USS Thomas Freeborn (1861-1865)  Some of the ship&#x27;s officers and men demonstrate how her late Commanding Officer, Commander James H. Ward, was sighting her bow gun when he was mortally wounded on 27 June 1861, during an action with Confederate forces at Mathias Point, Virginia. The gun is a 32 pounder smoothbore, of 60 hundredweight, on a &quot;Novelty Carriage&quot;. This mounting was developed by Commander Ward before the Civil War. Location appears to be the Washington Navy Yard, D.C.