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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive
USS Arkansas (I)
Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons
Civil War Medal
Screw Steamer:
Built in 1863 as the wooden-hulled, barkentine-rigged, screw steamer Tonawanda at Philadelphia, PA.
Purchased by the Navy at Philadelphia, 27 June 1863 by COMO C.K. Stribling from Messrs. S. & J. M. Flanagan
Fitted out and commissioned USS Arkansas at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, 29 June 1863, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant William H. West in command
Arkansas was assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, reporting for duty, 10 October 1863
She was assigned the task of maintaining communications with and carrying supplies to the Union warships which were stationed on blockade duty along the Texas coast
Throughout her naval career she alternated with USS Augusta Dinsmore on logistic cruises which took them as far south as Brownsville, TX.
On 27 September 1864, while steaming in the gulf on one of these supply runs, Arkansas, then commanded by Acting Volunteer Lieutenant David Gate, encountered the
schooner Watchful purportedly sailing from New York to Matamoras, Mexico, with a cargo of lumber and petroleum. Her master claimed that his ship had begun leaking; and
he, therefore, had changed course to New Orleans to seek repairs.
However, when Gate examined the schooner's cargo, he found crates of arms hidden under the lumber and consequently seized the vessel which he sent to New Orleans under a prize
crew for adjudication
After the collapse of the Confederacy, Arkansas departed New Orleans, 5 June 1865, and sailed north to Portsmouth, N.H.
She was decommissioned at Navy Yard Portsmouth, N.H., 30 June 1865
Sold at public auction, 20 July 1865, to Mr. George S. Leach of Portsmouth, redocumented as Tonawanda, 1 August 1865
Final Disposition, the steamer served as a coastal merchantman until she was stranded on Grecian Shoals, FL., 28 March 1866 and was lost.
Specifications:
Displacement 752 t.
Length 191'
Beam 30'
Depth of Hold 19'
Draft unknown
Speed 15 kts
Complement 88
Armament (Initial Battery, 4 September 1863)
four 32-pdr smoothbores
one 12-pdr rifle
one 20-pdr Parrott rifle (added 21 June 1865)
Propulsion
one vertical condensing steam engine, arranged to work high or low pressure; diameter of cylinder 40", stroke 30"
one boiler
single screw
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Arkansas (I)
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS)
This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo
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Last Updated 3 June 2022