“Benton”
The Benton was one of the ironclad river gunboats which made the Mississipppi squadron famous during the Civil War. She was originally a snag-boat, with a hull so built for strength, that she was easily converted for war purposes. She was purchased in November, 1861, and altered according to plans prepared by James B. Eads. Her principal dimensions were: burthen, 1,000 tons; length, 200'; breadth, 72'; draft, 9'. Her hull was covered with a casemate, the iron plating of which varied from 3" in thickness forward to 2 1/2" at the stern and abreast the engines, and 5/8" iron on the rest of the sides. The propelling power was one large center-wheel, placed in an opening prepared for it a little forward of the stern and midway the breadth of the vessel. Her speed was 5 1/2 knots. Her first armament was two 9-inch smoothbores, seven 32-pounder smoothbores, and seven rifled 42-pounders. On May 10, 1862, three of the rifled guns were replaced by two 50-pounder rifles, one 32-pounder, and one howitzer. In January, 1863, the Benton’s battery was subjected to another change, when two 32-pounders were taken out and two 9-inch guns mounted in their place. The last change in her armament was made on December 23, 1863, and from this date on she carried two 100-pounder rifles, two 50-pounder rifles, eight 9-inch smoothbores, and four 32-pounders of 42 cwt. The Benton’s complement was nineteen officers and 157 men.
The Benton was ready for service on January 15, 1862, when she made her trial trip. “She is the most formidable fighting machine in the squadron,” wrote Flag-Officer Foote, but her engines were so little commensurate with her weight that he hesitated long to accept her. Her slowness was finally overlooked, however, in view of her fitness for battle. The “Old War Horse,” as she was generally known, was commissioned at Cairo, Illinois, on February 24, 1862 by Lieutenant Joshua Bishop, and was selected by Flag-Officer Foote as his flagship. She soon after joined the Mississippi flotilla above Island No. Ten, which was besieged from March 15 to April 1, 1862, in cooperation with a land force under General Pope. On March 17, the Benton in command of Lieutenant Commander S. Ledyard Phelps (March 14, 1862) participated in a general attack upon the work facing the river front and in this action alone expended 281 shells. At the same time, a heavy fire was opened from the mortar boats, which kept up an incessant bombardment throughout the month while General Pope’s army was gaining the enemy’s rear, when the garrison surrendered to the Navy.
Proceeding to Fort Pillow, Flag-Officer Foote was joined by General Pope and his army, but while in the act of making a combined attack upon that stronghold, the troops were suddenly ordered to Corinth by General Halleck, leaving the flotilla to continue the operation alone. On April 23, 1862, Flag-Officer Davis hoisted his flag on the Benton, relieving Flag-Officer Foote, who was suffering from a wound received almost three months before at Fort Donelson. The Confederate river defense fleet under Captain Montgomery, attempted to drive off the gunboats by a surprise attack on the morning of May 10. A general engagement followed in which the Cincinnati was rammed and sunk, and three of the enemy’s vessels were disabled. But no further demonstration was made by the Confederates, and operations were confined to bombardment by gunboats and an occasional reply on the part of the forts until June 4. That night many explosions were heard within the fort, and the next day the gunboats moved down and found the work evacuated.
The following day Flag-Officer Davis appeared before Memphis, where he found the Confederate flotilla drawn up for their last battle. “At 5:00 rebel boats opened fire upon us,” reads the Benton’s log for June 6, 1862. “At 5 130 returned the fire, rounded to, and steamed down the river, engaging seven of the rebel boats. Pursued them eight miles, captured three of their gunboats, besides the tug Little Rebel, and sank three others. Only one boat escaped. Fired sixty-six shots.” With the Mississippi cleared of the enemy, Flag-Officer Davis in June, 1862, proceeded down the river, taking with him the Benton, Carondelet, Louisville, and St. Louis, and a few mortar boats. Two days later, on July 1, Flag-Officer Farragut’s fleet was sighted, at anchor above Vicksburg, and before dark the naval forces from the upper waters and from the mouth of the Mississippi had joined hands.
