USS Ben Morgan

History
United States
Name	USS Ben Morgan
Ordered	as Mediator
Laid down	date unknown
Launched	1826
Acquired	May 27, 1861
Commissioned	circa 1861
Decommissioned	circa 1865
Stricken	1865 (est.)
Fate	Sold, November 30, 1865
General characteristics
Type	Hospital ship
Displacement	407 long tons (414 t)
Length	Unknown
Beam	Unknown
Draught	15 ft (4.6 m)
Propulsion	Sail
Speed	varied
Complement	35
Armament	Unknown

USS Ben Morgan was a schooner acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a hospital ship in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways.

Purchase

The Ben Morgan was a ship rigged (not schooner), sailing vessel launched at

Hampton Roads, Virginia, to take over the role of the Norfolk Naval Hospital which had fallen into Confederate hands when Union forces evacuated Norfolk, Virginia

, on April 20, 1861, three days after the Virginia convention had voted for secession.

Hampton Roads hospital ship

Commanded by Master James B. Gordon, the ship lay anchored in Hampton Roads as she cared for sick and wounded sailors from the Union warships blockading the Confederate coast. She also served concurrently as a

Norfolk Navy Yard almost a year before. Raised, rebuilt, protected by a thick covering of iron plates, and armed with a sharp, strong prow, the Southern ironclad ram had proved to be almost impervious to shot and shell as she destroyed Union frigates Congress and Cumberland

and damaged other Federal warships before withdrawing for the night.

Monitor and the Virginia

That evening, Monitor, arrived in Hampton Roads and prepared to challenge Virginia upon her return. Built with a flat deck and an extremely low freeboard, Monitor's hull above the waterline was protected by strong iron plate which, the following day, enabled her to fight her Southern ironclad opponent to a standstill. This action saved the remaining Union fleet at Hampton Roads — including Ben Morgan — from almost certain destruction, maintained the blockade, and enabled the threatened Union Army of the Potomac to continue its drive toward Richmond, Virginia.

Peninsula Campaign

These developments prompted the Confederates to evacuate Norfolk on 9 May, and Northern troops entered on the following day. However, heavy Union casualties during the

U.S. War Department

from returning that facility to the Navy until September 1862. Thus Ben Morgan remained busy at Hampton Roads seeing to Navy needs.

Staff moves ashore in Richmond

Meanwhile, the buildup of the fleet to tighten the Union blockade of the South increased the Navy’s need for arms and ammunition in Hampton Roads, and the task of storing ordnance supplies was added to Ben Morgan's duties. In June 1862, when the Navy occupied a vacant building near Fort Norfolk, Ben Morgan's embarked medical team — headed by Assistant Surgeon James H. Macomber — went ashore to turn that structure into a temporary naval hospital. This freed the ship to devote herself exclusively to her logistical missions. From that time on, she lay anchored in Hampton Roads — some distance from other ships lying there — while laden with explosives and moored at Norfolk when carrying a less dangerous cargo.

Final operations

Early in the spring of 1863, the ship was surveyed and condemned; but the need for her services had proved so great that she continued to function in Hampton Roads until autumn when she entered the

New Berne, North Carolina, upon the completion of the yard work; but smallpox broke out among her crew and the ship remained in quarantine until after another vessel had taken her place in the North Carolina Sounds

. As a result, when she was ready to resume her labors, Ben Morgan returned to Hampton Roads and served in the Norfolk vicinity until she returned to New York City after the collapse of the Confederacy. She was sold there to a Mr. Hammill on November 30, 1865.

References

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.