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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

USS Nightingale (I)

Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons

Civil War Medal

Ship:

Built in 1851 by Hanscomb Shipyard in Eliot, Maine, by Samuel Hanscomb, Jr., for Sampson & Tappan's, Boston, MA.

Suspected of being a slaver she was taken by USS Saratoga in 1861 near the mouth of the Congo River at Cabinda, Angola

Sailed for New York with a prize crew where she was condemned in June 1861

Purchased by the US Navy, date unknown

Commissioned, USS Nightingale, 18 August 1861, Brevet Master David B. Horne in command

Fitted out as a collier and store ship, Nightingale joined the Blockading Squadron at Key West, FL.

USS Nightingale was with Union ships USS Preble, USS Richmond, USS Vincennes, and USS Water Witch in the Mississippi River near Head of Passes when Confederate ironclad ram CSS Manassas, accompanied by steamers CSS Ivy and James L. Day, attacked 12 October 1861

During the action she ran aground, but the Southern ships did not press their advantage and she was refloated a few days later and she sailed to New York with prisoners of war and booty

Nightingale returned to the Gulf late in the year with a cargo of coal and supplies for the Union Blockaders

During most of 1862, she served the East Gulf Blockading Squadron operating out of Key West

Early in 1863, she became ordnance ship at Pensacola and continued this duty until returning to Boston 9 June 1864

Decommissioned, 20 June 1864, at the Boston Navy Yard

Sold at public auction there 11 February 1865 to D. E. Mayo she returned to merchant service

Acquired in 1865 by Western Union Telegraph Co., San Francisco, for use in laying telegraph cable across the Bering Straits

Acquired in 1868 by Samuel G. Reed & Co., Boston MA

Acquired in 1876 by George Howes, San Francisco to transport a cargo of oil San Francisco to New York

Sold in 1876 to S.P. Olsen, Kragerų, Norway

Final Disposition, foundered and abandoned in the North Atlantic, 17 April 1893, while enroute from Liverpool to Halifax, NS

Specifications:
Displacement 1,066 t.
Length 177'
Beam 36'
Depth of Hold 19'
Draft unknown
Speed unknown
Complement 186
Armament four 32-pdrs
Propulsionsail

Size	Image Description	Source or Contributed By
189k	Clipper ship *Nightingale* under full sail. Image from "The Clipper Ship Era, An Epitome of Famous American and British Clipper Ships, Their Owners, Builders, Commanders, and Crews, 1843-1869", by Arthur H. Clark, New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, p. 165, 1 January 1910.	Robert Hurst
299k	Hooked rug of of the clipper ship *Nightingale. Drawn and hooked by Charles Beekman Garretson. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 1324*	US Naval History and Heritage Command
345k	Clipper ship *Nightingale* US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH 44703	US Naval History and Heritage Command
170k	Clipper Ship *Nightingale* getting under way off the battery New York. 1964, reprint of a 1854 Currier lithograph. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo # NH NH 83185-KN. Courtesy of Captain Glenn Howell, 1974	US Naval History and Heritage Command

USS Nightingale (I)
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS)

Additional Resources and Web Sites of Interest
Wikipedia - USS Nightingale (1851)

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This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo

Last Updated 30 July 2021