USS United States (1797)
.jpg) Drawing of the USS United States
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The USS United States was a frigate of the US Navy with (nominal) 44 guns in American-French quasi-war , the War of 1812 with Great Britain , in the Second Barbary War and the American Civil War was used.
History of the ship
construction
The United States was the first of six frigates that the US Congress had decided to build in 1794. Like her sister ships the USS Constitution and the USS President , she represented a new type of large frigate that combined excellent sailing properties with heavy armament. As a result, they were clearly superior to all comparable ships in terms of speed, maneuverability and firepower. The ship was designed by Joshua Humphreys and William Doughty and built in Philadelphia . It was baptized by George Washington and launched on May 10, 1797. Its first in command was John Barry, who had already distinguished himself in the Revolutionary War . On July 3, 1798, she received the first order to set sail.
Quasi-war with France
The main task was to protect American merchant ships and to attack French privateers in the American-French quasi-war that had broken out in the meantime . In mid-July the ship ran under the command of John Barry together with the USS Delaware under Captain Stephen Decatur sr. out and sailed south to Barbados .
The two ships arrived there on August 21 and forced the privateer Sans Pareil (20 cannons) from Guadeloupe to surrender the following day . On September 4th, the Jalouse (eight cannons) was able to hunt down another privateer. On September 18, the United States returned to the Delaware River and ran out again after a month to patrol the coast of New England . She was severely damaged by a severe storm and returned to the Delaware on October 30 for repairs. After its completion, she ran out again on December 18, this time to the Caribbean , where she sank the privateer L'Amour de la Patrie (six cannons) with one shot near Martinique on February 3, 1799 . The survivors of the occupation were later held in Guadeloupe and exchanged for American prisoners of war . On February 26, the United States was able to recapture the merchant ship Cicero , taken from the privateer Democrat , at Marie-Galante , while the latter escaped itself.
The arrival of reinforcements until mid-March made the US frigate the flagship of a small squadron commanded and effectively deployed by Barry, which consisted of two frigates, three sloops and four custom cutters. After the United States had taken the privateer La Tartueffe and his prize , the American sloop Vermont , on March 26 near Antigua , Barry handed over command to Commodore Thomas Truxtun on April 19 and sailed as an escort for a convoy in the Philadelphia area. She cruised in US waters for several months until, on November 3, she brought an American negotiating delegation to France to settle the conflict.
After returning to New York in April 1800, severe storm damage had to be removed from the Bay of Biscay . The United States was then made the flagship of the US squadron in the Caribbean, but recalled due to the peace agreement with France and anchored on April 28, 1800 in the port of Chester, Pennsylvania . Then she ran into the Potomac River and was decommissioned in the newly established naval shipyard in Washington on June 6, 1801 and laid up together with four other frigates.
Reactivation and War of 1812
The United States remained in the Potomac until 1809 when it was reactivated. On June 10, 1810, the frigate sailed under the command of Stephen Decatur junior - who had been on board on her first voyage as a midshipman - to Norfolk, Virginia , where repairs and equipment were carried out. Here Decatur made friends with the British captain John S. Carden, the commander of the HMS Macedonian (38 cannons), who was on a diplomatic mission in Norfolk.
