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Minnesota at Hampton-Roads in 1862
History
United States
Name	USS Minnesota
Namesake	The Minnesota River
Builder	Washington Navy Yard, Washington, D.C.
Laid down	May 1854
Launched	1 December 1855
Sponsored by	Susan L. Mann
Commissioned	21 May 1857
Decommissioned	2 June 1859
Recommissioned	2 May 1861
Decommissioned	16 February 1865
Recommissioned	3 June 1867
Out of service	Placed in ordinary 13 January 1868
Recommissioned	12 June 1875
Out of service	Loaned to Massachusetts Naval Militia October 1895-August 1901
Fate	Sold August 1901; later burned
General characteristics
Type	Screw frigate
Displacement	3,307 long tons (3,360 t)
Length	264 ft 9 in (80.70 m)
Beam	51 ft 4 in (15.65 m)
Draft	23 ft 10 in (7.26 m)
Propulsion	Steam engine
Sail plan	Ship Rig
Speed	12.5 knots
Complement	646 officers and enlisted
Armament	2 × 10 in (250 mm) guns 28 × 9 in (230 mm) guns 14 × 8 in (200 mm) guns

USS Minnesota was a wooden steam frigate in the United States Navy. Launched in 1855 and commissioned eighteen months later, the ship served in east Asia for two years before being decommissioned. She was recommissioned at the outbreak of the American Civil War and returned to service as the flagship of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.

During the first day of the Battle of Hampton Roads on 8 March 1862, Minnesota ran aground, and the following battle badly damaged her and inflicted many casualties. On the second day of the battle, USS Monitor engaged CSS Virginia, allowing tugs to free Minnesota on the morning of 10 March. Minnesota was repaired and returned to duty, and three years later she participated in the Second Battle of Fort Fisher. Minnesota served until 1898, when she was stricken, beached and burnt to recover her metal fittings and to clear her name for a newly-ordered battleship, USS Minnesota (BB-22).

Construction and early duties

Minnesota was laid down in May 1854 by the Washington Navy Yard on the East Branch of the Potomac River (Anacostia River) in southeast Washington, D.C. She was named and launched on 1 December 1855, sponsored by Susan L. Mann, and commissioned into the lists of the United States Navy on 21 May 1857 with Captain Samuel Francis DuPont in command.

Minnesota was named for the Minnesota River, tributary to the upper Mississippi River. Her sister ships were also named for American rivers: the Wabash (first in class), Colorado, Merrimack (salvaged 1861-62 and renamed C.S.S. Virginia by the Confederate States Navy), and the Roanoke (later converted to a monitor-type ironclad warship).

Minnesota, carrying William B. Reed, appointed U.S. Minister to the Empire of China, departed from Norfolk, Virginia, on 1 July 1857 for the continent of East Asia. During her service with the East India Squadron, she visited many of the principal ports of China and Japan before departing Hong Kong to bring Minister Reed home with a newly-negotiated commerce treaty, the Treaty of Tianjin, with the Manchu dynasty of the Chinese Empire. Upon arrival in Boston, Massachusetts, on 2 June 1859, Minnesota was decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on the Charles River in Charlestown, Massachusetts, (across from Boston) the same day and remained in ordinary (holding status) there until the outbreak of the American Civil War two years later in April 1861.

American Civil War

Minnesota was recommissioned on 2 May 1861, Captain G. J. Van Brunt in command, and became flagship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, commanded by Flag Officer Silas Stringham. She arrived at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 13 May and the next day captured the schooners Mary Willis, Delaware Farmer, and Emily Ann. Minnesota took the bark Winfred on the 25th and the bark Sally McGee on 26 June. Schooner Sally Mears became her prize 1 July and bark Mary Warick struck her colors to the steam frigate on the 10th.

Minnesota led a joint Army-Navy expedition, known as the Battle of Hatteras Inlet Batteries, against two important Confederate forts which had been erected at Hatteras Inlet, North Carolina. The squadron opened fire on Fort Clark on the morning of 28 August 1861, forcing the Confederate gunners to abandon the fort at noon. The following day, the fire of the squadron was concentrated on Fort Hatteras. The bombardment was so effective the Confederates were compelled to seek cover in bomb shelters and surrendered.

