USS Bache (DD-470)

The first U.S. Navy ship named for George Mifflin Bache Jr. (1841–1896) -- born in Washington D.C., on 12 November 1841 to Lt. George M. Bache Sr., and Eliza Bache née Patterson. He came from a very distinguished family tree, boasting Benjamin Franklin as his great-great-grandfather and David D. Porter -- son of the War of 1812 hero David Porter -- as his uncle. Another uncle, Alexander D. Bache, headed the U.S. Coast Survey in the Antebellum Era. When he was only five years old, Bache’s father and namesake was lost at sea. A savage storm swept the elder Bache overboard while he served as a lieutenant on board coastal survey brig Washington . His father’s death, however, did not deter the younger Bache from a career at sea, and in 1857 he entered the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md. He graduated in 1861, just in time to take part in the American Civil War.

Bache served on board sloop-of-war Jamestown in the Atlantic Blockading Squadron and in side wheel steamer Powhattan in the early months of the war. He was appointed a lieutenant on 16 July 1862, and that November assigned command of Cincinnati , a stern-wheel casemate gunboat. The fighting for control of the Mississippi basin raged through the rest of the year and into 1863, and the Union Army of the Tennessee, Maj. Gen. of Volunteers Ulysses S. Grant in command, invested Vicksburg, Miss. -- the garrison led by Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, CSA -- a Confederate bastion that controlled part of that strategic river. The Northern operations included plans to bypass Vicksburg but a combination of Confederate actions, foul weather, the terrain, and logistics issues blocked several such moves.

Acting Rear Adm. David D. Porter, Commander, Mississippi River Squadron, therefore arranged with Grant to launch a joint expedition up Steele’s Bayou to gain entrance to the Yazoo River and take Vicksburg in the rear. Ironclad river gunboat Carondelet , Cincinnati , ironclad centerwheel gunboat Louisville , ironclad screw steamer Mound City , side wheel gunboat Pittsburg , four mortar schooners, and four tugs set out from Millikin’s Bend and proceeded northward to Black Bayou, which Porter afterward reported to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles as “a place about 4 miles long leading into Deer Creek.” A dense forest impeded their advance, and the admiral directed men to clear the way by pulling up trees or steering ironclads to push them over. “It was terrible work,” he elaborated to Welles, “but in twenty-four hours we succeeded in getting through these 4 miles and found ourselves in Deer Creek, where we were told there would be no more difficulties.” Porter reached Rolling Fork on 19 March, but the Confederates felled trees behind the squadron to trap the vessels, and only the timely arrival of Union soldiers, who forced-marched overnight and reached the ships on the 21st, enabled them to retreat.

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From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, compiled by the Naval History and Heritage Command (Bache II (DD-470)). A work of the United States Government, in the public domain.