Franklin Buchanan (September 13, 1800-May 11, 1874) was an officer in the United States Navy who became an admiral in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War, and commanded the ironclad CSS Virginia. Buchanan was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He became a midshipman in 1815, was promoted to Lieutenant in 1825, Commander in 1841 and Captain in 1855. Over the four and a half decades of his U.S. Navy service, Buchanan had extensive and worldwide sea duty.

Catesby ap Roger Jones (April 15, 1821 - June 20, 1877) was an officer in the U.S. Navy who became a commander in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. Jones was born in Fairfield, Virginia, son of Major General Roger Jones and Mary Ann Mason Page. (The "ap" in his name is a Welsh patronymic meaning "son of".) His mother was a lineal descendant of William Byrd of Westover and Robert "King" Carter. This also made her a cousin of General Robert E. Lee.

John L. Porter (1813 - December 14, 1893), whose father was a shipwright at Portsmouth, Virginia, was born in 1813. He became a U.S. Navy civilian employee during the 1840s and a Naval Constructor in 1859. After resigning from the U.S. Navy in May 1861, he began working for the Confederate States Navy at the Gosport (Norfolk) Navy Yard, at Portsmouth.

John Taylor Wood (August 13, 1830 - July 19, 1904) was an officer in the U.S. Navy who became a captain in the Confederate Navy during the American Civil War. 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 at sea during the last part of the Mexican-American War, …

John Mercer Brooke (1826-1906) was a US Navy officer. He was born at Tampa Bay, Florida, on 18 December 1826. He became a lieutenant in 1855. An an expert in maritime surveys, he participated in exploratory missions in the Pacific. He had a role in the counseling and instruction of officers of the nascent Japanese Navy. In Japan, he was a technical adviser aboard the Japanese steamer "Kanrin Maru", and he helped sail the ship to the United States in February 1860.

John Lorimer Worden (12 March 1818 - 19 October 1897) was a U.S. Admiral who served in the American Civil War. He commanded "Monitor" against the Confederate vessel "Virginia" (originally named "Merrimack") in first battle of ironclad ships in 1862.

Joseph B. Smith (1826 - 8 March 1862) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Born in Belfast, Maine, Smith was appointed midshipman on 19 October 1841. After graduating with the Class of 1847, he served at the Washington Navy Yard, in "Mississippi" and with the U.S. Coast Survey. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in 1855, and soon afterwards was assigned to the steam frigate "Merrimack", his station until 1857.

Rear Admiral William Radford was an officer in the United States Navy during the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. Radford was born in Fincastle, Virginia and entered the U.S. Navy during 1825. He commanded the landing party from "Warren" which captured the Mexican warship "Malek Adhel" at Mazatlán and took part in other Pacific coast operations of the Mexican War.

Samuel Dana Greene (11 February 1839 - 11 December 1884) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Greene was born in Cumberland, Maryland, son of future U.S. Army General George S. Greene. He graduated at the United States Naval Academy in 1859 and two years later became a lieutenant.

Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr. (6 February 1836 - 4 February 1924), son of Thomas O. Selfridge, was an officer in the United States Navy. Born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, Selfridge graduated from the Naval Academy in 1854. At the beginning of the American Civil War, he helped with efforts to destroy the untenable Norfolk Navy Yard; and he then escaped from that burning and beleaguered base in "Cumberland", helping to save the sloop of war for the Union Navy.

Major General Charles Heywood (3 October 1839 - 26 February 1915) was the ninth Commandant of the Marine Corps. Heywood was born in Waterville, Maine. He was appointed second lieutenant in the Marine Corps from New York, on 5 April 1858. During that year he was stationed at the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., and at Brooklyn, New York. While on duty in Brooklyn he served in the 1858 quarantine riots at Staten Island, New York.

Charles Carroll Simms, a native of Virginia, became a U.S. Navy midshipman in 1839. He served in the U.S. Navy for more than two decades, achieving the rank of Lieutenant in 1854. He was dismissed from the service in April 1861, after his state left the United States, and briefly was an officer in Virginia's Navy. Commissioned as a First Lieutenant in the Confederate States Navy in June 1861, …

John Baptist Smith (1843-1923) is believed by some to have provided the most lasting contribution made by either side during the American Civil War. In 1862 he invented and helped build a lantern system of naval signaling. He was born September 19, 1843, at Hycotee in Caswell County, North Carolina, the son of Richard Ivy Smith (1800-1871) and Mary Amis Goodwin Smith (1815-1889). At seventeen, he joined the Milton Blues to fight in the Civil War.

William W. Kennison (28 February 1828 -) was an officer in the Confederate Navy. Born in Massachusetts, Kennison was appointed Acting Master's Mate 28 August 1861. During the American Civil War he was promoted to Volunteer Lieutenant for gallant conduct in action between the CSS "Virginia" and the USS "Cumberland" 7 March 1862. Following the war, he was honorably discharged 4 May 1866, but was reappointed Acting Master 20 August 1866.

William Jordan Flake was a prominent member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who helped settle parts of Arizona, and was imprisoned for polygamy. William Flake was born in North Carolina. William Flake eventually moved to Mississippi with his family and in the early 1840s became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Flake moved to Utah with his parents in 1849 by wagon train.