When Flag Officer Louis M. Goldsborough relieved Stringham in command of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 23 September, he selected Minnesota as his flagship. William B. Cushing, later to distinguish himself for sinking the Confederate ironclad CSS Albemarle, was assigned as a junior officer to the Minnesota.

Battle of Hampton Roads

While blockading off Hampton Roads, 8 March 1862, Minnesota sighted three Confederate warships, Jamestown, Patrick Henry, and led by the unique revolutionary appearance of the CSS Virginia—the former USS Merrimack, (the 1855 steam-powered heavy frigate, rebuilt since burnt/scuttled in 1861 and now protected by riveted iron plates) — rounding Sewell's Point from Norfolk and the Elizabeth River, and heading north across the Hampton Roads harbor to the northern peninsula toward Newport News, Virginia. Minnesota slipped her cables and got underway to engage the Southern warships in a fight that would come to be known as the Battle of Hampton Roads. When about 1.5 miles off-shore from Newport News, the Minnesota grounded.

Meanwhile, CSS Virginia passed the federal frigate Congress and rammed and sank sailing frigate Cumberland. Virginia then engaged Congress compelling her to surrender and setting her afire. Then the rebel iron warship Virginia, along with Jamestown, and Patrick Henry bombarded the stranded Minnesota killing and wounding several of her crew before the Union Navy warship's heavy guns drove them off. Minnesota also fired upon Virginia with her pivot gun. Toward twilight the Southern ironclad withdrew southward back across the harbor toward Norfolk and the Elizabeth River.

The recoil from her broadside guns forced Minnesota further upon the mud bank. All night, steam tug boats worked to pull and haul her off the bottom, but to no avail. However, during the night USS Monitor arrived from its southward trip down the East Coast from New York City. "All on board felt we had a friend that would stand by us in our hour of trial," wrote Captain Gershom Jacques Van Brunt (1798-1863), the stranded and damaged Minnesota vessel's commander, in his official report to the Navy Department, the day after the engagement in Hampton Roads. Early the next morning, the CSS Virginia reappeared. As the range closed, the now guarding little Monitor, steaming between Minnesota and the iron-clad Southern attacker, fired gun after gun from her revolving turret, and the Virginia returned fire with whole broadsides from her numerous cannon on both of her sides, but neither with much apparent effect on the other. Virginia, finding she could not hurt Monitor, then turned her attention to the grounded Minnesota, who answered with all remaining guns. Virginia fired from her rifled bow gun a shell which passed through the wooden Union warship's chief engineer's stateroom, through the engineers' mess room, amidships, and burst in the boatswain's room, exploding two charges of powder there, starting a fire onboard the vulnerable wooden frigate which was promptly extinguished.

At midday Virginia withdrew southwards back toward Norfolk, and the Union Navy tugs resumed its efforts to refloat Minnesota. Early the next morning, the 1859 side-paddlewheel steamship S. R. Spaulding (on duty as a hospital ship with the Hospital Transport Service of the United States Sanitary Commission) joined the several tugs and managed to pull free and refloat the heavy frigate, and she sailed east and anchored under the protecting guns opposite Fortress Monroe (still Union-occupied) at Old Point Comfort for temporary repairs.

Seven African-American sailors of the Union Navy manned the forward gun of the federal vessel. This black crew mustered in earlier at Boston, Massachusetts, and included William Brown, Charles Johnson, George Moore, George H. Roberts, George Sales, William H. White and Henry Williams.

During the two-day engagement, the Minnesota shot off 78 rounds of 10-inch solid shot; 67 rounds of 10-inch solid shot with 15-second fuse; 169 rounds of 9-inch solid shot; 180 9-inch shells with 15-second fuse; 35 8-inch shells with 15-second fuse and expended 5,567.5 pounds of service gunpowder.

