USS Somers (1842)
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USS Somers
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Somers |
| Laid down: | 16 April 1842 |
| Launched: | 12 May 1842 |
| Fate: | Sank, 8 December 1846 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 259 long tons (263 t) |
| Length: | 100 ft (30 m) |
| Beam: | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
| Draft: | 14 ft (4.3 m) |
| Propulsion: | Sail |
| Complement: | 13 officers and 180 men |
| Armament: | 10 × 32 pdr (15 kg) carronades |
The second USS Somers was a brig in the United States Navy during the John Tyler administration which became infamous for being the only U.S. Navy ship to undergo a mutiny which led to executions.
Somers was launched by the New York Navy Yard on 16 April 1842 and commissioned on 12 May 1842, with Commander Alexander Slidell Mackenzie in command.
After a shakedown cruise in June–July to the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico and back, the new brig sailed out of New York harbor on 13 September 1842 bound for the Atlantic coast of Africa with dispatches for frigateVandalia. On this voyage, Somers was acting as an experimental schoolship for naval apprentices.
After calls at Madeira, Tenerife, and Praia, looking for Vandalia, Somers arrived at Monrovia, Liberia on 10 November and learned that the frigate had already sailed for home. The next day, Cdr. Mackenzie headed for the Virgin Islands hoping to meet Vandalia at St. Thomas before returning to New York.
On 25 November 1842, during the passage to the West Indies, Midshipman Philip Spencer, the son of Secretary of War John C. Spencer, allegedly told purser's steward J.W. Wales of a planned mutiny by approximately 20 of Somers crew, who intended to use the ship for piracy from the Isle of Pines. Seaman Elisha Small was involved in the conversation, and Wales was threatened with death if he revealed Spencer's plan.
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