USS Umpqua (1865)

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Name: USS Umpqua
Builder: Snowden & Mason, Brownsville, Pennsylvania
Laid down: March 1863
Launched: 21 December 1865
Commissioned: Never commissioned
Struck: 1874 (est.)
Homeport: Mound City, Illinois
New Orleans, Louisiana
Fate: Sold, 12 September 1874
General characteristics
Class and type: Casco-class monitor
Displacement: 1,175 long tons (1,194 t)
Length: 225 ft (69 m)
Beam: 45 ft (14 m)
Draft: 6 ft (1.8 m)
Propulsion: steam engine
twin-screw propelled
Speed: 9 knots (10 mph; 17 km/h)
Complement: 69 officers and enlisted
Armament: 2 × 11 in (280 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns
Armor: Turret: 8 in (200 mm)
Pilothouse: 10 in (250 mm)
Hull: 3 in (76 mm)
Deck: 3 in (76 mm)

USS Umpqua, a single-turreted, twin-screw monitor, was laid down in March 1863, before the official order had been placed, at Brownsville, Pennsylvania, by Snowden & Mason; launched on 21 December 1865; and completed on 7 May 1866.

Characteristics of the class

Umpqua was a Casco-class monitor intended for service in the shallow bays, rivers, and inlets of the Confederacy. These warships sacrificed armor plate for a shallow draft and were fitted with a ballast compartment designed to lower them in the water during battle to reduce the target they provided enemy guns.

Engineering and construction difficulties

Though the original designs for the Casco-class monitors were drawn by John Ericsson, the final revision was created by Chief Engineer Alban B. Simers following Rear Admiral Samuel F. Du Pont's failed bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1863. By the time that the plans were put before the Monitor Board in New York, NY, Ericsson and Simers had a poor relationship, also Chief of Naval Construction John Lenthall had little connection to the board. This resulted in the plans being approved and 20 vessels ordered without serious scrutiny of the new design. $14 million US was allocated for the construction of these vessels. It was discovered that Simers had failed to compensate for the armor his revisions added to the original plan and this resulted in excessive stress on the wooden hull frames and a freeboard of only 3 inches. Simers was removed from the control of the project and Ericsson was called in to undo the damage. He was forced to raise the hulls of the monitors under construction by 22 inches to make them sea-worthy.

As a result, the Navy Department ordered on 24 June 1864 that Umpqua's deck be raised to provide sufficient freeboard. Upon delivery, the monitor was laid up at Mound City, IL; and she saw no commissioned service. In August 1868, she was moved to New Orleans, LA. Her name was changed to Fury on 15 June 1869, but she resumed the name Umpqua on 10 August 1869.

Decommissioning and sale

Umpqua was sold at New Orleans on 12 September 1874 to Nathaniel McKay.

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entries can be found here and here.

See also