Battles of Fort Fisher (Wilmington, North Carolina)

For the next few years she served as flagship of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron for the Union Navy / United States Navy. During the Battle of Suffolk at Norfleet House on 14 April 1863, four of the Minnesota's sailors, Coxswains Robert Jordan and Robert B. Wood and Seamen Henry Thielberg and Samuel Woods, earned the famous congressional Medal of Honor while temporarily assigned to the accompanying USS Mount Washington. While anchored off Newport News on 9 April 1864, the Minnesota was attacked by the Confederate States naval torpedo boat Squib, which exploded a torpedo charge alongside the federal warship, fortunately without causing substantial damage and escaped.

On 24 and 25 December 1864, Minnesota took part in the joint Union Navy and Army amphibious operations at the Confederate bastion of Fort Fisher which guarded Wilmington, North Carolina (the First Battle of Fort Fisher) upstream on the Cape Fear River, the last major open seaport of the South to the outside world. During the landings she took a position about a mile downstream from the fort and laid down a devastating artillery barrage on the Confederate stronghold. However, Union General Benjamin F. Butler (1818-1893), withdrew his troops, nullifying the previous gains won by the joint Army-Navy effort.

Three weeks later in January 13-15, 1865, the Union Navy returned with more Federal Army troops, now commanded by the much more vigorous and aggressive General Alfred Terry (1827-1890), to Fort Fisher for a second effort (the Second Battle of Fort Fisher). A landing force of 240 men from Minnesota, covered by a cannonade barrage from their own ship, participated in the successful assault. This operation finally after four years of effort closed outside access to the city and port of Wilmington, denying the collapsing southern Confederacy the use of this very last open invaluable major seaport, just three months before the end of the war in the East.

During the Second Battle of Fort Fisher of January 1865, nine sailors and Marines from the Minnesota earned the congressional Medal of Honor as part of the landing party which assaulted the fort. The nine men were:

• Landsman Gurdon H. Barter
• Seaman David L. Bass
• Ordinary Seaman Thomas Connor
• Ordinary Seaman Thomas Harcourt
• Seaman Charles Mills
• Corporal John Rannahan
• Private John Shivers
• Private Henry A. Thompson
• Ordinary Seaman Franklin L. Wilcox

Prizes

Later service

Ordered back north to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine / Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Minnesota was then decommissioned and stricken from the lists of the U.S. Navy on 16 February 1865. She was recommissioned however two years later on 3 June 1867 and made a cruise with midshipmen across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. She was subsequently placed in ordinary (holding status) at the New York Navy Yard on 13 January 1868. Recommissioned again after eight years on 12 June 1875, she remained at the New York Navy Yard as a gunnery and training ship for naval seamen apprentices.

In 1881 she was transferred to Newport, Rhode Island where she served as the flagship of the U.S. Navy Training Squadron. From 1881 to 1884 she was commanded by Captain Stephen Luce (1827-1917), who founded the Naval War College there at the end of his command tenure in 1884. The warship took part in dedication ceremonies for the famous Brooklyn Bridge across the East River (between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn) in New York City on 24 May 1883.

Three sailors assigned to Minnesota were awarded the Medal of Honor during this period: Captain of the Top William Lowell Hill and Ship's Cook Adam Weissel for rescuing fellow sailors from drowning in separate 1881 incidents, and Second Class Boy John Lucy for his actions during a fire at the Castle Garden immigration facility in 1876.

In October 1895, Minnesota was loaned to the Massachusetts Naval Militia, continuing that duty for six years until August 1901 when she was sold by the government to the Thomas Butler & Company of Boston. She eventually was stripped and burned to salvage her iron fittings at nearby Eastport, Maine.

See also

• List of steam frigates of the United States Navy
• List of naval ships named for Minnesota
• Bibliography of early American naval history
• Union Navy

References

•  This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.

• Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1989, ISBN 0-87021-783-6.

