Name USS Narcissus Fate Sank, 4 January 1866 Displacement 101 long tons (103 t) Length 25 m | Commissioned 2 February 1864 Type Steam gunboat Launched July 1863 | |
Acquired by purchase, 23 September 1863 | ||
USS Narcissus — a screw steamer launched in July 1863 as Mary Cook at East Albany, N.Y. — was purchased by the Union Navy at New York City on 23 September 1863 from James D. Stevenson; and commissioned at New York Navy Yard on 2 February 1864, Acting Ensign William G. Jones in command.
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Civil War
The new tug soon got underway south; and touched at Port Royal, South Carolina for fuel on 14 February, before pushing on to the Gulf of Mexico. She joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron at New Orleans late in the month and was assigned to patrol and blockade duty in Mississippi Sound. On the morning of 24 August, she captured sloop Oregon in Biloxi Bay, Mississippi Sound, and took the prize to New Orleans for adjudication.
Subsequently ordered to Mobile Bay, Narcissus supported clean-up operations following the great Union naval victory there on 5 August. She struck a Confederate torpedo off Mobile in a heavy storm on 7 December and sank within 15 minutes without loss of life.
Raised in the closing days of 1864, Narcissus was repaired at Pensacola early in 1865 and served in the gulf as a dispatch boat through the end of the war. She departed Pensacola on New Year's Day 1866, was wrecked, and sank at Egmont Key, Florida on 4 January with loss of all on board.
Consideration as Florida's twelfth Underwater Archaeological Preserve
In December 2011, The Bureau of Archaeological Research, Division of Historical Resources, Florida Department of State, initiated a proposal to dedicate the wreck site of the Narcissus as Florida's twelfth Underwater Archaeological Preserve.