USS Lackawanna (1862)
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| History | |
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| Name: | USS Lackawanna |
| Builder: | New York Navy Yard |
| Launched: | 9 August. 1862 |
| Commissioned: | 8 January 1863 |
| Decommissioned: | 7 April 1885 |
| Fate: | Sold,30 July 1887 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Screw sloop-of-war |
| Displacement: | 1,533 long tons (1,558 t) |
| Length: | 237 ft (72 m) |
| Beam: | 38 ft 2 in (11.63 m) |
| Draft: | 16 ft 3 in (4.95 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 10.5 kn (12.1 mph; 19.4 km/h) |
| Armament: | 2 × 24-pounder howitzers, 2 × 12-pounder howitzers, 2 × 12-pounder rifles, 1 × 150-pounder Parrott rifle, 1 × 50-pounder Dahlgren rifle, 2 × 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren smoothbores, 2 × 9 in (230 mm) Dahlgren smoothbores |
The first USS Lackawanna was a screw sloop-of-war in the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
Lackawanna was launched by the New York Navy Yard on 9 August 1862; sponsored by Ms. Imogen Page Cooper; and commissioned on 8 January 1863, Captain John B. Marchand in command. She was named after the Lackawanna River in Pennsylvania.
The new screw sloop-of-war departed New York on 20 January, to join the Union blockade of the southern coast. She reported to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron at Pensacola, Florida early in February and, for the remainder of the war, served along the gulf coast of the Confederacy, principally off Mobile Bay. Lackawanna took her first prize — Neptune — on 14 June after a long chase in which the 200 long tons (200 t) Glasgow ship had jettisoned her cargo trying to escape. The Union sloop-of-war scored again the next day, capturing steamer Planter as the Mobile blockade runner attempted a dash to Havana, Cuba laden with cotton and resin.
Following duty along the Texas coast near Galveston in March–April 1864, Lackawanna returned to the blockade of Mobile early in May to prevent the escape of Confederate ram Tennessee. During the summer she served in the blockade while preparing for Admiral David Farragut's conquest of Mobile Bay.
On 9 July, with Monongahela, Galena, and Sebago, she braved the guns of Fort Morgan to shell steamer Virgin, a large blockade runner aground at the entrance of Mobile Bay. The Union guns forced a southern river steamer to abandon efforts to assist Virgin, but the next day the Confederates refloated the blockade runner who reached safety in Mobile Bay. Closing this strategic southern port was an important part of the Union strategy to isolate and subdue the South.
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