Eastport’s Joseph Cony And the life of

by John L. Raye

Joseph Saville Cony’s short life swept like a comet over the horizon of the Civil War before it returned whence it came.

Born in 1834 in Eastport, a little island city once one of the nation’s busiest ports, it was where he called home. He grew up with the sea all around him, so it was no surprise that he ventured onto it at a young age. Volunteering in the Navy in 1862, he served as acting Ensign aboard the Union Warship USS Western World. That year he commanded several successful small boat raids along the Carolina coast. He was young, brave, ambitious, and determined to make his mark.

His Two Swords

Cony was issued two USN swords befitting his rising star. The first was an officer’s dress sword with an embellished blade and name engraving — an attractive weapon. The second was particularly special — an Ames 1862 officer’s cutlass with the U.S.N. cut out on the brass hand cover. This cutlass likewise featured a prominent engraving of his name. It was a serviceable weapon that would later see much action.

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1863 Cony was the executive officer of the U.S.S. Shokokon. In command of a daring expedition, he took one of the Shokokon’s longboats along with six seamen and left a path of glory the U.S. Navy would not soon for- get. His raiding party surprised a much larger rebel force in an encampment at New Topsail inlet, near the Confederate stronghold of Wilmington, North Carolina. Cony’s small force captured ten soldiers, a large howitzer, eighteen horses, extensive salt works, and most importantly, destroyed the blockade runner, the Alexander Cooper This was an extraordinary feat and was well documented in USN historical ledgers and military correspondence.

Much of the North’s strategy in winning the Civil War, right from the original “Anaconda Plan,” was to cut off the Confederate states’ lines of supply and commerce from the outside world. The Navy was to contribute immensely to this effort, and control of the Mississippi was critical in blocking rebel commerce. Closing Atlantic ports and the Gulf of Mexico were important to impede the Confederates’ supply chain. Grant’s successful collaboration with the Navy at the siege of Vicksburg, and the Union Navy winning the Battle of Mobile Bay, were huge advancements for the North.

Yet Wilmington, North Carolina, and its “Gibraltar” — Fort Fisher — was still open in the fall of 1864, allowing arms, ammunition, and other critical supplies to reach the Confederacy. And for good reason: Fort Fisher was considered impregnable.

Joseph Cony would now play important roles in amphibian attacks on the Carolina shore and at two subsequent battles at Fort Fisher. USN archives document how General Peck lauded Cony’s landing expedition on the North Carolina shore while attached to the U.S.S. Britannia General Grant, meanwhile, was mired in Petersburg, Virginia and demanded Fort Fisher be closed to destroy the Rebel supply line.

Grant sent the incompetent but well-connected General Butler to accompany the Navy in storming Fort Fisher in December 1864. Acting Mas- ter Cony did his part in shelling the Fort, but Butler’s Army contingent didn’t coordinate with the Navy, making the battle a disaster for the North, with hundreds killed and wounded.

After the Christmas of 1864, Grant wanted results, and this time Joseph Cony would play a bigger role. General Terry would now lead the Army forces and would coordinate well with Admiral Porter. Cony would lead his ship’s bombardment of the fort with accuracy. Then he would volunteer for the Navy and Marine contingent that would try to breach the wall of the fort on one side as the Army attacked the other side. While the soldiers were armed with rifles and bayonets, the brave Navy volunteers had only a cutlass and a revolver.

The Navy assault should have been timed to coincide with that of the Army, but the Navy, possibly seeking glory, went against the enemy first. Cony was in the front that was being battered (cont. on page 52)

(cont. from page 51) by coordinated rebel rifle and cannon fire. Only a few times in USN chronicles does the war detail such ferocious rebel fire. Men fell all around Cony in an awful slaughter, with three hundred sailors killed or wounded. Only one Navy volunteer made it up the ramparts. The Navy, after valiant and repeated charges, was forced to fall back. Despite its retreat, it nevertheless succeeded in splitting the fort’s defenders, thus allowing the Army to break through on the other side. The North had taken the fort. Once again, Cony had proved invaluable. The battle of Fort Fisher was a major step in winning the Civil War.

Tragically, Cony’s time at sea did not end with glory. He died shortly after the war when the merchant ship he commanded sank off Cape Hatteras in 1867 in a violent storm.

Almost a century later, in recog- nition of his important role in the war between the states, the name Cony was to grace a Destroyer in World War II, the U.S.S. Cony (DD-508). The U.S.S. Cony served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The ship was built at Bath Iron Works and sponsored in 1942 by Alice Sleight of Eastport, the closest living descendant of Joseph Saville Cony. She would pray daily for the safety of the sailors and officers of the Cony, and as Eastport’s librarian, would scour the newspapers to learn of the ship’s likely whereabouts. The ship and crew would play a critical role in the battle for supremacy in the Solomon Islands. The Cony would be awarded eleven battle stars over the course of a campaign culminating in the last line of battle confrontation with the Japanese Navy, wherein she sank an enemy destroyer.

