of the Boston Navy Yard, where he would perform physical inspections of new recruits, returning sailors and officers, as well as treating injuries and illnesses of those in his charge. Ohio was a retired ship of the line, now in ordinary, designed for a crew of several hundred men, now serving as a barracks and hospital for the navy yard. After six years of medical training, Longshaw was stationed within a short hike from his parents' home in Cambridge. Aboard such a training vessel, Longshaw learned to spend his day writing and filing reports on individual cases, logging traffic through the sick bay, keeping inventory of equipment and supplies, making requests for medications, taking environmental readings, inspecting various locations about the ship for sanitary conditions, coordinating with the ship's galley to insure sufficient nourishment, in addition to dealing with the daily medical needs of the crew. An assistant surgeon would also train new sailors in basic first aid, teaching them how to apply tourniquets and bandages, then how to load, lift and carry wounded comrades on stretchers. Longshaw would be responsible for managing medical and other hospital staff like nurses, cooks, and stewards. Five months aboard Ohio provided Longshaw his naval "residency." USS Passaic In March 1863, Longshaw was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron under Samuel Francis Du Pont in Charleston Harbor. Longshaw's new vessel was , much like her predecessor , a shallow-draft, low-profile ironclad with a single raised turret in the center of the deck. Passaic was under the command of Captain Percival Drayton, a native of Charleston, and while newly commissioned and modern, Passaic was vulnerable to poor weather and rough seas. Her 85 sailors and officers were confined in her iron hull most of each day, cramped together and half-smothered by heat, smoke and foul air. In early April, Passaic and much of her squadron's ironclads attacked forts in Charleston Harbor. The ships were pounded by shot and shell. In a few hours, Passaic fired 13 shells and was struck 35 times, shots disabling one of its two guns, jamming its turret for a time and virtually ripping off the pilot-house atop the turret. However, Passaic reported no casualties; only one death was recorded in the nine ironclads that day. USS Penobscot Longshaw was transferred in May 1863 to , a two-masted single-screw schooner tasked with chasing and capturing blockade runners. After months practicing