William Edward Bloomer, a native of Baltimore, Maryland is believed to have been born about 1840. Prior to his enlistment in the US Navy in 1861 Bloomer was employed as an office boy and later as a civil engineer. He enrolled aboard the receiving ship “Allegheny” at Baltimore, Maryland as a Landsman, on May 16, 1861. Later while serving aboard the USS “Wissahickon” on the Mississippi River, Bloomer contracted dysentery and malarial fever, in July 1862, and was sent to the U.S. Naval Hospital at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he was discharged; on September 6, 1862.

The USS Wissahickon was a propeller-driven, 700 ton capacity steamship but brigantine rigged, to save coal when at sea. Due to a scarcity of guns, she was equipped with one gun amidships, capable of firing both to port and starboard. The USS “Wissahickon” was built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and commissioned in November 1861.

 
The USS Wissahickon initially served in the Gulf of Mexico and on the Mississippi River, where on April 24, 1862, while accompanying other Federal gunboats, the USS “Wissahickon” madeher way past two Confederate forts to ascend the Mississippi, and assisted in capturing the city of New Orleans.   Another engagement included bombarding Grand Gulf, Mississippi on June 9th and 10th. and in July the “Wissahickon” came up against the CSS Iron-clad “Arkansas”.
   The C.S.S. “Arkansas” was constructed at Memphis, Tennessee during the winter of 1861-62 and in April 1862 the “Arkansas” was moved to the Yazoo River in Mississippi, to prevent its capture when Memphis fell to the Federal Navy. On July 15th a Union fleet, including the USS “Wissahickon”, that had been bloodied the morning before, attempted to join up with other Union ships and sink the CSS “Arkansas; above Vicksburg.  
Before the “Arkansas” could sally forth, she was struck in the engines by a passing shot, causing considerable damage.   The Vicksburg batteries were able to force the Union vessels away from the Arkansas, but were unable to stop them from linking up below Vicksburg. The “Arkansas” lay tied up at Vicksburg the following week, making repairs, as the Union fleet and the USS “Wissahickon” sailed on.
The USS “Wissahickon” saw continuous use until the war's end. It participated in the attack on Fort Wagner in July 1863 and, in September of that same year, was engaged in the ill-fated assault on Fort Sumter.

Her crew suffered several casualties with one man, seaman Garrett, killed in action. Another, Henry Shutes, shown in Navy records as Captain of Forecastle, won the Medal of Honour. The USS “Wissahickon” was decommissioned in July, 1865 and the warship was sold for commercial use. Re-christened Adele, she endured yet another 20 years.   After the war Bloomer was employed in various pursuits, and resided in several eastern US

  
 
    cities and towns from a railroad employee, bookkeeper and salesman  in Baltimore, Maryland, to a simple clerk in Washington, DC and Annapolis, Maryland to a photographer in  Glen Rock, Pennsylvania. The mid-1880's, however, found Bloomer in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was there, while working as an importer, that he married Hannie Josephine Carden in 1893, at Sydney.
Having been awarded a very modest pension, as were most American veterans, his was increased to $8 a month in 1886 due to increased disabilities.

William Edward Bloomer passed away on June l8, 1896, being laid to rest at the Rookwood Cemetery. Cemetery officials relate he lay in an unmarked grave until 1990, when the American Veterans Administration provided a marble headstone which was erected on his gravesite.
 

Department of the Navy, Naval Historic Center, Washington, D.C.

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Volumes I-VIII

Friends of the Wissahickon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Maryland

Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies, Series I

Rookwood Cemetery, Sydney, New South Wales

 “USS Wissahickon”, Koey Rivinus

Warships of the Civil War Navies, Paul H. Silverstone