USS «Майами»: Корабль Гражданской войны в США

American side wheel steamer gunboat

The first USS Miami was a side wheel steamer, double ender gunboat in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Miami was launched by Philadelphia Navy Yard on November 16, 1861, and commissioned there on January 29, 1862, Lieutenant Abram Davis Harrell in command.

The wooden hulled gunboat was ordered February 5, 1862, to proceed to Ship Island, Mississippi for duty in the Mortar Flotilla organized to neutralize Confederate riverside forts during Admiral David Farragut's impending attack on New Orleans, Louisiana. Miami reached Ship Island on March 19 and headed for Pass a l'Outre where she entered the Mississippi River to join Commander David Dixon Porter's flotilla. During the next few weeks she was busy preparing for the assault. On April 13, Miami joined Westfield, Clifton, Oneida, and Harriet Lane and steamed upstream. A Confederate steamer exchanged fire with Union ships before scurrying upriver to safety. Early in the morning, five days later, Miami towed three mortar schooners to predesignated positions below Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson when the Union ships bombarded the Confederate works which guarded the approach to New Orleans. The shelling continued intermittently until it reached crescendo before dawn on April 24 as Admiral Farragut led his deep draft, salt water fleet up the Mississippi in a daring dash past the forts. Miami remained below with the mortar schooners providing covering fire for Farragut's ships as they ran the gauntlet. When the Federal vessels had reached safety, Miami turned to transporting U. S. Army troops to positions for launching an attack on the forts by land, and continued the task until the forts surrendered to the Navy on April 28. Farragut ordered the Mortar Flotilla to Ship Island on May 1 to prepare for action against Mobile, Alabama. Porter left Ship Island with his steamers and
Sachem on May 7 for Mobile Bay to prepare for an attack. After planting buoys to mark safe channels for Farragut's deep draft ships, the steamers returned to Ship Island. On May 10 Porter, who had remained off Mobile on blockade duty, reoccupied Pensacola, Florida after it bad been burned and abandoned by Confederate troops. Although most military and naval installations in the area had been destroyed or severely damaged by thorough Southern demolition work, Porter recognized the strategic advantages of Pensacola as a naval base and shifted his flotilla there from Ship Island.

Meanwhile, Farragut, upon returning from a daring expedition up the Mississippi River to Vicksburg, Mississippi had received "stringent orders to send a large force up the river" to join forces with Admiral Charles Henry Davis' western flotilla in clearing the entire Mississippi Valley. He accordingly sent for Porter's mortar schooners to shell the heights of Vicksburg which could not be reached by his flotilla's guns. Miami reached New Orleans on June 7 and spent the following fortnight towing schooners upriver. She reached Vicksburg on June 21 for a week's service moving schooners in and out of firing positions and shelling the cliffside batteries herself. On June 28 her guns engaged the Confederate cannon while Farragut's ships ran by the Vicksburg batteries to join the armed riverboats of Admiral Davis' Western Flotilla. The joining of the salt water and fresh water squadrons buoyed morale throughout the North, but the strategic potential of the feat was largely nullified by a lack of ground forces to take and hold key points along the river. Farragut returned to the lower river on July 15. Miami departed Ship Island on September 1 and arrived at Fort Monroe on September 9. After two months devoted to reconnaissance duty up the James River, blockade duty in Hampton Roads, and refitting, Miami got underway from Norfolk, Virginia on November 9 and entered the North Carolina sounds the following day. There she helped enforce the blockade, deterred Confederate military activity and gathered intelligence.