Categories: AmericanCivil War

Photographs of the USS Camanche

One of the most famous ships in American naval history is the USS Monitor, one of the first ironclads. But the Monitor was more than just a single ship. The United States built dozens of monitors on a similar pattern. One of these was the USS Camanche, and it is special in that the Library of Congress contains a series of images that document its career.

The Camanche was destined for the defense of the West Coast, but San Francisco didn’t have the infrastructure to manufacture and build the ship. So she was prefabricated in New Jersey, then taken apart and loaded aboard the Aquila and sent around Cape Horn. The Aquila completed the long voyage safely, but when she arrived in San Francisco she sank in port during the heavy storm. A salvage crew was sent out from the east, and they were able to re float the Aquila. The parts for the Camanche were also retrieved, making her perhaps the only ship to sink and be salvaged before she was even begun.

The Deck
Engines to control the rotation of the turret
Laying the Deck Armour
The Ship’s Propeller
The Ram

The Camanche was reassembled in San Francisco, California. She was launched on November 14th, 1865, and commissioned May, 1865. However, by this time the Civil War was over, and immediate naval threats to the West Coast were gone. Nonetheless, the ironclad would remain in the area, decommissioned, for several decades. She returned to active service in 1896 to serve as a training ship for the California militia. In 1898 she was reactivated for a short time during the Spanish-American War, but she saw no service. She was sold on March 22,1899. Her fate is unknown, though photographs probably show her in San Francisco in 1902.

Launch of the Monitor
The Camanche in Port in San Francisco
USS Camanche at the Navy Yard

You can read more about the ship’s career in this article.

Joshua Horn

Share
Published by
Joshua Horn

Recent Posts

The Mystery of a Missing Bradford Letter

Image by Jeff Nelson under CC BY-SA 2.0 I recently came across a snippet from…

5 days ago

Captain Sam Chapman: Mosby’s Fighting Parson

Along the banks of the Shenandoah River, in the beautiful Page Valley near Luray, Virginia,…

3 weeks ago

On Bradford’s Trail: Amsterdam

One of Amsterdam's famous canals Nieuwe Kerk, on Amsterdam's central square, was built in the…

4 weeks ago

The Insane Killer of John Wilkes Booth

We explore the closing days of the Civil War, when the victorious president Abraham Lincoln…

4 weeks ago

General Andrew Pickens: Ring Fight!

A tall and bronzed militia captain named Andrew Pickens led his scouts steadily forward to…

4 weeks ago

Eliza Lucas Pinckney: She Smiles at the Future

There are few young ladies today who relish getting up at 5 AM.  Even fewer…

2 months ago