Buchanan, Franklin

Buchanan, Franklin

(byo͞okă`nən), 1800–1874, American naval officer, b. Baltimore. Appointed a midshipman in 1815, Buchanan rose to be a commander in 1841. He was chief adviser to Secretary of the Navy George BancroftBancroft, George,
1800–1891, American historian and public official, b. Worcester, Mass. He taught briefly at Harvard and then at the Round Hill School in Northampton, Mass., of which he was a founder and proprietor. He then turned definitively to writing. His article (Jan.
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 in planning the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and was its first superintendent (1845–47). In Sept., 1861, he took the rank of captain in the Confederate navy, commanding the Virginia (formerly the Merrimack) against the Union blockading squadron in Hampton Roads (Mar. 8, 1863). Wounded in that engagement, he took no part in the battle of the Monitor and MerrimackMonitor and Merrimack,
two American warships that fought the first engagement between ironclad ships. When, at the beginning of the Civil War, the Union forces abandoned the Norfolk Navy Yard at Portsmouth, Va., they scuttled the powerful steam frigate Merrimack.
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 the next day. Promoted to ranking officer in the Confederate navy, he was forced to surrender to David G. FarragutFarragut, David Glasgow
, 1801–70, American admiral, b. near Knoxville, Tenn. Appointed a midshipman in 1810, he first served on the frigate Essex, commanded by David Porter, his self-appointed guardian, and participated in that ship's famous cruise in the Pacific
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 in the battle of Mobile Bay (Aug. 5, 1864).

Bibliography

See biography by C. L. Lewis (1929).

Buchanan, Franklin

(1800–74) naval officer; born in Baltimore, Md. He became the first superintendent of the Naval School at Annapolis (1845–47). He was captain of Commodore Matthew Perry's flagship during Perry's mission to Japan (1852–53). He joined the Confederate States Navy (1861) and commanded the Chesapeake Bay squadron, became a Confederate admiral (1862), was wounded and captured at Mobile Bay (1864), and was released in a prisoner exchange (1865).