| The First Wyoming was actually named for a valley in Luzerne
County, eastern Pennsylvania, that runs along the Susquehanna River. |
| The first Wyoming -- a wooden-hulled screw sloop-of-war
-- was laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in July 1858; launched on
19 January 1859; sponsored by Miss Mary Florida Grice; and commissioned in
October 1859, Comdr. John K. Mitchell in command. |
| Wyoming soon sailed via Cape Horn for the Pacific and arrived
off the coast of Nicaragua in April 1860. There, she relieved Levant
and operated along the Pacific coast of the United States and Central America
into the spring of 1861. During that time, she participated in the search
for the sloop Levant when that warship disappeared in the late autumn
of 1860. |
| The outbreak of the Civil War found Wyoming at San Francisco,
California, preparing for another cruise. She was instructed to remain in
the vicinity of the Golden Gate to protect mail steamers operating off the
California coast, but Comdr. Mitchell -- a naval officer of Southern origins
and persuasion -- defied his orders and took his ship to Panama
instead. |
| Mitchell's flagrant disobedience cost him his command and also
resulted in his dismissal from the service. As a result, Wyoming came
under the temporary command of her executive officer, Lt. Francis K. Murray,
on 4 July 1861. While returning to Monterey, California, Wyoming was
plagued by mishaps. First, her bottom struck a coral head off La Paz, Mexico,
and was pulled free only after three days aground during which she lost her
false keel. She then ran short of coal and arrived at Monterey with empty
bunkers. |
| Wyoming subsequently shifted to San Francisco where, on
9 August, she received a new commanding officer, Comdr. David Stockton McDougal.
The warship then proceeded to the coast of Lower California to protect American
whaling interests against possible incursions by Confederate cruisers. After
that service, she operated in South American waters into 1862. |
| Following repairs at Mare Island, Wyoming received orders
-- dated 16 June 1862 -- to proceed immediately to the Far East in search
of "armed privateer cruisers fitted out out by the rebels" and soon headed
west, bound for the Orient. |
| Word of the Union ship's subsequent appearance in Far Eastern
waters spread fast and far. In the Strait of Sunda, off Java, Capt. Raphael
Semmes, the commanding officer of Confederate cruiser,
Alabama, learned
from an English brig of Wyoming's arrival in the East Indies; and
a Dutch trader later confirmed this report. On 26 October, Semmes wrote
confidently in his journal that "Wyoming is a good match for this
ship," and "I have resolved to give her battle. She is reported to be cruising
under sail -- probably with banked fires -- and anchors, no doubt, under
Krakatoa every night, and I hope to surprise her, the moon being near its
full." |
| Although in their search for each other, Wyoming and
Alabama unknowingly came close to each other, they never met; and
it would be up to another Union warship, the sloop
Kearsarge,
to destroy the elusive Confederate raider. Yet, despite being unsuccessful
in tracking down Confederate cruisers, Wyoming did render important
serviced to uphold the honor of the American flag in the Far East the following
year, 1863. |
| Ordered to Philadelphia that spring -- after what had been a largely
fruitless cruise -- Wyoming was in the midst of preparations to leave
the East Indies Station when an event occurred that changed her plans. |
| In May 1863, Wyoming had "showed the flag" to Yokohama,
standing by to protect American lives and property during an outbreak of
anti-foreign agitation in Japan. Nevertheless, that agitation continued into
the early summer months, as the Japanese began to resent all foreigners in
their country. Urged by his advisors, the Japanese Mikado had set 25 June
1863 as the date for the expulsion of all aliens. |
| Although he was largely powerless to force compliance with his
directive, some officials took it literally and tried to implement it. One
attempt of this kind was made by the powerful local ruler of the clan of
Choshiu, the Prince Nagato. |
| That clan, the most warlike in Japan and the one which could be
said to have been the forerunner of the modern Japanese Army, threw down
the gauntlet to western nations on 26 June. At on o'clock that morning, two
armed vessels -- illegally flying the flag of the Japanese central government,
or shogunate, attacked the American merchantman Pembroke, bound for
Nagasaki and Shanghai, as she lay anchored in the Strait of Shimonoseki.