Unfortunately, many sailors would die in a desperate attack by dive bombers and fighters trying to sink the Cony. The damaged ship would be repaired and continue fighting until the end of World War II and through the 1960s. In the meantime, Joseph Cony’s swords would reside in the Sleight home in Eastport, a reminder of his valiant career.

In 1947, the U.S.S. Cony was recommissioned and once again sponsored by Alice Sleight. In a speech given by John F. Kennedy, it was mentioned, “Joseph Cony, from Eastport, served with distinction in the war between the states specializing in amphibian landings along the southern coast.” The U.S.S. Cony would win two more battle stars in Korea and served in Vietnam as well, but she was most prominent in the Cold War. The USS Cony was part of the Hunter-Killer Task Group Alpha, a squadron of eight antisubmarine warfare destroyers, that were equipped to hunt down Soviet submarines during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There, the cool of Cony’s captain and crew, as well as that of a Soviet submarine captain, arguably saved our lives from a nuclear holocaust.

Joseph Cony’s swords remained at rest atop Alice Sleight’s piano in her Eastport house on Key Street. Alice Sleight, now retired, was aging, and passed the Cony swords to her daughter, Ann Harrison, who was most honored to possess them. Going forward a few decades, Ann had given them some thought about where they should go, and it was on her birthday celebration, July 10, 2019, that she told her daughter, Jill Hume Harrison, that they should be given to a museum on permanent loan. When her daughter went to retrieve them from atop their hutch, she was stunned to find them missing. Af- ter checking with her brother William, Jill notified the Boothbay Harbor Police Department. Likely suspects were personal care attendants who were assisting Ann in her recovery after a car accident. It turned out that other items were stolen as well — jewelry, money, electronics, an antique silver tea service, gold coins, a gold watch, and other family heirlooms.

Perhaps Dr. Jill Harrison had inherited some of Joseph Cony’s tenacity and persistence. She would need those traits and more to discover who had stolen the swords and to get them back, especially so when the police seemed to have given up on the case as unsolvable. Jill suspected a home health care worker and her husband, especially since she had been told that not all employees had passed a criminal background check. Indeed, the police issued a search warrant for one worker’s home when the radio frequency from a stolen smart speaker device was picked up there. The speaker was there but not the swords. This worker’s husband had a criminal past, but by then, which turned out to be over a year later, the swords had long been gone.

The police checked some pawn shops to no avail in 2019, so now the real work began. Dr. Jill Harrison worked the phone and the internet with superb skill and pluck. Black of night deals at an auction house parking lot were hinted at. Dr Harrison had to follow up, but where? She contacted every auction house between Germany and Hawaii that dealt in historic arms. She also contacted historic arms dealers who had internet businesses, or brick and mortar establishments, and Ebay It was tedious work, but with tenacity, and when necessary, intimidation coupled with some luck, leads opened up.

The swords had first sold in Maine for less than $700 in December 2018. (cont. on page 54)

(cont. from page 53) were shipped to the Boothbay Harbor Police Department and returned to the Harrison family in December 2021!

Then they started to move across the country, their price increasing from one transaction to the next. Finally, they were bought by a collector in Baltimore at an auction for $7,500. By this time, there had been a chain of ownership that formed a dubious provenance. A Civil War collector from near Fort Fisher bought the swords in good faith for $17,000.

Luckily, Dr. Harrison had photographed the swords for a presentation to the U.S.S. Cony’s veterans. Even better, the swords were unique because each weapon was engraved with Joseph S. Cony’s name by the hilt. These were high-end swords in great condition, owned by a legend after whom a legendary World War II destroyer was named. They were quite a prize for the collector!

Dr. Harrison had the evidence of theft, proof of ownership, and the name and address of the improper new owner. Miracle of miracles, the swords

When Dr. Harrison called the Boothbay Harbor Police Chief and told him she had found the swords, he said he had to pick himself up off the floor. The collector, through a broker, offered the Harrisons $20,000 to buy the swords back. He also offered to give them to the Fort Fisher Museum upon his death. Dr. Harrison replied that she didn’t think her ancestor, who fought for the North, would want his swords at Ft. Fisher but rather in Maine, where they belonged. They would not be for sale at any price.

Watch for the swords to be on display in Maine in the near future, including at the Tides Institute and Museum of Art in Eastport, the city Joseph Cony called home.