USS Westfield
History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | USS Westfield |
Acquired | by purchase, 22 November 1861 |
Commissioned | January 1862 |
Fate | Destroyed to prevent capture, 1 January 1863 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Steam gunboat |
Displacement | 822 long tons (835 t) |
Length | 215 ft (66 m) |
Beam | 35 ft (11 m) |
Draft | 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m) |
Propulsion | Steam engine |
Armament |
|
USS Westfield was a sidewheel steam ferryboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Westfield was purchased by the Navy from
Service history
Westfield departed New York on 22 February 1862, bound for
That mission finally succeeded on 8 April 1862, and Westfield began duty covering a coastal survey party developing more precise maps of the lower Mississippi for the assault on
Between 14 April and 24 April 1862, she supported Porter's Mortar Flotilla during the bombardment of the two Confederate forts in preparation for
Late in July and early in August 1862, the ship made her way back down the Mississippi via
As of 2007, no other ship in the United States Navy has been named Westfield.
On 18 November 2009 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began several weeks of recovery operations to retrieve artifacts. Items recovered are destined for study at the Conservation Research Lab at Texas A&M University. Westfield's largest cannon, the 9-inch Dahlgren, was recovered along with five cannonballs from a depth of 47 ft near the merge point of the Texas City Ship Channel and the Houston Ship Channel. The Dahlgren cannon is said to be the centerpiece of the recovered artifacts, which were brought to College Station and will be kept at the Conservation Research Lab on Texas A&M's Riverside Campus. The cannon was placed in an electrolysis bath for up to two years to remove chlorides and preserve the metal, according to Donny Hamilton, head of the Texas A&M anthropology department. The cannon was moved to the Texas City Museum, where it will be housed for the foreseeable future. The Museum dedicated the USS Westfield Exhibit 2 March 2017.
Once the archaeology project completes, the US Army Corps of Engineers begins a $71 million dredging effort of the waterway.
See also
- Union Navy
- Union Blockade
References
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.