USS Rescue (1861)
| History | |
|---|---|
  United States
|
|
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: |
|
| Acquired: | 21 August 1861 |
| Commissioned: | circa 21 August 1861 |
| Decommissioned: | 1889 |
| Struck: | 1891 (est.) |
| Homeport: | Washington Navy Yard |
| Fate: | sold on 25 March 1891 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 111 tons |
| Length: | 80’ |
| Beam: | 18’ |
| Draught: | 8’ |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 6 knots |
| Complement: | not known |
| Armament: |
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USS Rescue (1861) was a small (111-ton) steamer commissioned by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
She served the navy during the blockade of ports and waterways of the Confederate States of America as an gunship and dispatch boat. After the war’s end, Rescue continued to serve the Navy, but this time as a tugboat and as a fireboat.
Rescue, built for the builders account in 1861 by Harlan and Hollingsworth, Wilmington, Delaware, was purchased for the Navy on 21 August 1861; fitted out at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and ordered to join the Potomac Flotilla.
Under the command of Lt. H. S. Newcomb, Rescue joined the flotilla prior to mid-September and took up station near Alexandria, Virginia. By the 18th, she had shifted to the Mathias Point-Popes Creek area where she seized the schooner Harford and her cargo of wheat and tobacco.
On 11 October, the gunboat, with USS Resolute and USS Union, captured and burned the schooner Martha Washington which had been awaiting Confederate troops in Quantico (Dumfries) Creek. Ten days later, she returned to Mathias Point to engage enemy batteries there.
A week of courier duty followed; and, on the 28th, she was detached from the Potomac Flotilla and ordered to the Rappahannock River for duty in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
On 6 November she captured and burned the schooner Ada at Corrotman Creek and, on the 8th, seized the ammunition storage ship Urbana. At midmonth she was ordered to Hampton Roads, Virginia, where she assumed tug and patrol duties which took her into 1862. In October 1862 she moved up to Washington, D.C. for repairs, after which she got underway for Port Royal, South Carolina, and duty in Samuel Francis Du Pont's squadron, then blockading Charleston, South Carolina.
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