Gunboat of the United States Navy
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|
| History |
|---|
  United States |
|---|
| Namesake | Tristram Shandy |
| Launched | 1864 |
| Acquired | 1864 |
| Commissioned | 12 August 1864 |
| Decommissioned | 21 June 1865 |
| Out of service | 1 September 1868 |
| Captured | |
| Fate | Sold, 1 September 1868 |
| General characteristics |
|---|
| Displacement | 444 tons |
| Length | 222 ft (68 m) |
| Beam | 23 ft 6 in (7.16 m) |
| Draft | 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m) |
| Propulsion |
- steam engine
- side wheel-propelled
|
| Speed | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Armament | |
USS Tristram Shandy was a 444-ton steamer and blockade runner captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
With her Parrott rifle installed, she was used by the Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederate States of America to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Service history
Confederate Navy
Tristram Shandy took her name from the hero—and the shortened title—of the novel,
Confederate specie
reposed in the ship's safe.
On 15 May 1864, the steamer attempted to slip to sea under the protective covering of a rain squall. The ship was darkened to avoid detection by roving Union patrols, but her funnels suddenly commenced throwing highly visible flames. Union gunboat
Prize Court
.
Union Navy
Repaired and converted to a gunboat at the
Hampton Roads, Virginia, where she was commissioned on 12 August 1864, Acting Vol. Lt. Edward F. Devens in command. Eleven days later, the ship arrived off Wilmington on 23 August and began duty as a blockader. On 7 September, her lookout sighted a strange ship. However, the distance between the two ships was too great, and the quarry slipped away. Her next chance came on 31 October when she joined
USS Santiago de Cuba and
USS Mount Vernon in pursuing a blockade runner which escaped after a three-hour chase. On 3 December 1864, a
blockade runner, whose name could not be determined, ran aground off the western bar at Wilmington, at Marshall Shoals. Although within range of
Fort Fisher's guns,
Tristram Shandy closed the disabled blockade runner to destroy her before she could be salvaged by Southern forces. Commencing fire with her
Parrott rifle and her 3-pounders, the Union gunboat soon reduced the grounded runner to a blazing wreck, down by the bow and sinking from numerous hits. Meanwhile, Confederate batteries opened fire on the gunboat, and several Southern shells splashed close alongside. Through skillful maneuvering by her commanding officer,
Tristram Shandy emerged unscathed, as she kept behind the clouds of smoke from her own guns and thus confused the Confederate lookouts spotting for the fort's heavy rifles.
On Christmas Eve, in an attempt to take Fort Fisher and thus close the Confederacy's last major seaport, Rear Admiral
Benjamin Franklin Butler
, arrived from northward too late to commence operations on the first day. Ill feeling resulted between Butler and Porter, with the former officer returning to Washington, D.C., and the operation temporarily shelved. After participating in the initial December bombardments of Fort Fisher,
Tristram Shandy took part in the second assault which commenced on Friday, 13 January 1865. A frontal assault by sailors and marines drawn from landing forces in the Fleet suffered disastrously as fusillades of gunfire from Confederate sharpshooters and cannoneers swept them down as wheat before a scythe. Meanwhile, Union Army forces attacked from the landward side, storming the fort's relatively undefended rear. By 15 January, Fisher was secured in Union hands, and the last barrier to Wilmington was removed, enabling the Union to stop the flow of supplies through the Confederacy's last seaport.
Tristram Shandy resumed patrol operations off Wilmington; and, on 25 January 1865, she captured blockade runner
Blenheim. The runner's captain and crew had not received the news of the fall of Fort Fisher and anchored off Mound Battery. He thus fell prey to Union sailors from the gunboat, who boarded
Blenheim, and captured her easily.
On 31 January, Tristram Shandy joined the
Fort Pulaski, Georgia, in late May and returned to Hampton Roads on 2 June. Upon arrival, she was assigned to duty as a roving vessel operating under the direct orders of the Commander of the
North Atlantic Squadron, for his use in inspecting the various ships and stations under his command.
On 12 June 1865, her name was changed to Boxer.Havana, Cuba
, and was declared a total loss in 1874.
See also
References
Bibliography
United States