The sidewheel steamer "Tennessee" was built in Baltimore by John A. Robb for James Hooper's Baltimore-Charleston shipping route. Launched in 1853, she was modeled closely after the William Webb steamship "Nashville," later burned to prevent capture under the Confederate States name of "Rattlesnake." "Tennessee" was launched shortly after the famous early 1853 wreck of an 1849 Webb shipyard steamer of the same name, piled up on rocks near the Golden Gate in San Francisco. Robb sent her across the bay for engines and machinery by Charles Reeder & Sons, pioneering Baltimore steam engine builder and machinery foundry.

After varied commercial service under different owners' flags - including the first trans-Atlantic crossing by a Baltimore steamer and the first scheduled commercial steamship service between New York and South America - "Tennessee" became the property of Charles H. Morgan's Southern Steamship company. Morgan expanded her passenger capacity from 100 to more than 250. He put her to work in October, 1856, initially delivering Gold Rush "Californios" and "filibuster" recruits for William Walker's army of adventurers in Nicaragua - sometimes crammed with more than 500 passengers at once.

Later Morgan put "Tennessee" on the Vera Cruz - New Orleans route, on which she became a well-known vessel carrying freight and passengers - often, large sums of Mexican silver coin destined for points beyond. In 1860, Morgan sent his ship to New York for maintenance, including a new double-return flue boiler set and coppering of her hull.

Early effect of the war:

In April, 1861, outbreak of war trapped numerous Morgan ships in both Northern and Southern harbors. According to Stephen R. Wise, "Lifeline of the Confederacy," the State of Louisiana "impressed" three of Morgan's vessels at New Orleans, including "Tennessee." However, this effort failed to take effect, and only in January, 1862, did the Confederacy forcibly purchase the ship, through a civilian third party, for $100,000.

Quickly armed and heavily loaded with cotton for export to the high-paying markets of France, "Tennessee" became the centerpiece of an elaborate scheme by Confederate Secretary of War Benjamin Judah and New Orleans Confederate commander Maj. M. Lovell, CSA, to buy arms, nitrates for gunpowder, and other vital supplies in France. All the effort came to naught, because the heavily-laden ship was never able to get out of the Mississippi Delta in the face of the Union blockade. During this time, the ship may not have ever been formally commissioned into the Confederate navy, for she remained technically the property of the civilian third party.

Rather, on April 26, 1862, would-be Confederate blockade runner "Tennessee" was taken as a prize of war and put into Union service. She was, according to U.S. Navy officer and memoir writer Frederic Stanhope Hill, "Among the few vessels that escaped destruction at New Orleans by the Confederates ...." Hill, in his 1903 book "Twenty-Six Historic Ships," notes that as a young junior officer, he was sent with a rowboat of men to take possession of the ship. At 11 am May 8, 1862, the ship was commissioned "U.S. Steamer Tennessee" in the Union Navy by Lt. C.H. Swazey, USN. The next day, Lt. Swazey turned command over to Lt. P.C. Johnson, USN. In between the capture and commissioning, "Tennessee" ferried Gen. Benjamin Butler's troops into the Crescent City for occupation duty, carried coal to Union ships on the river, and delivered dispatches.

On blockade and in the Mississippi Campaign:

By 1863, official dispatches show the USS "Tennessee" busy with the blockade of Texas ports on the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes she runs down and captures Confederate blockade-runners; other times, she is employed as a hospital ship in times of emergency, a dispatch ship, and even a coal ship (her large cargo capacity is a valuable asset to the hard-pressed Union Navy). Based on her armament of 5 guns and carrying a crew of 217, "Tennessee" is classed a fast and dangerous "third rate" vessel of war.

On May 21, 1863, Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, USN, orders the USS "Tennessee" made ready to use as his flagship for the crucial final months of the bitter Mississippi River campaign. By June 25, Adm. Farragut writes that "I have the 'Tennessee' for my 'vedette vessel' and will try to make myself a little comfortable aboard her." Later, he explains to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, "I deemed it most to the interest of the service to take as a temporary flagship the prize steamer 'Tennessee." ... She has abundant room for all the staff, and it will enable me to run around my station without putting the commanders of other vessels to inconvenience ...."

As Adm. Farragut's forgotten flagship, USS "Tennessee" fought in the battle for Port Hudson and the defeat of Confederate counter-attacks along the lower Mississippi. The sidewheeler was where Adm. Farragut wrote joyful reports on the news of Vicksburg's surrender, the fall of Port Hudson, the repulse of Confederate forces at Donaldsonville, and, prophetically, the repulse of Gen. Robert E. Lee, CSA, at Gettysburg. As well, Adm. Farragut was aboard USS "Tennessee" when he received word to deliver command of the now-conquered Mississippi River to Rear Admiral David Porter, USN, in order to sail to New York when his best-known flagship, USS "Hartford," went North for refit and repair.

On Adm. Farragut's departure, USS "Tennessee" returned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and duty suppressing Confederate trade in the region about southern Texas. During her West Gulf Blockade service, "Tennessee' took part in capturing a blockade runner with a famous name, "Alabama." This was not, however, the famous British-built Confederate commerce raider, but a steamer enroute "from Havana to Mobile, cargo assorted," according to the official report of Lt. Commander W.K Mayo, commanding the USS "Kanawha." Lt. Cdr. Mayo wrote that the Union blockade ships chased the fugitive into shallow waters around the Chandeleur Islands, and then was taken by the combined action of "Tennessee" and the USS "Eugenie."