Fifteen days later, however, both squadrons were surprised at their anchorage by the Confederate ram Arkansas, which, coming down Yazoo River, passed through the Union vessels, which were wholly unprepared for the attack, and took refuge under the Vicksburg batteries. “The Benton pursued her within range of the upper battery and engaged it for fifteen minutes,” reads the log entry for July 15, 1862, “and then withdrew behind the point; were struck five times.”
The falling of the river and the increasing sickliness of the climate now compelled Flag-Officer Farragut’s fleet to return to New Orleans, while the Mississippi flotilla, with forty per cent of its crews on the sick list, was likewise obliged to regain its base. But before proceeding to Helena, Flag-Officer Davis sent the Benton and five other gunboats on an expedition to Greencastle, Mississippi, where they succeeded in capturing a Confederate transport laden with munitions and a large number of guns and camp supplies.
With the return of healthier weather, and when the autumn rains had caused the rivers to rise, the gunboats resumed operations. The Benton left Helena in November, 1862, under the command of Lieutenant Commander William Gwin (September 20, 1862) and joined Captain Walke’s expedition to the Yazoo River. The object was to get possession of as much of the river as possible in view of General McClernand’s proposed advance against Vicksburg by that way. The progress of the expedition was greatly retarded by numerous torpedoes which the enemy had planted in their way, and every step of ground had to be won under a constant fire of musketry. Finally a bend of the river was reached, which brought the gunboats under the fire of the works on Drumgoold’s Bluff. The Benton took up a position to cover the lighter vessels, and engaged the enemy for two hours. She was struck twenty-four times, and had nine of her crew wounded, among them being Commander Gwin, who was mortally wounded. The command of the vessel then devolved upon Acting Master George P. Lord (December 27, 1862), who brought the Benton back to the river’s mouth, where she remained on guard duty for the next three months.
After the failure of the attempt to penetrate the Yazoo delta, the attention of the Union commanders was once more turned to the possibility of reaching Vicksburg from the river below. A new route for General Grant’s troops had been worked out, but as the General wrote to Admiral Porter on March 29, 1863, without the aid of the gunboats it will hardly be worthwhile to send troops to New Carthage, or open the passage from here there. To this plan the Admiral readily assented, but he warned General Grant that “once below, we give up all hopes of ever getting them up again.” Preparations were immediately made for the passage of the Vicksburg batteries. All the ships were carefully protected with heavy logs and bales of cotton and wet hay placed over their vulnerable parts, while coal barges were lashed alongside to assure them a supply of fuel once below the enemy’s lines. The night of April 16, 1863, was fixed for the attempt, and at a quarter past nine the Benton, in charge of Lieutenant Commander James A. Greer (March 4, 1863) and flying the flag of Admiral Porter, left her anchorage off the mouth of the Yazoo, followed by the La Fayette, General Price, Louisville, Mound City, Pittsburgh, Corondelct, Tuscumbia, and three transports. For more than an hour the great black mass moved silently down with the current, unobserved by the enemy, until at eleven o’clock the Benton was abreast the upper batteries. Then they were discovered by the picket-boats in the stream, and the moment the alarm was given, the batteries opened with every gun that could bear, while houses were set on fire on the opposite bank to light up the passing ships. The Benton, though heavily struck, passed through the storm of shot and shell without special adventure, and at 12:29 a. m. arrived opposite Biggs plantation, where General Sherman came on board to see the Admiral.
