| The sixth Washington -- a revenue cutter of unknown dimensions
-- was the second cutter of that name to serve the Navy. Authorized on 6
July and named on 1 August of 1837, Washington was apparently built
quickly, as orders were issued on 11 November for the ship to conduct "winter
cruising" off the eastern seaboard between New York and the Virginia capes.
She sailed on 18 December on her first cruise. In ensuing years, the ship
cruised that stretch of sea in the winters and conducted sounding and surveying
operations off the coast in the summers of 1838 and 1839. She was rerigged
from a schooner to a brig during that period -- apparently at Baltimore,
Maryland. |
| While sounding between Gardiner's Point and Montauk Point, New
York, in the summer of 1839, the cutter encountered evidence of a grim event
at seal On 26 August, Washington sighted a "suspicious-looking vessel"
at anchor, The brig's commander, Lt. Thomas R. Gedney, USN, sent an armed
party to board the craft. |
| The men fund the suspicious ship to be the schooner
Armistad, of and from Havana, Cuba. She had set sail from the coast
of Africa two months or so before, bound for Guanaja, Cuba. Four days out
of port, the slaves rose and killed the captain and his crew, saving the
two passengers to navigate the ship back to Africa. During the next two months,
in which Armistad had drifted at sea, nine of the slaves had
died.. |
| Washington apparently never encountered a similar event
again. She was transferred to the Coast Survey -- the forerunner of today's
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- on 23 April 1840. For
the next 12 years, the brig operated under the aegis of the Navy, off the
eastern seaboard of the United States on surveying and sounding duties. All
was not entirely tranquil, however, for there were storms to be contended
with. While stationed in Chesapeake Bay in 1846, Washington was dismasted
in a severe gale. Battered and worn but still afloat, the cutter limped to
pert. She had lost 11 men overboard in the tempest, including Lt. George
M. Bache, the ship's commanding officer. |
| When the United States went to war in Mexico, Washington
served with Commodore Matthew C. Perry's forces. Under the command of Lt.
Comdr. S. P. Lee, Washington took part in the capture of Tobasco on
16 June 1847 and contributed six officers and 30 men to a force under the
command of Capt. S. L. Breese that formed part of the 1,173-man landing force
that attacked and captured the Mexican stronghold at Tuxpan. |
| Returned to the Treasure Department on 18 May 1852,
Washington underwent extensive repairs at New York which lasted into
the early winter. Alterations were completed on 9 December 1852, but
Washington remained in the New York area where she operated locally
for the next six years. The cutter participated in the search for the foundering
steamer San Francisco in the second week of January 1854.
Washington, along with five other revenue cutters, sailed almost
simultaneously from their home ports -- ranging from New London, Connecticut,
to Wilmington, Delaware, and from Norfolk to New York; but, unfortunately,
none of the ships fell in with San Francisco. |
| Ordered to the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 1859 to relieve
Robert McClelland, Washington apparently arrived at Southwest
Pass, Louisiana, soon thereafter. She apparently remained there into 1861;
and -- although slated to be relieved, in turn, by Robert McClelland
-- the outbreak of the War Between the States caught the brig at New Orleans
where she was taken over by authorities of Louisiana soon after that state
seceded from the Union on 31 January 1861. Little is known of the ship
thereafter. In June 1861, Cmdr. David Dixon Porter reported that the ship
was being fitted out at New Orleans and was almost ready for sea in the service
of the Confederate States Navy, but no clues to the ship's subsequent career
thereafter have been found. |
Armament, 10 guns |
|
Bibliography
 |
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting
Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977),
Vol.2: C-F, p 580 |
|
|
James L. Mooney, Dictionary of American Naval
Fighting Ships, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office,
1981), Vol.8: W-Z, p. 125 |
|
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