USS Sangamon (1862)

The monitor was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and soon began efficient but unspectacular operations in Hampton Roads, Virginia and in the many roughly parallel rivers which empty into Chesapeake Bay. Sangamon was one of the vital ships of the Navy which guaranteed the Army control of the waters which border and penetrate the bitterly contested land which separated Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia.

After repairs at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 21, 1864, she was towed by Wachusett to Port Royal, South Carolina for duty with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. After Union blockade duty off Charleston, South Carolina, she returned to Hampton Roads in the summer to support General Ulysses S. Grant's drive on Richmond, Virginia.

Sangamon performed widely varied duties. She conducted reconnaissance expeditions up the river to obtain information, and often dueled Confederate forces hidden along the banks. She guarded Union troop concentrations and served as part of the Union naval force which patrolled the upper James to prevent the Confederate flotilla from threatening Union transports.

Officers of the Sangamon in the James River, 1865

In March to April 1865, during the final thrust on Richmond, Virginia, she assisted in clearing the river of Confederate torpedoes (mines) and countering the threat of Confederate ironclads so that Union shipping could proceed safely to the Confederate capital. One of her final wartime assignments Sangamon was required to perform, was to accompany the tugboat flotilla towing the previously captured and unfinished Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Texas (1865) to her final destination at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard on May 3, 1865. The overall expedition was led by Sangamon's skipper at the time, Lieutenant Commander R. Chandler.[1]