USS Wachusett (1861)
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| History | |
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 United States
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| Name: | USS Wachusett |
| Namesake: | Mount Wachusett in north central Massachusetts |
| Laid down: | June 1861 at the Boston Navy Yard |
| Launched: | 10 October 1861 |
| Commissioned: | 3 March 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | 19 June 1863 |
| Recommissioned: | 28 January 1864 |
| Decommissioned: | 4 February 1868 |
| Recommissioned: | 1 June 1871 |
| Decommissioned: | 29 December 1874 |
| Recommissioned: | 26 May 1879 |
| Decommissioned: | September 1885 |
| Fate: | Sold 30 July 1887 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Sloop-of-war |
| Displacement: | 1,032 tons |
| Length: | 201 ft 4 in (61.37 m) |
| Beam: | 33 ft 11 in (10.34 m) |
| Draft: | 14 ft (4.3 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 16 ft (4.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | sail and steam engine backup |
| Speed: | 11.5 k |
| Complement: | not known |
| Armament: |
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USS Wachusett (1861) – the first U.S. Navy ship to be so named – was a large (1,032-ton) steam sloop-of-war that served the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat and used by the Navy as part of the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America.
When the war was over, Wachusett continued to serve the Navy, protecting American interests in both the Atlantic Ocean as well as the Pacific Ocean until she was finally decommissioned.
Wachusett—one of seven screw sloops-of-war authorized by the U.S. Congress in February 1861—was laid down by the Boston Navy Yard, Boston, Massachusetts, in June 1861; launched on 10 October; sponsored by Miss Mary C. Frothingham; and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 3 March 1862, Comdr. John S. Missroon in command.
Wachusett's long career began on 10 March 1862 with her assignment to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The warship left Boston two days later and arrived in Hampton Roads, Virginia, on the 16th. She was deployed in the York and James rivers, Virginia, and performed service in support of Major General George B. McClellan's Peninsular Campaign of spring, 1862.
On 4 May, a boat crew from Wachusett raised the Stars and Stripes at Gloucester Point, Virginia, following the Union occupation of Yorktown, Virginia; and, on the 6th and 7th, the vessel helped to land troops at West Point, Virginia, in the face of Confederate shore fire.
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