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Thomas William Brent, 1808-1875 Military Service |
USS Marion |
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Thomas W. Brent, the oldest son of William Brent, Clerk of the Courts in the District of Columbia, chose a military career in the U.S. Navy. In March 1825 he was appointed Acting Midshipman, and requested in his letter of acceptance that he be ordered to actual service as soon as possible.1 The Naval Academy at Annapolis did not exist yet and his training would have been in a classroom and at sea. He passed Midshipman in 1831.2 In 1835, in a letter to the Secretary of the Navy, he requested orders to the USS Constitution, known as Old Ironsides.3
In 1836 he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant4 and in 1846 served in the War with Mexico, blockading Gulf ports aboard the USS Falmouth.5 In 1850 he served as the First Lieutenant – the second in command – aboard the Steamer Saranac, newly commissioned in 1850 and operating in the Atlantic during it's first two years.6 |
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USS Saranac |
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In early 1861, as southern states began to secede from the Union, Florida became the third to do so. Thomas resigned his commission in the U.S. Navy in March and was appointed a Commander in the Confederate States Navy by Jefferson Davis. He was given command of the Navy Yard in Pensacola which the Confederacy had taken over. Thomas would have lived in Quarters A at the Navy Yard.8 
Pensacola Navy Yard, 1861 |
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While Thomas was at the Navy Yard, Merced and their children were possibly living for awhile at Quarters A with Thomas and later at the Gonzalez home north of Pensacola or in Greenville, Alabama, where many from Pensacola moved during the war, including the Pensacola city government, and where Merced had bought property. |
The Commanding Officer's Quarters, Pensacola Navy Yard, known as Quarters A, prior to 1900 |
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In 1862, Confederate troops began to evacuate Pensacola. Commander Brent was ordered to torch and destroy the Navy Yard and its defenses, and in May 1862 both Pensacola and the Navy Yard were taken by Union forces. Thomas was assigned to the Savannah Station, based at Savannah, Georgia, followed by service as Commander of Naval Affairs west of the Mississippi, then the Red River Squadron and the Mobile Squadron.9
A Confederate Officers Card Index shows Thomas as commanding the CSS Savannah some time in 1864, probably in June.10 The Savannah was an ironclad, commissioned in 1863 and in late 1864 had to be destroyed in the Savannah harbor when General Sherman was approaching. Thomas then headed for Charleston Station in South Carolina and was then sent to help defend Mobile, Alabama, where he was captured and paroled on 22 May 1865.11 |
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Thomas William Brent's sea chest from the USS Marion
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Still, he had been living in Pensacola for a long time. His wife's family had deep roots in Florida. It would have been hard to continue living in Pensacola if he had not joined the Confederacy. His two oldest sons also joined. His first cousin, Captain Andrew Wallace Johnson, son of Thomas's mother's brother, Dr. Richmond Johnson, was serving in the U.S. Navy also, but being from Washington D.C., he fought on the Union side. Thomas's son Francis Celestino, one of his sons who fought in the war, would later marry the daughter of a U.S. Marine, Col. William Louis Shuttleworth. The Colonel, from New York, married into a Pensacola family, the Brosnahams, but when war broke out he fought on the side of the Union which he had served all his life. Three of his children were living with their Brosnaham grandparents in Pensacola during the war while their father fought against the Confederacy. So many difficult choices that these people had to make as their country was torn apart. |
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Related links:
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Illustrations: The USS Marion, by Popular Graphic Arts – Library of Congress, Original url: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004670676/; accessed at Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=78649935 The USS Saranac, from the Naval Historical Center, Dept. of the Navy, accessed at https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/OnlineLibrary/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-s/saranac.htm Pensacola Navy Yard – “The Navy-Yard at Pensacola as seen from Fort Pickens, sketch by an officer of the Fort, From Harper’s Weekly, 22 June 1861. Accessed at www.Pensapedia.com Quarters A, The Commanding Officer’s quarters at the Navy Yard, Pensacola, prior to 1900, side view. Quartermaster General Photograph 92-F-6-3, National Archives and Records Service. Copy from one of the research papers of Capt. Laurence H. Grimes, Jr., USN (Ret). 1861 Map of Harbor Defenses, Pensacola: by the National Park Service - National Park Service, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=283362 Thomas William Brent’s Sea Chest: Copy of a photograph taken by Capt. Laurence H. Grimes, Jr., USN (Ret). The sea chest was donated to the Naval Air Station by the family of Sinclair Watson after his death and was to be displayed in the Lighthouse Keeper’s Quarters on the Navy base. The chest contained items such as an ointment box, a medical guide, 1 roll of bandages, and various bottles.
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Anne Healy's Genealogy, Created October 2002 Photographs and web page content,Copyright © 2002-2009, Anne Field, all rights reserved. Please feel free to link to my web page. For permission to use any pictures or content on my web pages, please email me at 
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| 14 March 2021 |
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