Original page can be found at the Naval Historical Center homepage
USS
Ticonderoga
A village in Essex
County, N.Y., on La
Chute River, 100
miles north of Albany. The name is an Iroquois Indian term which means
"between two lakes" and refers to Lake George and Lake Champlain. Here, the French built a fort called
Carillon in 1755, but it was captured four years later by British troops under General Amherst. Early in the
American Revolution, on 10 May 1775, Ethan Allen and his
"Green Mountain Boys" captured the fort from the British. General Sir John Burgoyne recaptured
the fort in May 1777, holding it until his surrender at Saratoga, N.Y., on 17 October 1777.
II
(ScSlp:
dp. 2,526; 1. 237'0"; b. 38'2"; dr. 17'6"; s. 11 k.; a. 1 150-pdr. P.r., 1
50-pdr. D.r., 6 9" D.sb., 2 24-pdr.
how., 2 12-pdr. r., 2 heavy 12-pdr. sb.)
The
second Ticonderoga was laid down by the New York Navy Yard in 1861; launched on 16 October 1862; sponsored by Miss Katherine Heaton Offley; and commissioned at New York on 12 May
1863, Commodore J. L. Lardner is
command.
Ticonderoga
went south
on 5 June 1863 for duty as flagship of the West Indies Squadron and, after stopping at Philadelphia, arrived
at Cape Haitien on 12 June. She patrolled waters off the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Tobago, Trinidad, and Curacao protecting Union commerce. Ticonderoga returned to Philadelphia for repairs in September. She
was relieved as flagship of the squadron in October and sent to the Boston Navy Yard.
Operating
out of Boston, Ticonderoga searched unsuccessfully off Nova Scotia for the captured steamer Chesapeake from 11 to 16 December. In
June 1864, she hunted
Confederate commerce raiders off the New England coast, putting into Portland harbor, Maine, on 26 June. There, Ticonderoga received
a telegram on 10 July ordering her to track
down and destroy the marauding Confederate raider CSS Florida. Her
search lasted until October and carried Ticonderoga as far south as Cape San Roque but was
stopped because of
mechanical troubles and insufficient fuel. She returned to Philadelphia late in October.
Ticonderoga left Philadelphia bound for Hampton Roads, Va., on 31 October. She was
assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 4 November and deployed off Wilmington,
N.C. Ticonderoga participated in the first, unsuccessful attempt to take Fort Fisher, N.C., on 24 and 25
December, losing eight men killed and 20 wounded on the first day of the assault when a 100-pounder Parrott rifle exploded. A
landing party from Ticonderoga assisted in the capture of the fort on 15 January 1865.
Ticonderoga joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 19 January. After a brief tour of
duty, she left
for Philadelphia in March and was decommissioned there on 5 May.
Ticonderoga was recommissioned for service with the European Squadron in 1866. She remained with the Sauadron through
1869, visiting ports in the Mediterranean, on the continent, and along
the English and African coasts. The
vessel was extensively repaired in 1870 and
reported for duty with the South Atlantic Squadron at Rio de Janeiro on 23 August 1871. After over two years of service on the coast of South America, she was reassigned to the
North Atlantic Squadron in January 1874. The ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, N.H., on 24 October and remained laid up there until 1877.
Ticonderoga was recommissioned on 5 November 1878 and ordered to embark upon a
cruise around the world, Commodore Robert W. Shufeldt commanding. The expedition was of a commercial
nature, intended to expand existing trade relations and establish new ones. Ticonderoga sailed eastward from Hampton
Roads on 7
December and stopped at ports including Madeira, Monrovia, Cape Town, Aden, Bombay, Penang, Singapore, Manila, Hong
Kong, Nagasaki, Fusan, Honolulu, and San Francisco. Ticonderoga arrived at Mare Island, Calif., for extensive repairs on 9 November 1880. During the
two-year mission, she had visited over 40 ports and steamed in excess of 36,000 miles without a mishap.
She
left Mare Island in March 1881 and returned to
New York on 23 August. She was decommissioned there a final time on 10 September 1882 and declared unfit for further service. Ticonderoga was sold at Boston on 5 August 1887 to Thomas Butler & Co.
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suggestions kindly
received by the editor at
kaighin@iname.com
Copyright 2004, 2005, Gregory D.
Kaighin, All rights reserved
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