man, known up and down the Western waters as one of the steadiest, most skilled pilots around. Born in Virginia, he came to Allegheny City as a boy and was raised to the wheel, learning the rivers until piloting became second nature. He tried commanding boats for a time but always found his way back to what he loved most: steering them.

Marshall Ford rests in Union Dale
Cemetery in Pittsburgh.
(Find a Grave)

His last civilian job was piloting the Arago to Louisville. There, seeing Flag Officer Andrew Foote preparing a gunboat expedition, Ford asked who was in command and immediately offered his services. They were accepted on the spot. A few weeks later, he was dead.

Ford’s body was brought home to Allegheny City for burial, and river men, neighbors and friends felt the loss keenly. Outside the Pittsburgh Post, a United States flag waved at half-mast in honor of Ford — “a just tribute to an honest man,” the newspaper wrote.

In November, I stood along the eroded shore of Kentucky Lake, looking out toward the buoy that marks where Fort Henry once stood. Eagles circled overhead. The leaves burned brown, gold and yellow.

It was quiet in a place once filled with smoke, fire and screaming steam. When I return, I’ll remember that contrast — and a river pilot named Marshall Ford, steady to the end.

Remains of Fort Henry are in Kentucky Lake. 

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SOURCES:

• New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1862
• The Daily Pittsburgh Gazette and Commercial Journal, Feb. 8, 1862
• The Pittsburgh Gazette Times, March 30, 1910
• The Pittsburgh Post, Feb. 11, 1862