USS Miami (1861)
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Miami |
| Builder: | Philadelphia Navy Yard |
| Launched: | 16 November 1861 |
| Commissioned: | 29 January 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | 22 May 1865 |
| Fate: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Sidewheel gunboat |
| Displacement: | 730 long tons (742 t) |
| Length: | 208 ft 2 in (63.45 m) |
| Beam: | 33 ft 2 in (10.11 m) |
| Draft: | 8 ft 6 in (2.59 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine |
| Speed: | 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) |
| Complement: | 134 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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The first USS Miami was a side-wheel steamer, double-ender gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Miami was launched by Philadelphia Navy Yard on November 16, 1861, and commissioned there on January 29, 1862, Lieutenant Abram Davis Harrell in command.
The wooden-hulled gunboat was ordered February 5, 1862, to proceed to Ship Island, Mississippi for duty in the Mortar Flotilla organized to neutralize Confederate riverside forts during Admiral David Farragut's impending attack on New Orleans, Louisiana. Miami reached Ship Island on March 19 and headed for Pass a l'Outre where she entered the Mississippi River to join Commander David Dixon Porter's flotilla.
During the next few weeks she was busy preparing for the assault. On April 13, Miami joined Westfield, Clifton, Oneida, and Harriet Lane and steamed upstream. A Confederate steamer exchanged fire with Union ships before scurrying upriver to safety. Early in the morning, five days later, Miami towed three mortar schooners to predesignated positions below Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson when the Union ships bombarded the Confederate works which guarded the approach to New Orleans. The shelling continued intermittently until it reached crescendo before dawn on April 24 as Admiral Farragut led his deep draft, salt water fleet up the Mississippi in a daring dash past the forts.
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Wikipedia