On April 29, the Benton and her consorts attacked the Confederate forts at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, and for five and a half hours subjected the garrison to a heavy fire. “We worked up and down the range of batteries several times, firing when our guns would bear,” says the Benton’s log. “During part of the time, the enemy fired very slowly, sometimes ceasing for several minutes. At 9:05 a shot from this ship knocked the rebel flag down; it was soon put up again.” Five days later the squadron prepared to shell the works again, but the place was found to be evacuated, the advance of General Grant’s troops inland having rendered it untenable. The earthworks were found torn to pieces by the fire of the ironclads, but the guns were still in position, except two 32-pounders in the lower battery which had been dismounted. A large quantity of ammunition was also found in the magazines, showing that the lack of powder was not the cause of the slackening of the enemy’s guns on April 29.
On the following day, Admiral Porter left for the Red River with the Benton, his flagship, and three other ironclads, in response to an urgent appeal from Admiral Farragut, to make a diversion against the Confederate depot at Alexandria, Louisiana. Picking up the ram Switzerland and two of the lower squadron’s gunboats on the way, he proceeded up the Red River with all speed. Fort de Russy was found deserted, and then delaying there only long enough for the General Price to break through the obstructions with her iron prow, the expedition pushed on to Alexandria, which was reached on May y. General Banks had not expected such celerity of movement, and therefore did not arrive until the next night, when Admiral Porter turned the city over to him. As the river was beginning to fall, the Benton remained at Fort de Russy just long enough to dismantle the works, after which Admiral Porter returned to his former anchorage in the Mississippi, and awaited news from the Army. On the eighteenth of May heavy firing in the rear of Vicksburg assured him of General Grant’s approach. Three days later the investment of the city was complete. This was the signal for which the ironclads had been waiting. The next morning they advanced to the attack, while the mortar schooners kept up an incessant rain of shells upon the river batteries. Every morning the Benton joined in the fray. On May 21 she expended seven shells, on the following day, “in a sharp action, we fired 283 times, the enemy firing upon us very rapidly and from nearly all his batteries. We were struck thirteen times, four times at the water line, once on each bow, and twice on the starboard side. At first the vessel leaked some…Fortunately no one was hurt.” Indeed few vessels of the Navy performed such constant service of incalculable importance throughout the war,” and the Benton well deserved the tribute which Admiral Porter paid her in his report of February 16, 1864, to the Secretary of the Navy: “The Benton is a formidable vessel. Since she has been under command, she has been struck 130 times in the hull without any apparent injury.”
With the exception of the engagements of May 27 and June 20, the role of the river ironclads from this time until the surrender of Vicksburg was confined to keeping open the communications of the Army. This was a duty which was of supreme importance, even after the fall of the Confederate strongholds, and this was the service assigned to the Benton during the summer months of 1863.
In the spring of 1864, considerations of general policy, connected with the action of France in Mexico, led the government in Washington to decide upon a joint army and navy expedition up the Red River as far as Shreveport and the military occupation from that point of northern Texas. On the eleventh of March, General A. J. Smith arrived off the mouth of the Red River, where he found Admiral Porter’s squadron awaiting him with no less than twenty ironclads, tin-clads, and gunboats. Early on the following morning the vessels started up, the transports following. The Benton and eight other vessels turned off into the Atchafalaya and proceeded as far as Simmesport, where the Benton landed her crew and drove in the enemy’s pickets. The way was thus cleared for General Smith’s troops, who lost no time in following the retreating enemy towards Fort de Russy, which was carried by assault under cover of the gunboats. Leaving the Benton to dismantle the enemy’s works, the Admiral pushed on to Alexandria with the remainder of his force, and thence up the river in the direction of Shreveport. But they had not proceeded far when news reached the Admiral of General Bank’s reverse at Pleasant Hill, on April 8, and of his retreat to Grand Encore. This, however, was only the least of the Navy’s troubles. The river, which ordinarily remained high until June, had not only failed to reach its usual height this year, but had fallen so that the vessels that had gone above Alexandria could not pass the rapids. In this crisis, the Benton was summoned to Alexandria, which was threatened with attack by the Confederates. But the next day word was received from the Admiral to “get out of the river whilst there is a chance,” and repair to Fort Pillow where the enemy were trying to make a landing.
