USS Kearsarge (1861)
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| Career | 100x35px |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS Kearsarge |
| Namesake: | Mount Kearsarge |
| Ordered: | 1861 |
| Laid down: | 1861 |
| Launched: | 11 September 1861 |
| Commissioned: | 24 January 1862 |
| Struck: | 1894 |
| Fate: | Wrecked, 2 February 1894 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Sloop-of-war |
| Displacement: | 1,550 long tons (1,570 t) |
| Length: | 201 ft 3 in (61.34 m) |
| Beam: | 33 ft 8 in (10.26 m) |
| Draft: | 14 ft 3 in (4.34 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine/Sails |
| Speed: | 11 kn (13 mph; 20 km/h) |
| Armament: | 2 × 11 in (280 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns, 4 × 32-pounder guns, 1 × 30-pounder Parrott rifle |
USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama during the American Civil War. The Kearsarge was the only ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were named Kearsarge in honor of this ship, not of the mountain.
Contents
Hunting Confederate raiders
She was built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine under the 1861 American Civil War emergency shipbuilding program. The new 1,550 long tons (1,570 t) steam sloop of war was launched on 11 September 1861 sponsored by Mrs. McFarland, wife of the editor of the Concord Statement, and commissioned on 24 January 1862, with Captain Charles W. Pickering in command. Soon after, she was hunting for Confederate raiders in European waters.
Kearsarge departed Portsmouth on 5 February 1862, for the coast of Spain. She thence sailed to Gibraltar to join the blockade of Confederate raider CSS Sumter, forcing her abandonment in December. However, Sumter's commanding captain, Raphael Semmes, soon commissioned Confederate raider CSS Alabama on the high seas off the Azores.
From November 1862-March 1863, Kearsarge prepared for her fight with Alabama at Cádiz, then searched for the raider from along the coast of Northern Europe to the Canaries, Madeira, and the Outer Hebrides. Arriving at Cherbourg, France, on 14 June 1864, she found Alabama in port where she had gone for repairs after a devastating cruise at the expense of 65 ships of the United States' merchant marine. Kearsarge took up patrol at the harbor's entrance to await Semmes' next move.
Battle of Cherbourg
On 19 June, Alabama stood out of Cherbourg Harbor for her last action. Mindful of French neutrality, Kearsarge's new commanding officer — Capt. John Winslow — took the sloop-of-war clear of territorial waters, then turned to meet the Confederate cruiser.
Alabama was the first to open fire, while Kearsarge held her reply until she had closed to less than 1,000 yd (0.91 km). Steaming on opposite courses, the ships moved in seven spiraling, circles on a southwesterly course as each commander tried to cross his opponent's bow to deliver deadly raking fire. The battle quickly turned against Alabama due to the quality of her long-stored and deteriorated powder, fuses, and shells. Unknown at the time to Captain Semmes aboard the Confederate raider, Kearsarge had been given added protection by chain cable triced in tiers along her port and starboard midsection abreast vital machinery.
This hull armor had been installed in just three days, more than a year before, while Kearsarge was in port at the Azores. It was made using 720 ft (220 m) of 1.7 in (43 mm) single-link iron chain and covered hull spaces 49 ft 6 in (15.09 m) long by 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) deep. It was stopped up and down to eye-bolts with marlines and secured by iron dogs. It was concealed behind 1 in (25 mm) deal-boards painted black to match the upper hull's color. This chaincladding was placed along Kearsarge's port and starboard midsection down to the waterline, for the purpose of protecting her engines and boilers when the upper portion of the cruiser's coal bunkers were empty. This armor belt was hit twice during the fight: First in the starboard gangway by one of Alabama's 32-pounder shells that cut the chain armor, denting the hull planking underneath, then again by a second 32-pounder shell that exploded and broke a link of the chain armor, tearing away a portion of the deal-board covering. If those rounds had come from Alabama's more powerful 100-pounder Blakely pivot rifle, the likely result would not have been too serious, as both struck the chain armor a little more than 5 ft (1.5 m) above the waterline. Even if both shots had penetrated Kearsarge's side, they would have completely missed her vital machinery.
One hour after she fired her first salvo, Alabama had been reduced to a sinking wreck by Kearsarge's powerful 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren smoothbore pivot cannons. Semmes struck his colors and sent a boat to Kearsarge with a message of surrender and an appeal for help. Kearsarge rescued the majority of Alabama's survivors, but Semmes and 41 others were picked up by British yacht Deerhound and escaped in her to the United Kingdom.
