| Ammonoosuc was laid down by the Boston Navy Yard sometime
during the first half of 1863 and was launched, apparently without ceremony,
on 21 July 1864. |
| From the outbreak of the Civil War, the Lincoln Administration
seemed to feel that the British Government's sympathies lay with the Confederacy.
The Trent Affair further strained American - British relations, and
the terrible toll exacted form Union shipping by commerce - raiding Confederate
cruisers built in England forced the Union Navy to make contingency plans
for what appeared to be an increasingly likely war with England. |
| With the Royal Navy in many respects considerably more powerful
than its American counterpart, the United States Navy decided that -- should
open hostilities with Queen Victoria's empire break our -- it would adopt
its traditional strategy of preying on British merchant shipping. To prepare
for such an eventuality, the Federal Navy Department embarked upon a program
of developing very fast seagoing steamships capable of overtaking all ships
they might pursue and of escaping from any they might wish to elude. |
| Ammonoosuc was on of these steamers. Her hull was designed
by Benjamin Franklin Delano to hold a pair of extremely powerful engines
to be built at New York by the Morgan Iron Works according to plans drawn
by Benjamin Franklin Isherwood for the screw frigate Wampanoag. These
engines were not ready when Ammonoosuc was launched and the collapse
of the Confederacy prompted a significant slowdown on the work as that all
but eliminated the Navy's need for fast, new warships. The engines were finally
finished late in 1867, and Ammonoosuc's hull was towed to New York
so that they might be installed. |
| By late in the spring of 1868, the ship was finally ready to go
to sea under her own power and -- under the command of Comdr. William D.
Whiting -- departed New York on 15 June for a run to Boston at full speed.
Dense fog over much of her course prevented her from proceeding at top velocity
during most of the passage, but during on three-hour period she averaged
17.11 knots while moving from Cape Cod to Fort Warren, the highest sustained
speed ever attained by a ship up to that time. |
| Nevertheless, since an unusually large proportion of the space
within her hull was taken up by her powerful engines and related machinery,
the ship was not commissioned. Instead, she was laid up in the Boston Navy
Yard. While there, Ammonoosuc was renamed Iowa on 15 May 1869.
She was sold at Boston on 27 September 1883 to the firm of Hubel and Porter,
of Syracuse, New York. |
Displacement, 3,850; Length 335'; Beam 44'4"; Depth
of hold, 16'6"; Draft, 10'6"; Speed, 17.11 knots; Armament, ten 9" smooth
bore, three 60-pdr. rifle, two 24-pdr. smooth bore |
|
Bibliography
 |
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval
Fighting Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1991), Vol.1 -- Part A, p. 264 |
|
|
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval
Fighting Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1968, Reprint 1977), Vol.3: G-K, p. 453 |
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