From this time until the close of hostilities in June, 1865, the Benton was engaged in patrolling the Mississippi River in the vicinity of Natchez, Mississippi. Lieutenant Commander Edward Y. McCauley relieved Commander Greer in November, 1864, and was succeeded on February 12, 1865, by Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Charles P. Clark. I he Benton remained in service until July 20, 1865, when she was placed out of commission at Mound City, Illinois. She was later sold at public auction, on November 29, 1865, to Daniel Jacobs, for $3,000.00.
“Enterprise”
The first Enterprise was a 12-gun sloop captured from the British at St. John’s in the Richelieu River, Canada, in the summer of 1775, and fitted for service on Lake Champlain. She carried a battery of twelve long 4’s and ten swivels, and was manned by a crew of fifty men.
The Enterprise was the first American vessel placed in commission on Lake Champlain. She was commanded by Captain Dickenson and formed part of the flotilla improvised by General Benedict Arnold in an attempt to dispute the advance of the British against Crown Point in the summer of 1776 The American vessels fought a drawn battle with a British squadron of fifty vessels mounting one hundred guns off the Island of Valcour on October 11, 1776. Two days later a running fight took place near Split Rock, in the course of which the majority of the American vessels were run ashore and destroyed by their crews. The Enterprise was fortunate enough to make her escape to Ticonderoga where she took refuge under the guns of that fortress.
The second Enterprise was an armed schooner in the service of the Continental Marine Committee during the Revolutionary War. Under Captain James Campbell she was employed in convoying transports in Chesapeake Bay in 1777, and was active in “reconnoitering the enemy's ships, and preventing their tenders and barges from getting supplies from the shores, either Maryland or Virginia.”
The third Enterprise was a 12-gun schooner of 135 tons built by the government under the terms of the Acts of April 27 and June 30, 1798. She was a light, fast, handy little craft built on the fine modelled lines of the Baltimore clippers, and was especially intended to deal with the small fore-and-aft-rigged privateers that roved among the West Indies. She was launched at Baltimore Maryland, in 1799, and was completed at a cost of $16,240.00. Her dimensions were: Length, 84' 7”; breadth, 25' 6 depth of hold, 10' 3"; draft, 9'. When first commissioned, she carried a battery of twelve long 6-pounders but in 1804 she mounted fourteen guns of that caliber, and during the war of 1812 she had an armament consisting of two long 9’s and fourteen 18-pounder carronades. In 1821 she mounted one long 9-pounder, six 18- pounder carronades, and one 13-inch mortar. She was manned by a crew of seventy-six men.
The Enterprise got to sea on her first cruise on December 17, 1799, under Lieutenant John Shaw, bound for the Windward Islands station, where she was actively engaged in convoying American merchantmen. In February 1800, she returned north with despatches from Commodore Truxton, but in the following month she was back on the same cruising ground, where, on April 23, she had a “warm and brisk action” with a Spanish packet from Havana, mounting eighteen guns. The engagement lasted twenty minutes, when the vessels separated, each convinced that a mistake in nationality had been made. After repairing her rigging, the Enterprise sailed for St. Kitts, capturing a small privateer on the way. On June 17, she took the letter-of-marque Le Cygne of four guns after an action of twenty minutes, and a few days later she compelled the Citoyenne, six guns, to strike her colors after a hard fight. The French privateer L’Aigle, ten guns, was the next vessel to lower her colors, and on July 23, 1800, the privateer brig Le Flambeau, of fourteen guns and no men, was taken after one of the hardest fought actions of the war. During the engagement, the Frenchman’s foretopmast was carried away, carrying six men with it, and although the brig made no effort to save her drowning men, Lieutenant Shaw lowered a boat and picked them up. The French loss was forty killed and wounded, while the Enterprise, with her usual good fortune, lost only ten men. A week later the French privateer La Pauline, six guns, was captured after a long chase, and shortly after, another armed vessel was taken. This brought the total of her prizes up to thirteen sail, with 300 prisoners, forty-two pieces of ordnance, and 180 stand of musketry, which, wrote Lieutenant Shaw, “is really more than I could have contemplated.”
