THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020209
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 23 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: 116 lines
You have to wonder what Confederate naval officer Catesby ap R. Jones would think today if he knew his granddaughter and great-grandson were using the Internet to research his life and career.
But, strange as it may seem to some, two of Jones' direct descendants sent a message detailing his career through cyberspace recently, seeking to track down more information on their ancestor, who served as both executive and commanding officer of the ironclad CSS Virginia during the March 8-9, 1862, Battle of Hampton Roads.
The Internet efforts of both Jones' granddaughter, Martha Tyson of Houston, and great-grandson, W. Mabry Tyson, a senior computer scientist at SRI International's Artificial Intelligence Center in Menlo Park, Calif., paid off. Mark Freedman of Chesapeake, the Mariners' Museum computer information director, came across their home page on his computer. Freedman called me at home and said, ``Guess what name I just came across on the e-mail - Catesby Jones. His descendants have announced on the Internet that they have discovered a handwritten journal he kept in the Navy!''
Freedman added they had picked up a copy of my book on the conversion of the former steam frigate USS Merrimack into the ironclad Virginia and would like a meeting to show me Jones' journal.
``Does it cover the time he was on the ironclad?'' I asked, explaining that two artifacts from the Virginia have to be near the top of American naval history's all-time wanted list - the Virginia's logbook and a photograph of her. Freedman didn't know, but he had no problem linking us up.
He returned my message on his computer and in a couple of ``nano-seconds'' a meeting was arranged during the pair's recent tour of the East Coast, which included a call on the USS Constitution museum in Boston and the Mariners' Museum in Newport News.
It turned out that both of Jones' descendants already had begun an extensive family history. They told me that several artifacts, including Jones' uniform, sea chest and the handwritten journal, they brought along on their trip, had been found in Selma, Ala., where he ran a foundry after the war. Producing the ledger-size book during lunch, Mabry Tyson informed me that little had been done on Jones' life since 1912, when a private printing of ``a biographical sketch'' was produced. The journal he handed me represented a good portion of what primary resources on Catesby Jones had been found to date.
It was exciting to read the clear handwriting on the front page which said, ``Catesby ap R. Jones,'' but then it was at first disappointing to see the words ``U.S. Navy'' instead of C.S. (Confederate States) Navy, and then U.S. Brig Perry, Nov. 29, 1843, and not C.S.S. Virginia, March 8, 9, 1862. But what a consolation prize this 75-page journal was!
No, it did not get anywhere close to the Civil War. But what it did contain was a detailed, first-person, three-year account and compilation of Midshipman Catesby ap R. Jones' career from the time he joined the U.S. Navy at Gosport in June 1836 - and stood before a naval officer examination board in Portsmouth for selection as an officer candidate during June 1842 - to his passage around the world on a number of famous warships.
Included in the journal are interesting and colorful accounts of preparation for the voyages from Gosport on U.S. Navy frigates Macedonian, Columbia and Constitution. Each page seems to reveal more about the personality of young Jones, like the first time he wore his new uniform on the Perry.
He wrote:
``I never shall forget the first time I wore my uniform in obedience to order. It was in the night time in a gale of wind. I had the last dog watch; we were in four watches. I was congratulating myself upon having no watch that stormy night when I turned in. I was aroused by a Midshipman Milligan rushing in the wardroom and crying out, `Gentlemen, she is sinking. She is settling, gentlemen. She is going down. She shipped a heavy sea a few minutes ago. She has been like a log ever since. I feel her settling.'
``I thought my time had come. My first impulse was to rush on deck, but it immediately occurred to me, that we were sinking I had as well remain below as I could only prolong life a few seconds at best, for we must all perish.''
Fortunately, for Jones and the rest of the crew, the ship was only temporarily in danger of capsizing, and soon the sails were corrected and the ship righted herself. As for the new uniform, Jones added, ``A few minutes after, all hands were called. I hurried on deck to my station on the forecastle, and remained there 6 hours, from 10 until 4. This was the first time that I had ever worn a lieutenant's uniform, and it was well soaked on the occasion.''
Not just a series of writings about ships, ports and sea, Jones introduces the reader to historical luminaries like Matthew Fontaine Maury, Commodore James Barron and President John Tyler, and locals like Norfolk postmaster Walter F. Jones and Gosport shipyard commander Commodore Lewis Warrington, all of whom were also close family friends. Included also are the very personal ruminations of a young bachelor naval officer who was high on the local social roster during his stay at Gosport.
He noted in his journal that a Miss Burwell was ``a very pretty and interesting girl.''
But it was the natural beauty of a sea voyage and the exotic ports of call he made after sailing from Norfolk harbor that most captured his attention and prose.
Arriving at Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, he wrote, ``Several high peaks rise in the rear of Capetown, in a crescent form. The highest is a table mountain, so-called from its shape, being flat on top. It is 2400 feet high, the Devil's Peak 1900 and Lion's Rump 1400. The Table mountain performs some of the duties of a barometer to the inhabitants, for they are enabled to foretell the weather by the appearance of the clouds on its summit. In a southeast wind the clouds appear to be rushing headlong over the mountain, and tumbling into the town below, but they never reach it as they are dissipated by the time they get one-third down.''
Both Mabry and Martha Tyson enjoyed watching me read the journal and added a number of other stories about Catesby ap R. Jones' previously unknown life.
``You know,'' Martha said, ``that Catesby Jones was asked by his captain when they reached China to go ashore and play chess with the emperor, who had requested a match with the best of the American crewmen.''
I asked who won, upon which she answered, ``Catesby did, and the emperor gave him his chess set as a gift.
``The chess set is still in the family,'' she added.
And so are many other untold stories like the mysterious circumstances of his murder in Selma in 1877.
We concluded that indeed Catesby ap R. Jones's life needs more attention from historians, and now that he's on the Internet, the Tysons expect to hear a lot more about him, thanks to their cyberspace connection. ILLUSTRATION: Drawing
Catesby ap R. Jones, commanding officer of the CSS Virginia. by CNB