USS Pensacola (1859)
Pensacola in Alexandria, Virginia, 1861
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
 
|
|
| Name: | USS Pensacola |
| Builder: | Pensacola Navy Yard, completed at Washington Navy Yard |
| Launched: | 15 August 1859 |
| Commissioned: | 16 September 1861 |
| Decommissioned: | 6 December 1911 |
| Struck: | 23 December 1911 |
| Fate: | Burned and sunk by U.S. Navy, May 1912 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Screw steamer |
| Tonnage: | 3000 |
| Length: | 230 ft 5 in (70.23 m) |
| Beam: | 44 ft 5 in (13.54 m) |
| Draft: | 18 ft 7 in (5.66 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine |
| Speed: | 9.5 knots (17.6 km/h; 10.9 mph) |
| Armament: |
|
The first USS Pensacola was a screw steamer that served in the United States Navy during the U.S. Civil War.
Pensacola was launched by the Pensacola Navy Yard on August 15, 1859, and commissioned there on December 5, 1859, for towing to Washington Navy Yard for installation of machinery. She was decommissioned January 31, 1860, and commissioned in full on September 16, 1861, Captain Henry W. Morris in command.
Pensacola departed Alexandria, Virginia on January 11, 1862, for the Gulf of Mexico to join Admiral David Farragut's newly created West Gulf Blockading Squadron. She steamed with that fleet in the historic dash past Confederate Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson which protected New Orleans, Louisiana on April 24. The next day, Pensacola engaged batteries below that great Confederate metropolis. On April 26, a landing party of Marines raised the United States flag over the mint at New Orleans. Four of her sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for their part in the battle: Boy Thomas Flood, Seaman Thomas Lyons, Captain of the Foretop James McLeod, and Quartermaster Louis Richards.
...
Wikipedia