In October, 1800, Lieutenant Shaw’s health broke down, and soon afterward he was relieved of his command by Lieutenant Andrew Sterrett, under whom the Enterprise continued her brilliant career by capturing the fast sailing privateer schooner L’Amour De La Patrie, six guns and fighting a drawn action with a heavily armed lugger carrying a crew of 150 men.
The gallant career of the Enterprise so appealed to the sentiment and affection of the people, that during the reduction of the Navy to a peace establishment, which followed the close of hostilities with France, the President signified the desire to retain her, in addition to the thirteen frigates specified in the act. The Enterprise was therefore continued in service, and was available when the Barbary powers declared war against American commerce in the Mediterranean. The Enterprise formed part of a small squadron commanded by Commodore Dale, which was intended to make a demonstration in force against the Bashaw of Tripoli and the Bey of Tunis. The American vessels reached Gibraltar on July 1, 1801, where they succeeded in forestalling two Tripolitan corsairs, which were planning a raid in the Atlantic ocean. The Philadelphia was left to guard the straits, and the Essex was ordered on convoy duty in the northern Mediterranean, while the President and Enterprise cruised along the Barbary coast. Lieutenant Sterrett soon parted company with the flagship, however, and while running for Malta, on August 1, 1801, fell in with a Tripolitan polacca of fourteen guns and eighty men, which she immediately engaged. Running close alongside, Lieutenant Sterrett opened fire at pistol range, and continued the action for three hours. Twice the Tripolitan struck his colors, and when he thought he had his adversary at a disadvantage, re-opened his fire, hoisting his flag again. Exasperated by this treachery, Lieutenant Sterrett determined to sink the corsair, but after some further though fruitless insistence, the Tripolitan commander appeared in the waist of his ship, and threw his ensign into the sea, and by supplicating gestures begged for quarter. The name of the ship was the Tripoli, and her loss in this encounter amounted to twenty killed and thirty wounded, while the Enterprise, strange as it may seem, had not a single man wounded. The instructions which Lieutenant Sterrett had received did not permit him to carry the Tripoli into port as a prize, so she was dismantled. Her armament was thrown overboard, and she was stripped of everything except one old sail, and a single spar, that were left to enable her to reach port. When her unfortunate commander appeared in Tripoli, even his wounds did not avail him. He was ordered to be placed on a jackass by his infuriated Bashaw, and paraded through the streets, after which he was sentenced to receive the bastinado.
In October, 1801, Lieutenant Sterrett was ordered home, where he received the thanks of Congress and a sword, and his officers and men a month’s extra pay. After refitting, she was sent back to the Mediterranean, in February, 1802, where she was actively engaged in convoy duty and in carrying despatches for the squadron. Under Lieutenant Isaac Hull, who relieved Lieutenant Sterrett at Malta in April, 1803, the Enterprise drove a 22-gun corsair to seek refuge in a narrow bay near Tripoli, and blockaded her until the arrival of the frigate John Adams, which assisted the plucky little Enterprise in destroying her formidable antagonist (June 22, 1803).