Also during 1863, USS "Tennessee" captured two other blockade runners, ships "Jane" and "Friendship."

Battle of Mobile Bay:

Although virtually every account of the greatest naval conflict of the American Civil War focuses entirely on the fleet of ships that sailed below the guns of Forts Gaines and Morgan to dare the "torpedoes" (mines, in modern parlance) and fight with Confederate ships in Mobile Bay, there was a second fleet engaged in the conflict. Five wooden sidewheel warships, "Tennessee" among them, protected the backs of the assault fleet and bombarded Fort Morgan mercilessly. USS "Tennessee's" erstwhile commander, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant P. Giraud, couldn't bear to be out of the fight and managed a temporary billet aboard the Union ship "Ossipee." When the famous armored Confederate ram CSN "Tennessee" surrendered, Lt. Giraud was sent aboard, received the sword of surrender from the Confederate commander, and took it to Admiral Farragut. Lt. Giraud was then given temporary command of ex-CSN "Tennessee," perhaps the only man in the battle to command two ships on different sides with the same name.

Details of this action and USS "Tennessee's" role come both from official dispatches under Adm. Farragut's name as well as an 1878 paper published by Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, USN, "The Battle of Mobile Bay and the Capture of Forts Powell, Gaines, and Morgan." parker noted that the captured soldiers, sailors and officers were transported to New Orleans by the USS "Tennessee and USS "Bienville."

The propaganda and morale value of taking the feared Confederate ram ship under Federal colors meant that the sidewheeler must have a different name - and in honor of her service, on Sept. 1, 1863, she became the USS "Mobile."

Final war duty:

On Sept. 15, 1864, Adm. Farragut wrote a delighted note to Sec. Gideon Welles: "The "Tennessee,' now the 'Mobile," chased their (the Confederates') fastest vessel the other day and compelled him to throw overboard his entire cargo of cotton, his anchors and chains, and even his furniture, and then only made his escape in a squall after dark." Later, Adm. Farragut expanded on this report, noting ""She became the terror of the blockade runners. ... (B)ut for her coal giving out and a squall, she would have captured their fastest steamer, the 'Susana'." Another of her prizes during 1864 was the "Allison."

During her short time back on blockade after the Battle of Mobile Bay, USS "Mobile" captured the brig "Annie Virdon," running under false British colors and commanded by a renegade Northerner. Days later, despite being damaged by a hurricane while anchored at the mouth of the Rio Grande, "Mobile" takes two prizes, the schooners "Emily" and "Louisa." These are her last actions. USS "Mobile" was sent to New York for repairs, and de-commissioned at Brooklyn naval Yard in December, 1864. She had seen so much hard service since her last refit in 1860 that her boilers were ruined, her machinery in disrepair, and her hull badly wrenched by the hurricane.

As SS Republic:

Ironically, the "Mobile" was sold at a dockside auction in March, 1865, to a group of owners that included American-born British banking mogul Russell Sturgis, who had been instrumental in financing many business deals for the Confederacy in the United Kingdom during the Civil War. Sturgis owned a number of ships that sailed in a shipping cooperative named the "Black Star Line." The vessel was re-named "Republic" on her registration certificate. She was sent to New York for repairs, and in late April, 1865, began service between new York and New Orleans, at first on charter to William H. Robson. In the midst of her third voyage South, SS "Republic's" charter was transferred to the H.B. Cromwell shipping line. On Wednesday, April 18, 1865, "Republic" left New York at 3 p.m. on her fifth post-war civilian voyage. It was her last trip.

She was caught at sea off Savannah, Georgia, by a hurricane. On Wednesday, Oct. 25, "Republic" slipped below the waves at 4 p.m. None of the 80 souls aboard were lost in the sinking, but one or possibly two drowned while swimming from the sinking ship to the lifeboats and a jury-rigged raft. Captain Ernest Young actually went down with his ship after making heroic efforts to get his passengers and then his crew safely aboard the boats and raft. However, Young struggled back to the surface and eventually reached shore alive. Another 14, or possibly 16, persons died while adrift on the raft for a week.

Discovery of the wreck:

Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, Florida, spent years looking for the wreck of the SS "Republic." The ship was eventually located in more than 1700 feet of water during the Summer of 2003. Odyssey, a commercial marine archaeology organization, surveyed the vessel and surrounding area, and archaeologically excavated the wreck. More than 51,000 gold and silver coins, part of a freight shipment originally intended for commercial interests in New Orleans, were recovered, along with many thousands of bottles and artifacts from the ship's cargo. The ship's bell, still inscribed with her launch name, "Tennessee," was found in the sand nearby the shattered ship's hull. Her vertical walking beam engine yet stood upright above the crumbling ruins of a once-proud ship, while the sidewheels towered in ghostly stillness to either side.

The ship's war service is documented in an internal Odyssey publication, "Civil War Record of the Sidewheel Steamer 'Tennessee'," by J. Lange Winckler, Historian, Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. Copyright 2007, Odyssey Marine Exploration. SS Republic is a trademarked name owned by Odyssey Marine Exploration.

Sources used include those cited above, as well as the official archives of both the Union and Confederates Navies, archives of Union and Confederate Armies, newspaper accounts in New Orleans, Charleston, S.C., and New York, private letters of passengers who survived the ship's sinking, Federal court records in New York, archives of Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company, "American Steamships on the Atlantic" by Cedric Ridgely-Nevitt, and "Early American Steamers" by Erik Heyl. (A note to researchers: Heyl's wonderful six-volume work is monumental and quite useful, but also is often in error)

J. Lange Winckler

Historian

Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.