USS Sassacus (1862)

USS Sassacus ramming CSS Albemarle, 5 May 1864
History
Launched:	23 December 1862
Commissioned:	5 October 1863
Decommissioned:	13 May 1865
Fate:	Sold 28 August 1868
General characteristics
Displacement:	974 tons
Length:	205 ft (62 m)
Beam:	35 ft (11 m)
Draught:	9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion:	Steam engine
Speed:	14.5 knots
Complement:	145 officers and men
Armament:	2 100 pounder Parrott rifles, 4 9" Dahlgren smoothbore cannons, 2 24 pounder howitzers, 1 12 pounder rifled cannon, 1 heavy 12 pounder smoothbore cannon

The first USS Sassacus, a wooden, double-ended, side-wheel steamer, was launched on 23 December 1862 by the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, sponsored by Miss Wilhelmina G. Lambert. Sassacus was commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 5 October 1863, Lieutenant Commander Francis A. Roe in command.

That day, the new steamer got underway for trials at sea and returned to Boston for repairs. Later, en route to Hampton Roads to join the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, the ship suffered mechanical difficulty and was detained at the Washington Navy Yard for repairs from 19 November 1863 to 22 January 1864. When she finally reached Hampton Roads late in January, the double-ender was assigned to the outer blockade of Wilmington, North Carolina and stationed off Cape Lookout Shoals to intercept inward-bound blockade runners attempting to slip through the net of Union ships.

On 1 February, Sassacus found the new and fast steamer, Wild Dayrell, near New Topsail Inlet, North Carolina, where the blockade runner had gone aground and discharged much of her cargo. The Federal double-ender, later aided by USS Florida, tried for three days to refloat the prize. During their efforts to salvage the steamer, the crews were harassed by Confederate riflemen who were eventually driven off by fire from the Union ships. Finally, parties from the blockaders set the ship ablaze and destroyed her by shelling.

At daybreak on 4 February, lookouts on Sassacus spotted black smoke to the northwest, and the double-ender started out in pursuit. About noon, she was within range of the chase and opened fire. The fleeing blockade runner headed for New Inlet, North Carolina and ran aground. There, her crew set fire to their ship, left her engine running, and fled. A boarding party from Sassacus reached the steamer about one o'clock and found her to be the paddle wheeler Nutfield, inward bound from Bermuda: "one of the last and best steamers out of the Thames."