USS Mattabesett (1863)

USS Mattabesett, sometimes spelled Mattabeset, a schooner-rigged, wooden hulled, double-ended sidewheel gunboat, was built by A. & G. T. Sampson, Boston, Massachusetts, and named for the Mattabesset River in Connecticut. Mattabesett was delivered to the New York Navy Yard on January 18, 1864, and commissioned April 7, 1864, Commander John C. Febiger in command.

The Battle of Albemarle Sound. Mattabesett is second from right
History
United States
NameUSS Mattabesett
BuilderA. & G. T. Sampson, Boston, Massachusetts
Laid down1862[1]
Launched1863[1]
Commissioned7 April 1864
Decommissioned31 May 1865
FateSold, 15 October 1865
General characteristics
Class and typeSassacus-class gunboat
Displacement1,173 long tons (1,192 t)
Length205 ft (62 m)
Beam35 ft (11 m)
Draft8 ft 6 in (2.59 m)
Installed power1 × 712 ihp inclined direct-acting steam engine, auxiliary sails
Propulsion2 × sidewheels
Sail planSchooner-rigged
Speed14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Complement100 officers and enlisted
Armament
  • 2 × 100-pounder (45 kg) Parrott rifles
  • 4 × 9 in (230 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns
  • 4 × 24-pounder (11 kg) guns
  • 1 × 12-pounder (5 kg) smoothbore gun
  • 1 × 12-pounder (5 kg) rifled gun

Service history

Mattabesett departed New York on April 21, 1864, for duty in the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and arrived at Hampton Roads on April 23 as escort to USS Onondaga. Continuing down the coast to enter the North Carolina Sounds, she took part in an engagement between Union forces and the Confederate ram CSS Albemarle, accompanied by CSS Bombshell and CSS Cotton Plant, off the mouth of the Roanoke River on May 5. In the course of the battle, leading to the capture of Plymouth, North Carolina by Confederate forces, Mattabesett, with USS Sassacus, captured Bombshell, but Albemarle and Cotton Plant escaped.

But for a brief trip to New York in the fall of 1864, Mattabesett continued to serve the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron for the remainder of the U.S. Civil War, operating primarily in the inland waters of North Carolina. She sailed north in May 1865, decommissioned at New York on May 31, and was sold there on October 15.

See also

Ships captured in the American Civil War

Footnotes

  1. Bauer and Roberts, pp. 80-81.

References

  • Bauer, Karl Jack and Roberts, Stephen S. (1991): Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants, Greenwood Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-313-26202-9.
  • This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
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