Marietta-class monitor
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Marietta class |
| Builders: | Tomlinson and Hartupee Co., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Operators: |
 United States Navy
|
| Built: | 1862–1865 |
| Retired: | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Monitor |
| Displacement: | 479 long tons (487 t) |
| Length: | 170 ft (51.8 m) |
| Beam: | 50 ft (15.2 m) |
| Draft: | 5 ft (1.5 m) |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Speed: | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement: | 100 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: | 2 × 11-inch (279 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns |
| Armor: |
|
The Marietta-class monitors were a pair of ironclad river monitors laid down in the summer of 1862 for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Construction was slow, partially for lack of labor, and the ships were not completed until December 1865, after the war was over. However the navy did not accept them until 1866 and immediately laid them up. They were sold in 1873 without ever having been commissioned.
The Marietta-class monitors were part of a large program of armored ships ordered after the Battle of Hampton Roads caused the navy to favor monitors over the previous casemate ironclads of the City class. They were built to gain control of the Mississippi River and its many tributaries.
The original plans for the Marietta-class ships resembled the river monitor USS Ozark in many ways. The gun turret was at the bow and they had a deckhouse aft. There were also twin smokestacks similar to the Mississippi River steamboat designs. The original plans also called for a forward, pyramidal pilothouse, similar to the one on USS Monitor, however it is believed that the pilothouse was moved to the top of the turret before construction was completed. The Marietta-class ships were 177 feet (53.9 m) long overall. They had a beam of 50 feet (15.2 m) and a draft of 5 feet (1.5 m). They displaced 479 long tons (487 t). The ships had four steam boilers powering two western steamboat-type engines that drove a single propeller. The Marietta-class ships had a maximum speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) and they carried a maximum of 150 long tons (150 t) of coal.
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