John Taylor Wood

John Taylor Wood (August 13, 1830 – July 19, 1904) was an officer in the United States Navy who became a captain in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War.

Biography

The son of Robert Crooke Wood, an Army surgeon, and Anne Mackall Taylor, daughter of President Zachary Taylor, Wood was born in Minnesota on August 13, 1830. He became a U.S. Navy Midshipman in 1847 and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1853. He served for a time aboard the USS Ohio alongside William Hall and later supported Hall's US Navy pension claim.States, David W. "William Hall VC of Horton Bluff, Nova Scotia Nineteenth Century Naval Hero", Collections of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society Vol. 44, Wood served at sea during the last part of the Mexican-American War, off the coast of Africa and in the Mediterranean, as well as performing shore duty as a Naval Academy officer. In April 1861, Lieutenant Wood's southern sympathies led him to resign from the Navy and take up farming near Annapolis, Maryland. Fearing arrest, he later went to Virginia and, in October 1861, received a commission as a Confederate Navy First Lieutenant.

Following service with shore batteries on the Potomac, he became an officer in the newly-converted ironclad Virginia, participating in her actions with Union forces in the Hampton Roads area. In May 1862, after Virginia was destroyed, he assisted with the defense of Drewry's Bluff, on the James River. During the...
Read More