USS Washington (1837)

History
United States.
Name:	Washington
Namesake:	Peter G. Washington.
Ordered:	6 July 1837.
Christened:	1 August 1837.
Completed:	1837.
Commissioned:	before November 1837.
Decommissioned:	after June 1861.
Fate:	Seized by Confederate Navy.
General characteristics
Displacement:	190 tons.
Length:	91 ft 2 in (27.79 m).
Beam:	21 ft 2 in (6.45 m).
Propulsion:	Sail.
Sail plan:	Topsail schooner; re-rigged as a brig in 1838.
Armament:	10 guns (pre-1860). 1 × 42-pound pivot (1860).

Washington was a revenue cutter that served in the United States Revenue Cutter Service and in the United States Navy. She discovered, boarded and captured La Amistad after the slaves onboard had seized control of that schooner in an 1839 mutiny.

Washington was the second cutter of that name to serve the Navy, and was named after Peter G. Washington, who had served as a clerk in the Treasury, chief clerk to the 6th Auditor, 1st Assistant Postmaster General, and Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Authorized on 6 July 1837 and named on 1 August 1837, she was built under the supervision of Captain H.D. Hunter, U.S. Revenue Marine.Washington was apparently built quickly, as orders were issued on 11 November 1837 for the ship to conduct "winter cruising" off the eastern seaboard between New York and the Virginia capes. She sailed on 18 December on her first cruise. In ensuing years, the ship cruised that stretch of sea in the winters and conducted sounding and surveying operations off the coast in the summers of 1838 and 1839. She was rerigged from a schooner to a brig during that period, apparently at Baltimore, Maryland.

While sounding between Gardiner's Point and Montauk Point, N.Y., in the summer of 1839, the cutter encountered evidence of a grim event at sea. On 26 August 1839, Washington sighted a "suspicious-looking vessel" at anchor. The brig's commander, Lt. Thomas R. Gedney, USN, sent an armed party to board the craft.

The men found the suspicious ship to be the schooner La Amistad, of and from Havana, Cuba. She had set sail from the coast of Africa two months or so before, carrying two white passengers and 54 slaves, bound for Guanaja, Cuba. Four days out of port, the slaves rose and killed the captain and his crew, saving the two passengers to navigate the ship back to Africa. During the next two months, in which La Amistad had drifted at sea, nine of the slaves had died.

Washington was transferred to the Coast Survey, the forerunner of today's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, on 23 April 1840. For the next 12 years, the brig operated under the aegis of the Navy, off the eastern seaboard of the United States on surveying and sounding duties. All was not entirely tranquil, however, for there were storms to be contended with. While stationed in Chesapeake Bay in 1846, Washington was dismasted in a severe gale. Battered and worn but still afloat, the cutter limped to port. She had lost 11 men overboard in the tempest, including Lt. George M. Bache, the ship's commanding officer.

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