USS Water Witch (1851)
USS Water Witch
| |
History | |
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United States | |
Name | USS/CSS Water Witch |
Laid down | 1851 |
Commissioned | 1853 |
Fate |
|
General characteristics | |
Displacement | 464 tons |
Length | 163 ft (50 m) |
Beam | 24 ft 4 in (7.42 m) |
Draft | 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m) |
Propulsion | steam |
Complement | 64 officers and enlisted |
Armament | 4 32-pdrs., 1 12-pdr.sb., 1 20-pdr. P.r., 4 32-pdrs. |
The third USS Water Witch was a wooden-hulled, sidewheel gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She is best known as the ship fired on by Paraguay in 1855. In 1864 she was captured by the Confederate States Navy, and subsequently was taken into that Navy as CSS Water Witch.
Commissioning and early service
Water Witch was launched by the Washington Navy Yard in 1851 and was commissioned during the winter of 1852–53, Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Page in command.
On 8 February 1853, the
The ship recommissioned briefly during the summer of 1858, but her next real active service came after yet another recommissioning on 17 September of that same year. She headed for the coast of South America as part of the
After the resolution of the difficulties with Paraguay, Water Witch resumed her survey missions in that region of the world. That employment, punctuated by periods out of commission in the United States, lasted until the fall preceding the outbreak of the Civil War. She was again decommissioned, this time at the
Civil War
She returned to active duty on 10 April 1861, just two days before General
However, later that summer, her duty station was changed to the area around the mouth of the Mississippi River. That duty lasted until the beginning of 1862. During the intervening months, she made several reconnaissance runs into the mouth of the Mississippi, missions made possible by her shallow draft. During one such incursion, ships of the Federal Fleet were attacked by the Confederate ram Manassas and the converted gunboat Ivy. Water Witch engaged Ivy briefly but never encountered the ram which zeroed in on and damaged Richmond. The Union ships re-crossed the bar; and the Confederates retired upriver, Manassas having suffered damage to her ram.
On 20 January 1862, the Gulf Blockading Squadron was divided in two to create the
On 1 October, Water Witch,
On 17 October, she returned to Port Royal to resume her role as a dispatch vessel again. She continued to serve with the
She completed repairs late that spring and returned to Port Royal on 14 June. She performed blockade duty at several points along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida, but most frequently at Ossabaw Sound between Ossabaw Island and the Georgia mainland about 15 miles due south of Savannah, Georgia. That remained her primary duty station well into 1864. On the night of 3 June of that year, a Confederate Marine boat force under the command of First Lieutenant Thomas P. Pelot, CSN, succeeded in boarding and capturing Water Witch in Ossabaw Sound after a brief scuffle which cost the Union ship two killed and 12 wounded. (13 officers and 49 men were captured). Confederate losses were 6 killed and 17 wounded. African-Americans were killed on both sides, Confederate river pilot Moses Dallas and Union landsman Jeremiah Sills. The only Union man to escape was a "contraband" named Peter McIntosh.
The prize was subsequently taken into the Confederate Navy in which she retained the name Water Witch. Lt. W. W. Carnes, CSN, commanded the ship during her service for the South. Plans were being made to move her to Savannah for some special assignment, but she remained at White Bluff, Georgia, until 19 December 1864 when the Confederates burned her to prevent recapture. Carnes was later ordered to Columbus, Georgia to take command of the CSS Jackson.
Reproduction
In 2009, the
See also
- Blockade runners of the American Civil War
- Blockade mail of the Confederacy
- Union Navy
- List of United States Navy ships
- List of ships captured in American Civil War
References
- ^ Exhibits: Water Witch, civilwarnavalmuseum.com; retrieved January 2011
- ^ "USS Water Witch replica demolished at the National Civil War Naval Museum". Wrbl.com. 8 October 2019.
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here. Union service
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here. Confederate service
- Navy Records regarding of the USS Water Witch June 1864
Further reading
- McKanna, Clare V. "The Water Witch Incident," American Neptune, 91970) 31#1 pp 7–18. re 1855.
- Ponko, Vincent (1974). Ships, Seas, and Scientists: U.S. Naval exploration and discovery in the nineteenth century. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp. 108–133. ISBN 978-0-87021-641-1.
- Smith, Gene Allen, and Larry Bartlett. "'A most unprovoked, unwarrantable, and dastardly attack': James Buchanan, Paraguay, and the Water Witch incident of 1855." Canadian Nautical Research Society The Northern Mariner 19.3 (2009): 269–290.
External links
- Capture of the USS Water Witch historical marker