Engagement Between the Gunboat Flotilla, Freedom and Reliance, Under the Command of Captain James H. Ward, and a Secession Force at Mathias Point, Va, on the Potomac River, June 27, 1861—Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, July 6, 1861
The newly composed unit—later known as the Potomac Flotilla—saw its first action on June 1, when guns from Ward’s ships silenced Confederate shore batteries at Aquia Creek, Virginia during the Battle of Aquia Creek. On June 27, at the Battle of Mathias Point, Ward sent a landing party ashore to dislodge Southern forces from another battery at Mathias Point, in King George County, Virginia, but it encountered heavy resistance. 
The Federals gave up the attack and retired under heavy sniper and cannon fire to their ships. Ward brought his flotilla in close to the shoreline to provide gunfire support for the retreating landing party. As he was sighting the bow gun in his flagship, Thomas Freeborn, Ward was struck by a bullet in his abdomen and fell to the deck, mortally wounded. He died within an hour. He was the great-grandfather of actor Andy Devine. (read more at Wikipedia)