1. ^ Silverstone, Warships, p. 28.
2. Evans, Mark L. (10 August 2015). "USS Minnesota I (Frigate)". The Navy Department Library (online). Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington D.C.: Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 20 August 2022. Displacement 3,307; length 264' 8½"; beam 51'4"; draft 23'4"; speed 9¼ knots; complement 540; armament one 10-inch smoothbore, 26 9-inch, 14 8-inch; class Minnesota
3. ^ Van Brunt, G.J. (10 March 1862). "Report of Captain Van Brunt, U.S. Navy, commanding the steam frigate USS Minnesota". The Navy Department Library (online). Washington D.C.: Naval History and Heritage Command. Retrieved 20 August 2022. On Saturday, the 8th instant, at 12:45 p.m., three small steamers, in appearance, were discovered rounding Sewell's Point… I was convinced that one was the iron-plated steam battery Merrimack, from the large size of her smoke pipe… I immediately called all hands, slipped my cables, and got underway for that point to engage her… We ran without further difficulty within about 1½ miles of Newport News, and there, unfortunately, grounded… Merrimack had passed the frigate USS Congress and run into the sloop-of-war USS Cumberland, and in fifteen minutes after, I saw the latter going down by the head. The Merrimack then hauled off, taking a position, and about 2:30 p.m. engaged the Congress, throwing shot and shell into her with terrific effect, while the shot from the Congress glanced from her iron-plated sloping sides without doing any apparent damage. At 3:30 p.m. the Congress was compelled to haul down her colors… At 4 p.m. the Merrimack, Jamestown, and Patrick Henry bore down upon my vessel… but with the heavy gun that I could bring to bear upon them I drove them off, one of them apparently in a crippled condition. I fired upon the Merrimack with my pivot 10-inch gun without apparent effect, and at 7 p.m. she too hauled off and all three vessels steamed toward Norfolk… At 2 a.m. the iron battery USS Monitor, Commander John L. Worden, which had arrived the previous evening at Hampton Roads, came alongside and reported for duty, and then all on board felt that we had a friend that would stand by us in our hour of trial. At 6 a.m. the enemy again appeared… All hands were called to quarters, and when she approached within a mile of us I opened upon her with my stern guns and made signal to the Monitor to attack the enemy. She immediately… laid herself right alongside of the Merrimack, and the contrast was that of a pigmy to a giant. Gun after gun was fired by the Monitor, which was returned with whole broadsides from the rebels with no more effect, apparently, than so many pebblestones thrown by a child… In the meantime the rebel was pouring broadside after broadside, but almost all her shot flew over the little submerged propeller, and when they struck the bomb-proof tower, the shot glanced off without producing any effect, clearly establishing the fact that wooden vessels can not contend successfully with ironclad ones… The Merrimack, finding that she could make nothing of the Monitor, turned her attention once more to me. In the morning she had put a 11-inch shot under my counter near the water line, and now, on her second approach, I opened upon her with all my broadside guns and 10-inch pivot a broadside which would have blown out of the water any timber-built ship in the world. She returned my fire with her rifled bow gun with a shell… This time I had concentrated upon her an incessant fire from my gun deck, spar deck, and forecastle pivot guns, and was informed by my marine officer, who was stationed on the poop, that at least fifty solid shot struck her on her slanting side without producing any apparent effect. By the time she had fired her third shell the little Monitor had come down upon her, placing herself between us, and compelled her to change her position, in doing which she grounded, and again I poured into her all the guns which could be brought to bear upon her. As soon as she got off she stood down the bay, the little battery chasing her with all speed, when suddenly the Merrimack turned around and ran full speed into her antagonist. For a moment I was anxious, but instantly I saw a shot plunge into the iron roof of the Merrimack; which surely must have damaged her… Soon after the Merrimack and the two other steamers headed for my ship… I had expended most of my solid shot and my ship was badly crippled and my officers and men were worn out with fatigue, but even then… I ordered every preparation to be made to destroy the ship after all hope was gone to save her. On ascending the poop deck I observed that the enemy's vessels had changed their course and were heading for Craney Island… At 2 a.m. this morning I succeeded in getting the ship once more afloat, and am now at anchor opposite Fortress Monroe.
4. ^ The Monitor, The Merrimack...the U.S.S. Minnesota?
5. Record of Medals of Honor issued to the officers and enlisted men of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. 1917. pp. 63–4, 112–3, 124.
6. "Civil War Medal of Honor Recipients (A–L)". Medal of Honor Citations. United States Army Center of Military History. 6 August 2009. Archived from the original on 2 September 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2009.
7. "Civil War Medal of Honor Recipients (M–Z)". Medal of Honor Citations. United States Army Center of Military History. 3 August 2009. Archived from the original on 23 February 2009. Retrieved 10 August 2009.
8. Release of Prizes, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 27 May 1861, page 2, retrieved 16 August 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13128025/release_of_prizes_the_philadelphia/
9. ^ Philadelphia and the Navy Department, The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) 16 December 1861, page 8, retrieved 16 August 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13128092/the_philadelphia_inquirer/
10. ^ Arrival of Released Schooners, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 28 May 1861, page 1, retrieved 16 August 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/13128060/arrival_of_released_schooners_the/
11. "Medal of Honor recipients – Interim Awards, 1871–1898". Medal of Honor citations. United States Army Center of Military History. 5 August 2010. Archived from the original on 14 May 2017. Retrieved 11 August 2010.

