USS Somerset (1862)
| History | |
|---|---|
 
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| Name: | USS Somerset |
| Launched: | 1862 |
| Acquired: | by purchase, 4 March 1862 |
| Commissioned: | 3 April 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | 12 July 1865 |
| Fate: |
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| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steam gunboat |
| Displacement: | 521 long tons (529 t) |
| Length: | 151 ft (46 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft 4 in (9.86 m) |
| Draft: | 16 ft (4.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine |
| Speed: | 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 110 officers and enlisted |
| Armament: |
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USS Somerset was a wooden-hulled, side-wheel ferryboat built at Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1862, which was purchased by the Navy at Washington, D. C., on 4 March 1862 and was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 3 April 1862, Lt. Earl English in command.
Assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, the ferryboat arrived at Key West, Florida, on 27 April, and after cooling, sailed on 1 May for waters off the coast of Cuba to seek blockade runners. On 4 May, she captured screw steamer Circassian flying British colors between Havana and Matanzas about 10 miles off the Cuban coast. Lt. English placed a prize crew on the steamer and towed her to Key West for adjudication. There she was condemned and sold to the Navy.
After another cruise off the coast of Cuba, Somerset was ordered to cruise off Florida between Cedar Key and Apalachicola Bay. There she began a type of duty which characterized her service during her entire Navy career. In the next few months, she performed blockade duty; made a reconnaissance expedition to Way Key where she engaged Confederate Army troops on 15 May; shelled a Confederate fort near the lighthouse in St. Marks River, before landing a party of sailors who wrecked the battery on 15 June; captured blockade running schooner Curlew off the Cedar Keys the next day; and destroyed salt works at the end of the Fernandia Railroad at Depot Key on 4 and 6 October.
Because of the shoal waters she patrolled, Somerset often sent boat parties to serve the Union cause in areas which she could not reach herself. On 27 December, one of her boats capsized in a squall, and three petty officers and one seaman were drowned during operations in St. George's Sound to seal off the Apalachicola River. Up this strategic stream, which held Somerset's attention for much of the next two and one-half years, the Confederates were building screw gunboat CSS Chattahoochee and ironclad CSS Muscogee.
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