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USS
Adirondack
A mountain group in northern
"bark eaters."
I
(ScSlp:
t. 1,240; l. 207'1"; b. 38'; dph. 16'10"; dr. 10'2"; s. 14 k.; cpl. 160; a. 2
11" sb., 4 32-pdr. sb., 2 24-pdr. sb., 1 12-pdr. sb.; cl. Ossipee)
Adirondack
was laid down
in 1861 by the New York Navy Yard; launched on 22 February 1862; sponsored by Miss Mary
Paulding, a daughter of Flag Officer Hiram Paulding, the Commandant of that
navy yard; and commissioned on 30 June 1862, Comdr. Guert Gansevoort in command.
Although
Adirondack was originally slated for duty in the West Gulf Blockading Squadron,
events in the Bahamas changed her fate. Before she sailed for the gulf, news
reached Washington that
the British-built screw steamer Oreto had arrived at the island of New Providence and,
although constructed under the pretext of being a merchantman destined for service under
the Italian
Government, was in reality a cruiser which was then being fitted out as a
Confederate commerce raider. Thus, on 11 July, Welles ordered Gansevoort to proceed in Adirondack
to the West
Indies to investigate the report.
The
new Union screw-sloop of war departed New York on 17 July and headed for the
Bahamas. Six days out, she chanced upon a schooner and, after a two-hour chase, boarded the
stranger which
proved to be a Baltimore-built vessel named Emma which was operating out of Nassau
under a British colonial register. Since the schooner's master had only recently arrived in
the West Indies in
command of the blockade runner Ann E. Barry, and since Emma was laden
with ". . . articles of great need in the so-called Confederate States," Gansevoort
sent her to Philadelphia under a prize crew.
Two
days later, on the morning of the 25th, when in sight of Nassau but still". . .
beyond the territorial jurisdiction of . . . the British Empire," Gansevoort ". . .
discovered shortly after daylight a steamer standing in for Nassau." He again gave chase and fired upon the fleeing ship;
but, this time, his quarry's speed enabled her to reach the neutral port safely.
Some
two hours later, a boat from the Royal Navy sloop of war Greyhound pulled
alongside Adirondack as she approached Nassau and delivered a letter to the American
steamer protesting her role in the recent chase and informing Gansevoort that the elusive steamer was named Herald
and had been". . . struck two or three times with shot ..." during the action. Shortly thereafter, Adirondack anchored
in the roadstead off Nassau harbor, and Gansevoort sent Greyhound's, commanding officer a written reply to the protest,
justifying his course of action. He then went ashore where he learned that Herald—commanded
by ". . . the notorious rebel Coxetter, formerly captain of the rebel privateer Jeff.
Davis"—had returned from Charleston laden with cotton after delivering a
cargo of ammunition to that Confederate port.
Since Adirondack
had encountered extremely severe weather during her passage out from New York, she
remained at Nassau for
three days undergoing voyage repairs and replenishing her coal bunkers. Gansevoort took
advantage of his ship's stay in port to learn of conditions there before sailing for the
capes
on 28 July. Upon arriving at Hampton Roads on 4 August, he reported that Oreto was
indeed a Confederate cruiser, but that she was then ". . . in charge of a prize crew
from the Greyhound,
and
proceedings have been instituted in the admiralty court of the Bahamas for her
condemnation for a violation of the foreign enlistment act of Great Britain . . .
." His dispatch to Washington also stated that sentiment in the Bahamas was strongly in favor of the South.
Thus the outcome of the judicial action against the warship—which would later
be freed and win fame
as the Southern raider Florida—was in doubt.
On 12
August, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Adirondack to proceed to Port Royal, S.C.,
to report to Rear Admiral
Du Pont for duty in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The next day, a
report reached Washington that another British built cruiser— which would later prey on
Union shipping as Alabama-—had
slipped out of England and was heading for
Nassau. Anxiety over this new threat prompted Welles to send Adirondack back to the Bahamas to
investigate. Nevertheless, before
this message reached Hampton Roads, the steamer had sailed for Port Royal in compliance with her orders of the 12th. Word of her new mission finally
caught up with her there on the 18th and she got underway for Nassau
that afternoon.
All
went well until the morning of the 23d when Adirondack struck a reef off the
northeast point of Man of War Cay of the Little Bahama Bank group. The shock immediately disabled
her engine, and daylong
efforts by the ship's crew,with the aid of local wreckers, proved futile. That evening, with
her back broken and her keel forced up through the engine room, the ship bilged. Fortunately, she
suffered no personnel casualties.
__________
(Str:
dp. 3,882; l. 388'2"; b. 50'; dr. 10' (mean); s. 11.3 k.; cpl. 135; a. none)
In
September 1917, Adirondack—a steel-hulled river passenger steamer built in 1896 at
Brooklyn, N.Y., by J. Eaglis and Sons—was chartered by the Navy from the Hudson Navigation
Co., of Pier 32, North River, New York City. Delivered to the Navy on the 25th of that
month, Adirondack—assigned the identification number (Id. No.) 1270—was officially
requisitioned on 16
October 1917 for service as a floating barracks to quarter a portion of the men assigned to
the Receiving Ship, New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y. She performed this service in a noncommissioned status through
the end of World War I and was returned to her owner on 24 January 1919. Her
name was struck
from the Navy list the same day.
Adirondack
then resumed
her pre-war operations, serving as a passenger steamer with the Hudson Navigation Co. She
was finally
abandoned due to age and deterioration during the fiscal year which ended on 30 June
1924.
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