USS Anacostia (1856)
| History | |
|---|---|
 United States
|
|
| Ordered: |
|
| Laid down: | 1856 |
| Launched: | 1856 |
| Acquired: | 1859 |
| Commissioned: | May 1859 |
| Decommissioned: | 12 June 1865 |
| Struck: | 1865 |
| Homeport: | Washington Navy Yard |
| Fate: | Burned, March 22, 1868 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 217 tons |
| Length: | 129 ft (39 m) |
| Beam: | 23 ft (7.0 m) |
| Draught: | 5 ft (1.5 m) |
| Propulsion: | steam engine, screw |
| Speed: | 6-1/2 knots |
| Complement: | 67 |
| Armament: | two 9" Dahlgren smoothbore guns |
USS Anacostia (1856) was a steamer, constructed as a tugboat, that was first chartered by the United States Navy for service during the Paraguay crisis of the 1850s and then commissioned as a U.S. Navy ship. She later served prominently in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Anacostia—a screw steamer built at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1856 as M. W. Chapin—originally operated out of Middletown, Connecticut, as a merchant tug. During subsequent service as a canal boat, the vessel caught the eye of the Federal Government which chartered her sometime in September 1858—quite possibly on the 13th of that month—for its forthcoming expedition to South American waters.
The historically cordial relations between Paraguay and the United States had soured in the summer and autumn of 1854 when the American consul, Edward A. Hopkins, fell out of the favor of Paraguay's Permanent President, Carlos Antonio López. Their growing animosity prompted the dictator to turn against the continuation of surveying operations—which he had previously heartily endorsed—then being conducted in the tributaries of the Rio de la Plata by the American Navy's side-wheel steamer, USS Water Witch (1851).
The hostility reached a climax on 1 February 1855 when Paraguayan batteries at Itapiru—a brick fortress on the northern bank of the Upper Paraná River—opened fire upon that small American warship, hitting her 10 times and killing her helmsman. Prolonged, but fruitless, efforts seeking redress through diplomatic measures ensued. Finally, on 9 September 1858, President James Buchanan turned the matter over to James B. Bowlin, a former congressman from Missouri, and sent him to Paraguay to obtain satisfaction.
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