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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --
USS Housatonic (1862-1864)
USS Housatonic, a 1930-ton Ossipee class steam
screw sloop of war, was built at the Boston Navy Yard, Massachusetts.
Commissioned in August 1862, she arrived off Charleston, South
Carolina, the following month to join United States' Navy forces
blockading that Confederate seaport. During the next seventeen
months, she played an active role, capturing or helping to capture
several blockade runners, providing support for attacks on fortifications
and otherwise assisting in operations against the Confederacy.
On 17 February 1864, while anchored off Charleston, Housatonic
was attacked by the submarine H.L.
Hunley, gaining the unwanted distinction of becoming the first
warship to be sunk by a submarine.
This page features our only views related to USS Housatonic.
Click on the small photograph to prompt
a larger view of the same image.
Photo #: NH 53573
USS Housatonic (1862-1864)
Wash drawing by R.G. Skerrett, 1902.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 67KB; 740 x 465 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 42916
Charleston Campaign, 1863-65
Photostat reproduction of a chart, redrawn from the "Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the
Rebellion", entitled "Approaches to Charleston, S.C.".
It shows the positions of the wrecks of U.S. Navy ships Weehawken,
Keokuk, Patapsco and Housatonic, as well
as the location where USS New Ironsides spent two hours
over a "torpedo" on 7 April 1863.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 147KB; 680 x 675 pixels |
 |
Photo #: NH 42917
Charleston Campaign, 1863-65
Photostat reproduction of a chart of the approaches to Charleston,
South Carolina, detailing the locations of the wrecks of U.S.
Navy ships Weehawken, Keokuk, Patapsco and
Housatonic; the wreck of CSS Georgiana; where USS
New Ironsides, Bibb and USS Massachusetts
encountered Confederate "torpedoes" on 7 April 1863,
16 March 1865 and 19 March 1865; and the location of other "torpedoes".
Copied from the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Navies in the War of the Rebellion".
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 166KB; 740 x 615 pixels |
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Page made 7 May 1999
New images added 31 August 2001