USS Galena (1862)
A drawing of Galena cleared for action in 1862
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| History | |
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| Name: | USS Galena |
| Namesake: | Galena, Illinois |
| Ordered: | 16 September 1861 |
| Builder: | H.L. & C.S. Bushnell, Mystic, Connecticut |
| Laid down: | 1861 |
| Launched: | 14 February 1862 |
| Commissioned: | 21 April 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | 17 June 1865 |
| Struck: | 1870 |
| Fate: | Scrapped, 1872 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Ironclad screw steamer |
| Displacement: | 950 long tons (970 t) |
| Tons burthen: | 738 (bm) |
| Length: | 210 ft (64 m) (o/a) |
| Beam: | 36 ft (11 m) |
| Draft: | 11 ft (3.4 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m) |
| Installed power: | |
| Propulsion: |
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| Sail plan: | Schooner rig |
| Speed: | 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement: | 164 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | 3.12 inches (79 mm) |
USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and supported Union forces during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. She was damaged during the Battle of Drewry's Bluff because her armor was too thin to prevent Confederate shots from penetrating. Widely regarded as a failure, Galena was reconstructed without most of her armor in 1863 and transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in 1864. The ship participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay and the subsequent Siege of Fort Morgan in August. She was briefly transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September before she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for repairs in November.
Repairs were completed in March 1865 and Galena rejoined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads the following month. After the end of the war, the ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in June. She was transferred to Hampton Roads in 1869, condemned in 1870, and broken up for scrap in 1872.
After the United States received word of the construction of the Confederate casemate ironclad, CSS Virginia, Congress appropriated $1.5 million on 3 August to build one or more armored steamships. It also ordered the creation of a board to inquire into armored ships. The U.S. Navy advertised for proposals for "iron-clad steam vessels of war" on 7 August and Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, appointed the three members of the Ironclad Board the following day. Their task was to "examine plans for the completion of iron-clad vessels".
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