Washington (ship, 1837)

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Washington US Coast Guard
USS Washington (1837) .jpg
Washington
period of service
Launch: February 4, 1837 (US Revenue Marine)
Commissioning: before November 1837
Decommissioning: not happened
Fate: Adopted by the Confederate States Navy in 1861 , abandoned in 1862
General properties
Displacement : Standard : approx. 190  ts
Length: approx. 91 ft (approx. 30.3 m)
Width: approx. 21 ft, 2 inch (approx 7.1 m)
Draft: approx. 8 ft (2.4 m)
Armament: 10 cannons and after 1860 1 × 42 pounder (on center pivot mount)

The Washington was a "revenue cutter" in the United States Navy . She discovered the Amistad after it had been taken over by the slaves on board in a mutiny in 1839 .

Mission history

The Washington was the second cutter and the sixth ship of that name in the US Navy. Name giver was (probably) Peter G. Washington, employee of the treasury, then office manager of the “6th Auditor”, then “1st Assistant Postmaster General” and finally “Assistant Secretary of the Treasury” (Deputy Treasury Secretary). ) On July 6, 1837, the building permit and on August 1, 1837 the name was given. The construction was supervised by Captain HD Hunter, US Revenue Marine.

The construction of the Washington took place exceptionally quickly, on November 11, 1837 the order for "winter cruising" (winter patrol) was issued off the east coast between New York City and the Cape of Virginia . On December 18, she left for her first trip. In the years 1838 and 1839 it carried out patrols in winter and in summer the sea area of ​​this area was surveyed and cataloged. Already in 1838 she was converted from a schooner to a brig in Baltimore .

While the ship was cruising between Gardiner's Point and Montauk Point, (New York) in the summer of 1839, news of the events around the Ami city was heard on board . On August 26, 1839, the Washington sighted a ship anchored that had a suspicious-looking vessel. The commander of Washington , Lieutenant Thomas R. Gedney, USN, then sent an armed commando aboard this ship, which found out that it was the Amistad schooner from Havana . She had sailed from the west coast of Africa about two months earlier and originally had two white passengers and 54 African slaves on board in addition to the small crew. The destination was Guanaja and Cuba . Four days after leaving the African port, the slaves rose and killed the captain and crew, but left the two passengers alive to persuade them to return the ship to Africa.

The Washington spent the Ami city to New London (Connecticut) .

On April 23, 1840, the Washington was transferred to the "Coast Survey", the predecessor of today's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . Here it was busy with surveying tasks on the east coast for the next twelve years. Although this sounded like a quiet task, there were still great difficulties, as violent storms had to be endured over and over again. In 1846 the brig was caught in a severe storm in Chesapeake Bay , in which she was de-masted and was only able to return to port with great difficulty . Eleven men were overboard in this operation, including the commandant, Lieutenant George M. Bache.

At the beginning of the Mexican-American War , the Washington was part of Matthew C. Perry's squadron . Under the command of Lieutenant Commander Samuel Phillips Lee , she was involved in the second Battle of Villahermosa on June 16, 1847, which led to the capture of Tabasco . She then handed over six officers and 30 sailors to a 1173-strong landing command which, under the command of Captain SL Bresse, attacked and captured the Mexican fortifications at Tuxpan .

From May 18, 1852 back under the Treasury / Treasury Department, the ship was moved to New York and subjected to extensive repairs, which lasted until early winter. The work was completed on December 9, 1852. The ship remained stationed in New York for the next six years and only operated in local waters.

The cutter took part in the search for the lost steamship San Francisco in the second week of January 1854 . During this search, five revenue cutters had left their home ports from New London (Connecticut) to Wilmington (Delaware) and from Norfolk (Virginia) to New York at almost the same time, but could not find the missing ship.

In spring 1859 the cutter was ordered to the Gulf of Mexico to replace the cutter Robert McClelland stationed there . A short time later the Washington arrived in Louisiana at the Southwest Pass ( Plaquemines Parish ). She stayed there until 1861. When she was to be replaced by the Robert McClelland in the same year , it did not come to that because the American Civil War had broken out in the meantime and the authorities of the state of Louisiana confiscated the ship. Further information about the vehicle is sparse, Commodore David Dixon Porter reported in June 1861 that the (probably renamed) ship had been equipped in New Orleans and that a departure could soon take place. Nothing is known about the further whereabouts of the ship, possibly it was abandoned or broken off by the Confederates in 1862 in the Mississippi River .

Ship name

It could not be determined whether the ship was only called Washington (as stated in the US Navy lists) or whether the real name was Peter G. Washington . The latter is stated by the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration” (United States Department of Commerce), although the dispute is not called into question.

The Navy also states that the ship was named after George Washington , while the information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must appear more conclusive, since it was ultimately a vehicle of the financial administration.

literature

  • Howard I. Chapelle: The history of the American sailing navy. The ships and their development. Bonanza Books, New York 1949.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Ship of the Treasury
  2. ^ NOAA History - Peter G. Washington . In: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration . 2013. Retrieved August 3, 2013.
  3. ^ Washington, 1837 . In: US Department of Homeland Security, US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard Historian's Office . 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.
  4. ^ Washington, 1837 . In: US Department of Homeland Security, US Coast Guard, US Coast Guard Historian's Office . 2013. Retrieved August 30, 2013.