Ossipee Class Sloop (1861)

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Two of the four Ossipee class sloops built during the Civil War were still in U.S. Navy service into the late nineteenth century.

Overview of four vessels
Citations for this data available on individual ship pages
Name Builder Laid Down Launched Commissioned Fate
Ossipee Portsmouth NYd 6 Jun, 1861 16 Nov, 1861 6 Nov, 1862 Sold 25 Mar, 1891
Juniata Philadelphia NYd June 1861 29 Mar, 1862 4 Dec, 1862 Sold 25 Mar, 1891
Adirondack New York NYd 1861 22 Feb, 1862 June 1862 Wrecked 23 Aug, 1862
Housatonic Boston NYd 1861 20 Nov, 1861 29 Aug, 1862 Torpedoed 17 Feb, 1864[1]

Design & Construction

The four Ossipees were part of a group of seven "steam screw sloops of war of the 2nd class of not over 14' draft" for oceangoing serivce authorized on 21 February, 1861 as the succession crisis grew ever more severe. The Ossipees were a new design with increased tonnage, beam, and draft over preceeding sloop designs. Their hull plans were by John Lenthall and their machinery was designed by Benjamin F. Isherwood.[2]

Performance

Armament

[3]

1884

  • one 8-inch muzzle-loading rifle
  • six 9-inch smoothbores
  • one 60-pounder breech-loading rifle
  • two 20-pounder breech-loading rifles (Juniata only)

See Also

Footnotes

  1. Housatonic was the unenviable distinction of being the first warship to be sunk by a submarine during wartime, in this case the Confederate H. L. Hunley, which was lost shortly after her successful attack on Housatonic.
  2. Bauer and Roberts. Register of Ships. p. 67.
  3. Bauer and Roberts. Register of Ships. p. 67.

Bibliography

  • Bauer, K. Jack and Roberts, Stephen S. (1991). Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775-1990: Major Combatants. New York: Greenwood Press.
  • Chesneau, Robert; Kolesnik, Eugene (editors) (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. (on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk).
  • Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: Civil War Navies, 1855-1883. New York: Routledge.
  • Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). The U.S. Navy Warship Series: The New Navy 1883-1922. New York: Routledge.


Ossipee Class Screw Sloop
  Ossipee Juniata