v t e Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1862
Shipwrecks	2 Jan: Northern Light 4 Jan: Santi-Pietri 9 Jan: USS Meteor, USS Potomac 20 Jan: USS Margaret Scott 23 Jan: Ocean Chief 24 Jan: USS Peri 25 Jan: USS New England, USS Stephen Young 26 Jan: USS India, USS Timor 7 Feb: CSS Curlew 8 Feb: CSS Sea Bird 10 Feb: CSS Appomattox, CSS Black Warrior, CSS Fanny, CSS Forrest 20 Feb: USS Isaac N. Seymour 25 Feb: USS R. B. Forbes 8 Mar: USS Congress, USS Cumberland 9 Mar: CSS George Page 10 Mar: USS Whitehall March (unknown date): Camilla (or Memphis) 4 Apr: CSS Red Rover 7 Apr: CSS Grampus 8 Apr: CSS New Orleans 14 Apr: Erebus 19 Apr: USS Maria J. Carlton 24 Apr: CSS General Lovell, CSS Governor Moore, CSS Manassas, CSS Stonewall Jackson, Sweepstakes, USS Varuna 25 Apr: CSS Mississippi, CSRC Pickens, Pioneer, Washington, CSS Pamlico 28 Apr: CSS Louisiana, CSS McRae April (unknown date): CSS Jackson, CSS Oregon, CSS Carondelet 10 May: USS Cincinnati, CSS Germantown, USS Mound City, CSS Fulton 11 May: CSS Virginia 15 May: CSS Jamestown May (unknown date): CSS United States 6 Jun: CSS Colonel Lovell, CSS General Beauregard, CSS General Bragg, CSS General M. Jeff Thompson, CSS General Sterling Price, CSS General Sumter, CSS Little Rebel 16 Jun: CSS Maurepas 26 Jun: CSS General Earl Van Dorn, CSS Livingston, CSS General Polk 28 Jun: USS Island Belle 15 Jul: Johanna Wagner, USS Sidney C. Jones 21 Jul: USS Sallie Wood 24 Jul: Lord of the Isles 6 Aug: CSS Arkansas 14-15 Aug: USS Sumter 23 Aug: USS Adirondack 24 Aug: USS Henry Andrew, USS Isaac N. Seymour 10 Sep: USS Tigress 2 Oct: Iona 15 Oct: G. L. Brockenborough 25 Nov: USS Ellis November (unknown date): USS Mingo 12 Dec: USS Cairo 31 Dec: USS Monitor Unknown date: USS Noble
Other incidents	11 Jan: HMS St Vincent January (unknown date): Mona's Queen 22 Feb: HMS Defence February: USS Vermont 8 Mar: USS Minnesota 8 May: USS Galena 13 May: Planter 23 Jun: Memphis 7 Aug: USS Oneida 17 Aug: Great Eastern 15 Nov: Admiral Moorsom 22 Nov: USS Bainbridge Unknown date: Young America
1861 1863

• Ships built in Washington, D.C.
• Ships of the Union Navy
• Gunboats of the United States Navy
• American Civil War patrol vessels of the United States
• Sailing frigates of the United States Navy
• Minnesota in the American Civil War
• Steamships of the United States Navy
• Steam frigates
• 1855 ships
• Maritime incidents in March 1862