CHARLES W. FLUSSER, LCDR, USN

Charles Flusser '53

Date of birth: September 27, 1832

Age: 31

"Photographed while attending the U.S. Naval Academy."
"Copy from a tintype taken at Plymouth, North Carolina, in 1864."

Loss

Charles was killed in action with Confederate forces on April 19, 1864 at the Battle of Plymouth (North Carolina).

Other Information

Born at Annapolis, Maryland, Flusser entered the United States Naval Academy in 1847 and graduated with the Class of 1853 with the rank of passed midshipman. He received promotion to master and then lieutenant on September 15 and 16, 1855, while serving in the South American Squadron. In early 1861, Flusser was appointed to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, and oversaw its relocation to Fort Adams in Newport, Rhode Island.
Flusser served on blockade duty off the coast of Georgia in late 1861, before being appointed commander of the gunboat Commodore Perry for the Burnside Expedition, taking part in the victory at the Battle of Elizabeth City in February 1862.
Flusser was promoted to lieutenant commander in July 1862, also assuming command of all Union gunboats in Albemarle Sound. He took part in the expedition against Franklin, Virginia, in October 1862, with his ship only narrowly escaping capture.
Flusser was killed in action on April 19, 1864, during the Battle of Plymouth, in the engagement between the Miami and Southfield against the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle. In that action, Flusser personally fired a cannon shell at the Confederate ironclad. The shell, with a 10-second fuse, bounced off the Albemarle's armor and landed back on the deck of the Miami, where its explosion killed him. Brigadier General Henry Walton Wessels, commanding U.S. Army troops at Plymouth, North Carolina, noted: "In the death of this accomplished sailor the Navy has lost one of its brightest ornaments..."
Flusser was interred at the military cemetery in New Bern, but in 1868 his remains were transferred to the Naval Academy Cemetery.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

In September 1855, Charles' rapid advancement from acting master to lieutenant one day later was due to the February approval of “An Act to Promote the Efficiency of the Navy.” The act was approved to remove or retire those who had been in the service a long time or were less-than-effective. It thereby created space to promote the many others in lower ranks. Charles had been at sea on the Savannah cruising between Rio and Montevideo. The port at Argentina had been closed to them since 1852.

He is buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery.

He is listed on the killed in action panel in the front of Memorial Hall.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 19 July, 1847. Passed Midshipman, 10 June, 1853. Master, 15 September, 1855. Lieutenant, 16 September, 1855. Lieutenant Commander, July, 1862. Killed on board the Miami, 19 April, 1864.

Namesakes

Several ships have been named for William:

USS Flusser (1864) was captured in 1864 and sold in 1865.
USS Flusser (Destroyer No. 20) was a Smith-class destroyer, commissioned in 1909 and sold in 1919; she was sponsored by his grandniece.
USS Flusser (DD 289) was a Clemson-class destroyer, commissioned in 1920 and scrapped in 1930.
USS Flusser (DD 368) was a Mahan-class destroyer, commissioned in 1936 and decommissioned in 1946.

Other

He is used as an example of how to search for information of Civil War-era veterans by the National Archives of the United States.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.