USS Fort Henry

USS Fort Henry was a gunboat which saw service with the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Originally designed as a ferryboat, she was purchased by the Navy before entering commercial service and converted into a fighting vessel. During the war, she took part in the naval blockade of the Confederacy and captured a number of blockade runners. After the war, she was sold to a New York ferry company. Renamed Huntington, she operated for about two years as an East River ferry before being destroyed by fire in 1868.

Not to be confused with USS Fort McHenry (LSD-43).
History
United States
Name: USS Fort Henry
Namesake: A fortification on the Tennessee River
Owner:
Operator: See owners
Christened: Fort Henry
Completed: 1862
Acquired: (by USN): 25 March 1862
Commissioned: 3 April 1862
Decommissioned: 8 July 1865
Renamed:
  • USS Fort Henry (1862)
  • Huntington (1865)
Stricken: 1865 (est.)
Identification: Official no. 11460
Fate: Destroyed by fire at Hunter's Point, 22 February 1868
General characteristics
Tonnage: 552
Displacement: 519 tons
Length: 150 ft 6 in (45.87 m)
Beam: 32 ft (9.8 m)
Draft: 11 ft 9 in (3.58 m)
Propulsion: Steam engine; sidewheels
Armament:
  • two 9" smoothbore guns
  • four 32-pounder guns

Construction and design

Fort Henry was originally one of a batch of six ferryboats ordered by the Union Ferry Company for service on the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn. A wooden-hulled sidewheeler, Fort Henry was built in Brooklyn in 1861-62. She was named after a Confederate fort on the Tennessee River recently conquered by Union forces.[1]

Fort Henry was 150 feet 6 inches (45.87 m) in length, with a beam of 32 feet (9.8 m) and hold depth of 11 feet 9 inches (3.58 m).[1] She had a registered tonnage of 552, and in later naval service, a displacement of 519 long tons.[1] Fort Henry was powered by a single-cylinder steam engine with bore of 38 inches (0.97 m) and stroke of 10 feet (3.0 m),[2][3] built by Henry Esler & Co. of New York.[4] While the engine type is undocumented, Fort Henry's bore and stroke were identical to that of the other five ferries built at the same time for the Union Ferry Co., four of which are known to have been fitted with inclined engines.[lower-alpha 1]

Before she could enter commercial service,[8] Fort Henry was purchased by the US Navy on 25 March 1862 for the sum of $69,689.74.[9] After purchase, the Navy converted the vessel into a gunboat, which included fitting her with two 9-inch smoothbore cannon and four 32-pounder guns. On 3 April 1862, she was commissioned as USS Fort Henry, Acting Lieutenant J. C. Walsh in command.[1]

Service history

Assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, Fort Henry arrived at Key West, Florida, 2 June 1862 for blockade duty in the vicinity of St. George Sound and the Cedar Keys. Highly successful in apprehending blockade runners, she took one sloop in 1862, and in 1863, took four schooners, four sloops, and one smaller craft. In April 1863, with St. Lawrence and Sagamore, she made an expedition to scour the coast between the Suwannee River and Anclote Keys. A sloop was taken off Bayport, Florida, 9 April, where the group engaged an enemy battery and set a schooner aflame with its fire.[1]

On 20 July 1863, Fort Henry sent her launch to reconnoiter the Crystal River, an expedition in which two of her men were killed by fire from the shore.[1]

She sailed north in June 1865, arriving at New York City 19 June, where she was decommissioned 8 July 1865.[1] The following month, Fort Henry along with a number of other decommissioned US Navy ships were put up for auction at New York by Burdett, Jones & Co.[2][3] On 15 August, Fort Henry was sold for $18,500,[9] and passed into the hands of the Long Island Rail Road.[10]

Renamed Huntington, the vessel entered commercial service as a ferry,[10] operating between Manhattan and Hunter's Point, Queens. While still in this service, she was burned to the waterline at Hunter's Point on 22 February 1868.[11][lower-alpha 2] Her estimated value at the time of her loss was $55,000, of which $15,000 was covered by insurance.[11]

Footnotes
  1. The other five ferries were America, Union, Hamilton, Whitehall and Somerset.[4][5][6][7]
  2. Cudahy, probably erroneously, gives the date as the 11th.[12]

References
  1. "Fort Henry". Naval History and Heritage Command. United States Navy. 19 Dec 2014. Retrieved 27 Feb 2020.
  2. "Naval Intelligence". The New York Times. 1865-08-15. p. 2.
  3. "U.S. Government Vessels at Auction". The New York Times. 1865-08-14. p. 6.
  4. "Shipbuilding, &c., in New York" (PDF). The New York Herald. 1862-10-27. p. 2.
  5. "Our Ship-yards" (PDF). New-York Daily Tribune. 1862-08-14. p. 8.
  6. Frazer, John F., ed. (Jun 1863). "The Steamer Hamilton". Journal of the Franklin Institute. 3. Vol. XLV. Philadelphia: Franklin Institute. p. 381.
  7. Cudahy 1990. pp. 428–429.
  8. Cudahy 1990. p. 341.
  9. Daniels 1921. p. 86.
  10. Cudahy 1990. pp. 341, 446.
  11. "Burning of a Ferry Boat". Harrisburg Telegraph. Harrisburg, PA. 1868-02-22. p. 2.
  12. Cudahy 1990. p. 446.

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

Bibliography
  • Cudahy, Brian L. (1990). Over and Back: The History of Ferryboats in New York Harbor. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 341, 428–429, 446. ISBN 0823212459.
  • Daniels, Josephus (ed.). Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. II. 1. Washington, D.C.: United States Government. p. 86.
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