USS Agamenticus (1863)
.jpg) USS Agamenticus shortly after her completion in 1865. | |
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS Agamenticus |
| Builder: | Portsmouth Navy Yard |
| Laid down: | 1862 |
| Launched: | 19 March 1863 |
| Commissioned: | 5 May 1864 |
| Decommissioned: | 10 June 1872 |
| Renamed: | USS Terror, 15 June 1869 |
| Fate: | Broken up, 1874 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Miantonomoh-class monitor |
| Displacement: | 3,400 long tons (3,455 t) |
| Length: | 258 ft 6 in (78.79 m) |
| Beam: | 52 ft 9 in (16.08 m) |
| Draft: | 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m) |
| Propulsion: | 4 Martin boilers Ericsson vibrating lever engine, 1,400 ihp (1,044 kW) 2 shafts |
| Speed: | 8.5 knots (15.7 km/h; 9.8 mph) |
| Complement: | 150 officers and men |
| Armament: | 4 × 15 in (380 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns (2×2) |
| Armor: | Iron Side: 5 in (130 mm) Turrets: 10 in (250 mm) Deck: 1.5 in (38 mm) |
USS Agamenticus was a Miantonomoh-class monitor of the United States Navy, named after Mount Agamenticus in York County, Maine.
The twin-screw, double-turreted ironclad monitor was laid down sometime in 1862 at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine and launched on 19 March 1863. Since operational experience with the monitors during the American Civil War had shown the necessity for better ship-control and navigational facilities, Agamenticus underwent alterations in the first few months of 1864, notably the addition of a "hurricane deck" that extended between the two turrets and over the machinery spaces amidships.
Service history
Commissioned on 5 May 1864 at Portsmouth, Lieutenant Commander C. H. Cushman in command, Agamenticus operated off the northeast coast of the United States, from Maine to Massachusetts, until decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 30 September 1865. She remained laid-up for nearly five years and, during that time, on 15 June 1869, was renamed Terror.
She reentered commissioned service in late May 1870. The monitor operated in the western Atlantic and in the Gulf of Mexico until June 1872, when she was again laid up, this time at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. Two years later, she was broken up and her name used in building a new monitor, which was finally commissioned more than two decades later as USS Terror.
References
- This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
- Canney, Donald L. (1993). The Old Steam Navy: The Ironclads, 1842–1885 2. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-586-8.
- Olmstead, Edwin; Stark, Wayne E.; Tucker, Spencer C. (1997). The Big Guns: Civil War Siege, Seacoast, and Naval Cannon. Alexandria Bay, New York: Museum Restoration Service. ISBN 0-88855-012-X.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (2006). Civil War Navies 1855-1883. The U.S. Navy Warship Series. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-97870-X.