USS Monadnock (1863)
A lithograph of the USS Monadnock
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| History | |
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| Name: | USS Monadnock |
| Namesake: | Mount Monadnock |
| Builder: | Boston Navy Yard |
| Laid down: | 1862 |
| Launched: | 23 March 1863 |
| Commissioned: | 4 October 1864 |
| Decommissioned: | 30 June 1866 |
| Fate: | Broken up, 1874 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Miantonomoh-class monitor |
| Displacement: | 3,295 long tons (3,348 t) |
| Length: | 250 ft (76 m) |
| Beam: | 53 ft 8 in (16.36 m) |
| Draft: | 12 ft 3 in (3.73 m) |
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| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement: | 130 officers and men |
| Armament: | 2 × 2 – 15 in (380 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns |
| Armor: |
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The first USS Monadnock, a twin‑screw, wooden‑hull, double-turreted, ironclad monitor was laid down at the Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1862; launched 23 March 1863; and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard 4 October 1864, Captain John M. Berrien in command. It was named after Mount Monadnock, a mountain in southern New Hampshire.
The only monitor of the Monadnock-class to see action during the Civil War, the Monadnock was designed by Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair John Lenthall. Lenthall actually designed four monitors at that time. The Monadnock and the USS Agamenticus were the first and are considered the two Monadnock-class vessels. Lenthall altered the designs of the next two, the USS Miantonomoh and the USS Tonawanda and dubbed them the Miantonomoh-class. Because of the similarities between the two classes they are sometimes referred to collectively as the Miantonomoh-class.
The Monadnock used powerful steam engines designed by Chief of Steam Engineering, Benjamin F. Isherwood. Her hull design was also much more streamlined than monitors designed by John Ericsson. Unfortunately, her internal frames were only 4.5 in oak and like Lenthall's USS Roanoke conversion, the weight of her turrets weakened the structural integrity of the hull and she was prone to rotting and cracking.
In service, the Monadnock steamed to Norfolk, Virginia, and there Commander Enoch Greenleafe Parrott took command on 20 November 1864. On 13 December she departed Norfolk for the assault against Fort Fisher. She joined Rear Admiral David D. Porter's North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 15 December, and four days later departed Beaufort, North Carolina, to join the Union fleet massed to attack Confederate defenses on the Cape Fear River. On the morning of Christmas Eve, she closed the entrance of the river, guarded by Fort Fisher. At less than 1,200 yards from shore she began bombarding the fortification and continued throughout the day. The following morning she resumed shelling as 2,000 Army troops under the command of General Benjamin F. Butler landed north of the fort. However, after coming close to the fort, the troops were pulled back and reembarked in the landing boats.
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