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Captain Franklin Buchanan, USN, with Commodore Mathew Perry (later promoted to Rear Admiral, CSN) presenting the official letters of President Filmore, gifts of trains, telegraph, swords, repeating rifles (experimental yet working), etc... to the Emperor of Japan (represented by Princes Toda and Awami.  The CWSMMA was officially selected to represent the United States of America to Japan for the parades, weapons demonstrations, marching, sea shanty singing and reenactments of the Opening of Japan.

"The advance boat soon touched the spot, and Captain Buchanan, who commanded the party, sprang ashore, being the first of the Americans who landed in the Kingdom of Japan.  He was immediately followed by Major Zeilin, of the Marines." Captain Buchanan, USN, later was promoted to Admiral, CSN.  

Franklin Buchanan was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on 13 September 1800. He became a U.S. Navy Midshipman in 1815, was promoted to Lieutenant in 1825, to Commander in 1841 and to Captain in 1855. Over the four and a half decades of his U.S. Navy service, Buchanan had extensive and worldwide sea duty. He commanded the sloops of war Vincennes and Germantown during the 1840s and the steam frigate Susquehanna in the Perry expedition to Japan during the 1850s. In 1845-47, he served as the first Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, followed by notable Mexican War service. In 1859-61, Captain Buchanan was the Commandant of the Washington Navy Yard.

Believing that his native state would soon leave the Union, Buchanan resigned his commission in April 1862. When Maryland did not secede, he tried to withdraw the resignation. Rebuffed by the Navy Department, which dismissed him from the service in May, he joined the Confederate States Navy, receiving a Captain's commission in September 1861. After heading the CSN's Office of Orders and Detail, Buchanan was placed in command of the defenses of the James River, Virginia. He led the pioneer ironclad Virginia in her successful attack on the Federal warships Cumberland and Congress in Hampton Roads on 8 March 1862, but was wounded in the action and had to leave the ship before her battle with USS Monitor on the following day.

In August 1862, Buchanan was promoted to the rank of Admiral and sent to command Confederate Navy forces on Mobile Bay, Alabama. He oversaw the construction of the ironclad CSS Tennessee and was on board her during her gallant battle with Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut's Union fleet on 5 August 1864. Wounded and taken prisoner, Admiral Buchanan was not exchanged until February 1865. He was on convalescent leave until the Civil War ended a few months later. Following the conflict, Buchanan lived in Maryland, then was a businessman in Mobile until 1870, when he again took up residence in Maryland. He died there on 11 May 1874.

Three U.S. Navy destroyers have been named in honor of Admiral Franklin Buchanan, including Buchanan (DD-131), Buchanan (DD-484) and Buchanan (DDG-14). (excerpts from the Naval Historical Center and author's research at the National Diet Library, Uraga, Yokosuka, Kurihama and Kanagawa government offices, museums and parks curators as well as the Commodore Perry Park for three years, Japan).

     By David Hofeling, an excerpt from the Naval Institute Press, June, 2002: 

     "I think it's a tragedy and a serious mistake that they (historians) do not focus on the Navy (in the Civil War) very much.  I would submit that without the Navy, without the security it gives on inland waters, [Union General] Ulysses S. Grant's army campaigning in the heartland of America—where there are no through north-south railroads as we know them—might have found itself facing the same situation Bonaparte faced in Russia in 1812."

     "I don't think he could have subsisted and supported this army, particularly once it was south of New Madrid and definitely when he gets to Vicksburg.  I don't think he could have gone across the river.  You need the logistic support given by the Navy and the protection it gives to transportation in the Mississippi Valley.  You can argue that [Major General William T.] Sherman, who is dependent on railroads until he goes to the sea, never would have reached Atlanta were it not for naval forces."

     "The rivers are important adjuncts to that advance from Chattanooga to Atlanta.  The Cumberland and the Ohio Rivers in particular supplement the railroads.  And then you also have the blockade cutting off and isolating the Confederacy."

     "So there is definitely a failure to understand the role of the Navy and its important and vital contribution to Union success.  Why is that?  The Navy certainly has some interesting personalities, but they don't get the same treatment as Grant and [Confederate General Robert E.] Lee.  [Union Navy Rear Admiral David Dixon] Porter gets high profile, but others do not.  You have young dashing heroes like [Union Navy Lieutenant William B.] Cushing, whose actions equal anything the young Army officers do.  The problem is that we need somebody with the skills of a Bruce Catton to tell the naval story.  Unfortunately, Ken Burns did not focus on it in his series, which would have been better yet, because a lot more people watch television than read about the role of the Navy in the Civil War."   Read the entire interview at the Naval History Magazine website and sign up for a subscription.

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