Fortunately, Pembroke suffered no casualties; got underway; and moved
out of danger, escaping via Bungo Strait and continuing her voyage for Shanghai,
post-haste, without making her scheduled stop at Nagasaki. |
| Word of the incident did not reach Yokohama from Japanese sources
until 10 July. That evening, mail from Shanghai brought "authentic information"
confirming the Japanese report. The United States Minister in Japan, Robert
H. Pruyn, sent for the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Japanese government
and informed him -- in the presence of Comdr. McDougal -- of the gravity
of the situation, stressing that an insult to the American flag was a serious
matter. After being told by Pruyn that the United states government would
demand satisfaction and expect a statement from the Japanese concerning the
offense, the Japanese diplomat begged that the Americans do nothing until
his government at Yedo (later named Tokyo) would take action. |
| After the Japanese left, McDougal told Pruyn that he had decided
to proceed instantly to the Shimonoseki Strait to seize and, if necessary,
to destroy, the offending vessels. The two men agreed that failure to punish
the outrage properly would encourage further anti-foreign incidents. |
| Accordingly, Wyoming prepared for sea. At 04:45 on 13 July,
Comdr. McDougal called all hands; and the sloop got underway 15 minutes later,
bound for the strait. After a two-day voyage, Wyoming arrived off
the island of Hime Shima on the evening of 15 July and anchored off the south
side of that island. |
| At 0500 the following morning, Wyoming weighed anchor and
steamed toward the Strait of Shimonoseki. She went to general quarters at
nine, loaded her pivot guns with shell, and cleared for action. The warship
entered the strait at 10:45 and beat to quarters. Soon, three signal guns
boomed from the landward, alerting the batteries and ships of the
daimyo Choshiu of Wyoming's arrival. |
| At about 11:15, after being fired upon from the shore batteries,
Wyoming hoisted her colors and replied with her 11-inch pivot guns.
Momentarily ignoring the batteries, McDougal ordered Wyoming to continue
steaming toward a bark, a steamer, and a brig at anchor off the town of
Shimonoseki. Meanwhile, four shore batteries took the warship under fire.
Wyoming answered the Japanese cannon "as fast as the guns could be
brought to bear" while shells from the shore guns passed through her
rigging. |
| Wyoming then passed between the brig and the bark on the
starboard hand and the steamer on the port, steaming within a pistol shot's
range. One shot from either the bark or brig struck near Wyoming's
forward broadside gun, killing two men and wounding four. Elsewhere on the
ship, a marine was struck dead by a piece of shrapnel. |
| Wyoming, in hostile territory, then grounded in uncharted
waters shortly after she had made on run past the forts. The Japanese steamer,
in the meantime, had slopped her cable and headed directly for Wyoming
-- probably to attempt a boarding. The American man-of-war, however, managed
to work free of the mud and then unleashed her 11-inch Dahlgren on the enemy
ship, hulling and damaging her severely. Two well-directed shots exploded
her boilers and, as she began to sink, her crew abandoned the ship. |
| Wyoming then passed the bark and the brig, firing into
them steadily and methodically. Some shells were "overs" and landed in the
town ashore. As Comdr. McDougal wrote in his report to Gideon Wells on 23
July, "the punishment inflicted (upon the daimyo) and in store for
him will, I trust, teach him a lesson that will not soon be forgotten." |
| After having been under fire for a little over an hour,
Wyoming returned to Yokohama. She had been hulled 11 times, with
considerable damage to her smokestack and rigging. Her casualties had been
comparatively light: four men killed and seven wounded -- one of whom later
died. Significantly, Wyoming had been the first foreign warship to
take the offensive to uphold treaty rights in Japan. |
| However, the ship's projected return to Philadelphia did not
materialize due to the supposed continued presence of CSS Alabama
in Far Eastern waters. She repaired her damages, resumed the search and sailed
to the Dutch East Indies. She subsequently voyaged to Christmas Island, examining
it to determine whether or not it was used as a supply base for "the use
of rebel cruisers." Finding the island uninhabited and the report of its
use as a supply base unfounded, Wyoming returned to Anjer, Java, where
McDougal found out, to his surprise, the Alabama had passed the Sunda
Strait on 10 November -- only a day after Wyoming had sailed for Christmas
Island. At noon that day, Alabama and Wyoming had been only
25 miles apart. |
| Writing from Batavia on 22 November, McDougal later reported that
Wyoming had scoured the waters of the East Indies, visiting "every
place in this neighborhood where she (Alabama) would likely lay in
case she intended to remain in this region." Although acknowledg ing that
the conditions of Wyoming's boilers prevented a heavy pressure of
steam from being carried, McDougal promised to make every effort in his power
to find and capture Alabama. |
| Wyoming then cruised to Singapore in search of the Confederate
raider, but found nothing, and continued on to the Dutch settlement of Rhio,
near Sunda Strait. She subsequently sailed north, putting into Cavite, Luzon,
in the Philippine Islands, on Christmas Eve. There, through the courtesy
of the Spanish Navy, Wyoming underwent much-needed boiler repairs