After the start of the War of 1812 through the United States' declaration of war on Great Britain on June 19, 1812, the United States, along with the USS Congress and the brig USS Argus, formed a squadron under the command of Commodore John Rodgers , which remained uneventful until the end of August Completed patrol off the east coast of the United States. After a short stay in port, the ships left Boston on October 8th . After the merchant ship Mandarin was captured , the United States left the association and sailed further east. At dawn on October 25, the crew sighted the Macedonian about 500 nautical miles south of the Azores . The Americans had the advantage that their ship was heavier armed (the main armament consisted of 24 pounder cannons as opposed to the British 18 pounder) and that the guns had a greater range. The United States began the fight at 9:20 a.m. with an imprecise broadside that had no effect on the Macedonian . The British first broadside caused slight damage to the rigging . With the second broadside, the United States scored a decisive hit that destroyed the mizzen rig of the British frigate and, through the loss of the mizzen sail, significantly reduced the maneuverability of the Macedonian , which allowed Decatur to sit behind the stern of the defenseless ship and systematically to the Shoot wreck. Despite their desperate situation, the British fought back until their ship was dismasted and incapacitated. When Carden flicked the flag at around 12:00 p.m., 104 were killed and wounded. The Americans lost only 12 men and suffered only minor damage. Decatur and his crew succeeded in provisionally repairing the heavily damaged enemy ship and entered the port of New York with it on December 4th. This success made the occupation of the United States national heroes. Although the British were inferior to the US ship in terms of armament, they had a much better trained crew. The Constitution had previously defeated the Guerriere , but this ship was sunk because of its damage. The Macedonian was therefore the first British warship defeated in battle that could be brought into an American port as a prize. The captain and crew received special thanks from Congress and President James Madison . The Macedonian was taken over into the US Navy under its old name. After repairs, the United States , accompanied by the Macedonian and the sloop USS Hornet , left New York on May 24, 1813, but had to flee from a superior British unit to the port of New London , where the two frigates remained blocked until the end of the war . while the Hornet escaped in late 1814.
Second barbarian war and service in the Mediterranean
After the end of the war, the US government turned its attention to the Mediterranean region, where the barbarian pirates from Algiers had again started attacking American ships, and declared war on them in March 1815. The United States , under the command of Captain John Shaw, was assigned to a squadron under Commodore William Bainbridge , which sailed into the Mediterranean. However, due to repairs, she could not leave until the beginning of September and followed her bandage two months late. When the ship arrived in the Mediterranean, a peace treaty had already been signed. In order to have a potential threat against further attacks at hand, a US squadron remained in the Mediterranean, the flagship of which was the United States with Commander Shaw, who was promoted to commodore . Shaw lost this position in 1816 with the arrival of Commodore Isaac Chauncey , but his ship remained in the Mediterranean and was not sent home until the spring of 1819. The frigate reached Hampton Roads on May 18 of that year, was decommissioned on June 9, and laid up in Norfolk.
Later years
The United States did not return to service until 1824, when it was part of the Pacific Squadron under Commodore Isaac Hull and protected American ships and commercial interests in this area until 1827 . After extensive repairs in Philadelphia in 1827/1828, it was put out of service for some time. In 1832 the ship was modernized in New York, then served in the Mediterranean from 1833 to 1838 and in home waters from 1839 to 1840.
In 1841 the frigate was overhauled in Norfolk and made the flagship of the Pacific Squadron in January 1842 . On the way to her new area of activity, she sailed around the dreaded Cape Horn despite the unfavorable season . In 1843 the writer Herman Melville (author of Moby-Dick ) served as a simple seaman on the frigate. He has his experiences on board in the 1850 novel, White-Jacket or The World in a Man-of-War (dt .: White Jacket or the World on a warship processed), in which he an extremely negative picture of the conditions on board and in the US Navy as a whole.
In 1844 the ship returned to the United States, was decommissioned for two years in Boston and reactivated in May 1846 to suppress the slave trade as part of the Africa Squadron . In 1847 she came to the Mediterranean and then served in European waters until she was ordered to return to the USA in 1848. On February 24, 1849, she was taken out of service at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where she remained for the following years.
During the Civil War , the ship stayed behind in Norfolk when the US Navy had to evacuate the naval yard before the approaching Confederates . An attempt to set the ship on fire failed. The Confederates pumped out the ship's hull and commissioned it as CSS United States on April 29 . The frigate served as a floating gun battery to protect the harbor and was equipped with 19 cannons. When the Confederates had to evacuate Norfolk in May 1862, they sank the United States as an obstacle in the Elizabeth River . Since the hull turned out to be astonishingly well preserved, it was very difficult to drill the necessary holes through it. Shortly after the occupation of Norfolk, the wreck was lifted and taken to the naval shipyard, where it lay until March 1864. In March 1864, the US authorities decided to scrap the United States , which was implemented in late 1865.