The battle between Kearsarge and Alabama is honored by the United States Navy by a battle star on the Civil War campaign streamer. In addition, 17 of Kearsarge's crew received the Medal of Honor for valor during this action:
- Michael Ahern
- John F. Bickford
- William Bond
- James Haley
- Mark G. Ham
- George H. Harrison
- John Hayes
- James H. Lee
- Charles Moore
- Joachim Pease
- Thomas Perry
- William B. Poole
- Charles A. Read
- George E. Read
- James Saunders
- William Smith
- Robert Strahan
The medals were awarded on 31 December 1864.
Home for repairs
Kearsarge sailed along the French coast in an unsuccessful search for CSS Florida, thence proceeded to the Caribbean before turning northward for Boston, Massachusetts, where she decommissioned on 26 November, for repairs. She recommissioned on 1 April 1865, and sailed on 14 April for the coast of Spain in an attempt to intercept CSS Stonewall, but the Confederate ram eluded Federal ships and surrendered to Spanish authorities at Havana, Cuba on 19 May. After cruising the Mediterranean Sea and the English Channel south to Monrovia, Liberia, Kearsarge decommissioned on 14 August 1866 in the Boston Navy Yard.
Post War service
Kearsarge recommissioned on 16 January 1868, and sailed on 12 February to serve in the South Pacific operating out of Valparaíso, Chile. On 22 August, she landed provisions for destitute earthquake victims in Peru. She continued to watch over American commercial interests along the coast of South America until 17 April 1869. Then she sailed to watch over American interests among the Marquesas, Society Islands, Navigators Islands, and Fiji Islands. She also called at ports in New South Wales and New Zealand before returning to Callao, Peru on 31 October. She resumed duties on the South Pacific Station until 21 July 1870, then cruised to the Hawaiian Islands before decommissioning in the Mare Island Navy Yard on 11 October 1870.
Kearsarge recommissioned on 8 December 1873, and departed on 4 March 1874 for Yokohama, Japan, arriving on 11 May. She cruised on Asiatic Station for three years, protecting American citizens and commerce in China, Japan, and the Philippines. From September 4–13 December, she carried Professor Asaph Hall's scientific party from Nagasaki, Japan, to Vladivostok, Russia, to observe the transit of Venus. She departed Nagasaki on 3 September 1877, and returned to Boston on 30 December via the Suez Canal and Mediterranean ports. She decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire on 15 January 1878.
Kearsarge recommissioned on 15 May 1879 for four years of duty in the North Atlantic ranging from Newfoundland to the Caribbean Sea and the coast of Panama. She departed New York on 21 August 1883 to cruise for three years in Mediterranean, Northern European waters, and along the coast of Africa. She returned to Portsmouth on 12 November and decommissioned in the Portsmouth Navy Yard on 1 December 1886.
Wrecked
Kearsarge recommissioned on 2 November 1888, and largely spent her remaining years protecting American interests in the West Indies, off Venezuela, and along the Central Americas. She departed Haiti on 20 January 1894 for Bluefields, Nicaragua, but was wrecked on a reef off Roncador Cay on 2 February. Her officers and crew safely made it ashore.
Congress appropriated $45,000 to raise Kearsarge and tow her home, but a salvage team of the Boston Towboat Company found that she could not be raised. Some artifacts were saved from the ship, including the ship's Bible. The salvaged items, along with a damaged section of the stern post with an unexploded shell from Alabama still embedded in it, are now stored or displayed at the Washington Navy Yard.
Kearsarge was struck from the Naval Vessel Register in 1894.
Popular Culture
Liverpool writer Jimmy McGovern has written a play, King Cotton, which culminates with the battle between Kearsage and Alabama. It premiered at The Lowry in September 2007.
References
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
- Secretary of the Navy, "Sinking of the Alabama--Destruction of the Alabama by the Kearsarge," 1864 annual report in the library at the Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C., Navy Yard.
- Troyer, Byron L. Yesterday's Indiana, E. A. Seemann Publishing, Inc., Miami, 1975, ISBN 0-9124-5855-0.
- Marvel, William, The Alabama & the Kearsarge, University of North Carolina Press, 1996, ISBN 0807822949.
- Roberts, Arthur C., M. D., "Reconstructing USS Kearsarge, 1864," Silver Springs, MD, Vol. 44, #4; Vol. 45, #s 1, 2, and 3, Nautical Research Journal, 1999–2000, ISSN 0738-7245.
External links
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