and coaled. She then sailed for Hong Kong and Whampoa, China. |
| Wyoming continued her search for the elusive Alabama
into February of 1864. She sailed to Foochow, China, to protect American
interests and proceeded thence, via Hong Kong, to the East Indies. When the
sloop-of-war reached Batavia, however, Comdr. McDougal found that there was
now no alternative but to return to the United States for repairs, because
the ship's boilers were in such poor condition. Accordingly Wyoming
began her long-delayed return voyage to the United States, via Anjer, the
Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and St. Thomas. After a voyage of almost three
months, she arrived at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 13 July 1864; having
completed a circumnavigation of the globe begun when she left that port following
her commissioning. |
| The presence of CSS
Florida off
the east coast, however, meant another change in plans for the weary
Wyoming. Commodore C. K. Stribling, commandant of the Philadelphia
Navy Yard, ordered the newly arrived screw sloop to sea to search for
Florida. "It is with regret that I send you on this service," Stribling
wrote McDougal, "After so long a cruise, and one in which you have rendered
such important service, yourself, officers and crew, were entitled to a respite
from active service; bit the great importance of capturing the rebel privateer
will, I hope, be an incentive to all under your command cheerfully to perform
this service." |
| Although Wyoming required extensive repairs, she nevertheless
sailed. As events proved, however, Wyoming's machinery -- so long
from repairs in an American navy yard -- proved unequal to the strain. For
five days, the ship attempted to carry out the orders given her -- contending
with fresh northeast winds and a head sea -- but returned to Philadelphia
on 19 July for a complete overhaul. |
| Recommissioned on 11 April 1865, Comdr, John P. Bankhead in command,
Wyoming proceeded to the East Indies Station, via Cape Horn, and reached
Singapore on 25 September 1865, in time to participate in the search for
CSS Shenandoah, a Confederate raider which remained at sea for one
month after the end of the Civil War. Following service on the East Indies
Station into 1866, the screw sloop-of-war was made part of the Asiatic Squadron
with the unit's establishment in 1867. |
| Sailing form Yokohama on 28 April 1867, Wyoming headed
for the island of Formosa. On 13 June, she participated in a punitive expedition
against Foirmosan natives who had murdered the crew of the American merchant
bark Rover that had been wrecked off the coast of Formosa a short
before. During that action, she sent a landing party ashore in company with
one form the sloop Hartford. |
| Subsequently returning to the United States having performed her
last service in the Far East, Wyoming was decommissioned on 19 February
1868 and placed "in ordinary" at Boston, Massachusetts. After extensive repairs
at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Navy Yard, during 1870 and into 1871, Comdr.
John L. Davis in command. |
| From 1872 to 1874, Wyoming operated on the North Atlantic
Station. Her ports of call included Havana, Cuba; Key West, Florida; Aspinwall,
Panama; Santiago, Cuba; Kingston, Jamaica; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Key West,
Florida; Hampton Roads, Virginia; and New Bedford, Massachusetts. After that
tour of duty, cruising and "showing the flag" in the West Indies and Gulf
of Mexico. An early precursor to the Spanish-American War occurred In November
1873 when Spanish authorities in Cuba seized arms running ship
Virginias, illegally flying the American flag on the high seas, and
summarily shot 53 of her passengers and crew. On hearing of this incident,
Wyoming sailed without orders to Santiago and entered a vigorous
protest. Wyoming was decommissioned at the Washington Navy Yard on
30 April 1874 and remained laid up there for the next two years. |
| The veteran screw sloop-of-war became the receiving ship at Washington
in 1877, Wyoming left Washington, loaded articles for the Paris
Exposition, and departed the east coast of the United States on 6 April 1878,
bound for France. After discharging the cargo at Le Havre, France, the ship
visited Rouen, France, and Southampton, England, before she departed the
latter port on 25 June and headed for the United States. She reached Norfolk
on 22 August, shifetd to Washington in mid-September, and to New York in
early November, before she sailed on 26 November for the European Station.
Wyoming reached Vilefranche, France, near the port of Nice, on Christmas
Eve 1878 and remained there into 1879. Wyoming remained in the
Mediterranean into 10 November 1880, touching at many of the more famous
ports in that historic body of water -- and in the Black Sea -- before heading
home late in 1880. |
| Wyoming returned to the United States in early 1881, arriving
at Hampton Roads on 21 May. She sailed for Beaufort,South Carolina, on 15
June and thence proceeded to Annapolis, Maryland. Decommissioned on 30 October
1882 and turned over to the Superintendent of the Naval Academy,
Wyoming spent the next decade employed as a practice ship for midshipmen.
Later taken to Norfolk, Virginia, she was sold at the port on 9 May 1892
to E. J. Butler, of Arlington, Massachutess. |
Displacement 1,457; Length, 198'6"; Beam, 33'2";
Draft, 14'10"; Speed, 11 knots; Complement, 198; Armament, two 11" Dahlgren
smooth bore, one 60-pdr., three 32-pdrs. |
|
buy
this book
