Name USS Calhoun Laid down date unknown Commissioned March 19, 1862 | Ordered as Cuba Launched 1851 at New York City Decommissioned May 6, 1864 | |
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USS Calhoun (1851) was a captured Confederate steamer and blockade runner acquired by the Union Navy from the prize court during the American Civil War.
Contents
- Captured by the Union and commissioned as a Union Navy vessel
- Assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron
- Capture of the Confederate CSS Queen of the West
- Sold to the Union Army in 1864
- References
Calhoun was put into service as a gunboat by the Union Navy to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Captured by the Union and commissioned as a Union Navy vessel
Calhoun was built in 1851 at New York City as Cuba, was commissioned as a privateer by the Confederates on May 15, 1861, and while operating as a Confederate privateer and blockade runner was captured by Colorado off Southwest Pass, Louisiana on January 23, 1862. Commissioned for Federal service under Lieutenant J. E. De-Haven, she joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron on March 19, 1862.
Assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron
In her service on patrol off the Passes of the Mississippi River, Calhoun established herself as one of the most successful blockading ships, taking part in the capture of 13 ships before May 5, 1862, when she steamed up the Mississippi River for duty in Lake Ponchartrain.
Here she continued to add to her score, chasing and capturing a steamer, a gunboat, two schooners, and a sloop. Later in the year, she sought out and captured another sloop in Atchafalaya Bay.
Capture of the Confederate CSS Queen of the West
In early November, Calhoun stood up Berwick Bay and Bayou Teche with two other steamers to engage Confederate shore batteries and the steamer CSS Cotton, barricaded on the Teche. Remaining in the Berwick Bay area on patrol, Calhoun and her consorts climaxed their extremely successful operations on April 14, 1863 when they attacked the cotton-clad steamer CSS Queen of the West. One shot at long range from Calhoun turned the Confederate ship into a torch, and a major threat to Union forces in the area was destroyed.
Calhoun continued to add to her distinguished record with her participation in the attack on Fort Butte-a-la-Rose on April 20, and in August was ordered to base on Ship Island, Mississippi, from which she continued her active and aggressive bombardments of shore positions, and took four more prizes.
In the furious assault on Fort Powell the last two weeks of February 1864, Calhoun flew the flag of Admiral David G. Farragut.
Sold to the Union Army in 1864
Turned over to the United States Marshal at New Orleans, Louisiana, on May 6, 1864, Calhoun was sold on June 4 to the Union Army. She served as the Army steamer General Sedgewick for the rest of the Civil War. Sold in 1865, she regained her old name and had a long subsequent career as the SS Calhoun.