On December 23, the Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur (November 9, 1803), captured the ketch Mastico, under Turkish colors and without passports, bound from Tripoli to Constantinople, with a present of female slaves for the Porte. Lieutenant Decatur had already proposed to the commodore to run into the harbor of Tripoli with the Enterprise and destroy the frigate Philadelphia, which had fallen into the hands of the enemy a few months before, after she had grounded near to the entrance to the port, but the plan of employing the schooner was not sanctioned by the squadron commander. Instead the Mastico was chosen for the venture and under the name of Intrepid was taken into the service and fitted for the expedition with great secrecy. Lieutenant Decatur and his crew, having captured the Mastico, claimed the right to take her into the harbor on this perilous mission. Every man and boy volunteered, but as the crews of the other ships also demanded recognition, six officers from the Enterprise and six from the Constitution were selected, with sixty-two men from the crews of the two vessels. They, with a Sicilian pilot, Salvadore Catalano, formed the crew of the Intrepid. After a stormy passage, the ketch appeared before Tripoli on the evening of February 16, 1804, and gained the harbor by the eastern passage, in full sight of the city. Passing the batteries at the entrance of the bay, Lieutenant Decatur steered directly for the Philadelphia. As she drew near, the crew were kept concealed, except six or eight in Maltese dress. The pilot was at the helm, with Lieutenant Decatur at his side. In reply to the hail from the Tripolitan sentry, Catalano said that his vessel had lost her anchor in the recent gale, and requested permission to make fast to the frigate for the night. This was granted, and the Intrepid approached the port bow of the Philadelphia. But as she came within a few yards of the frigate, the Tripolitan officer on watch discovered that the ketch had her anchor on her bow rail. The suspicions of the enemy were aroused, and the cry of “Americans!” resounded through the ship. In a moment the crew of the Intrepid were on their feet. Lieutenant Decatur, with two midshipmen, jumped into the Philadelphia’s main-chains, but his foot slipping, Midshipman Charles Morris was the first to reach the frigate’s deck, while the men swarmed over the bulwarks and through the ports. The surprised Tripolitans offered but little resistance to this desperate assault. The lower decks were cleared after a brief struggle and without the firing of a shot. The combustibles were then brought up from the ketch and the task of firing the ship was effected in a most thorough and systematic manner. In a few minutes the ship was in flames, and as the Intrepid shoved off, it was with difficulty that she escaped from the flames that were bursting from the Philadelphia’s ports. The whole affair had taken less than twenty minutes. The loss of the Tripolitans has never been known, but many were killed in the struggle between decks, and other were probably drowned in trying to reach the shore. On board the Intrepid no one was killed and only one man was slightly wounded.
The sweeps were manned, and the Intrepid began her retreat from the harbor, favored by a light breeze off shore. “Up to this time the ships and batteries of the enemy had remained silent,” wrote Midshipman Morris, “but they were now prepared to act; and when the crew of the ketch gave three cheers in exultation of their success, they received the return of a general discharge from the enemy. The confusion of the moment probably prevented much care in their direction and, though under the fire of nearly a hundred pieces for half an hour, the only shot which struck the ketch was one through the top-gallant sail.” At the entrance to the harbor, the Intrepid was met by the Siren’s boats, and Lieutenant Decatur went aboard the brig and reported his success. When the news of this exploit, which Admiral Nelson, who was at that time blockading Toulon, called “the most bold and daring act of the age,” reached the United States, Lieutenant Decatur was promoted two grades to captain, and received a vote of thanks and a sword from Congress, while all those who accompanied him were suitably rewarded.
In April, 1804, the Enterprise, Siren, Argus, and Vixen composed the blockading force before Tripoli, until the arrival of the Constitution towards the middle of July, when operations against the enemy were undertaken in earnest. The squadron stood in to the attack on the afternoon of August 3, the gunboats running in to engage the Tripolitan galleys, while the large vessels engaged the attention of the forts and shore batteries, which mounted over one hundred guns. Three more attacks were made in the course of the month, and then on September 3, the squadron made its fifth attack, which proved to be the last. On this occasion, the Enterprise followed the gunboats as far as the reefs would permit, and from this position covered their operations with a rapid fire from her guns.
Following this the Enterprise returned to Syracuse, where Lieutenant Thomas Robinson (September, 1804) relieved Captain Decatur in command, after which she spent several months in the Adriatic. In the summer of 1805, she was placed in charge of Lieutenant David Porter, who received discretionary orders to cruise along the northern shores of Africa. While thus engaged, she was attacked on August 15, off the coast of Morocco by seven Spanish gunboats that ran out from the harbor of Algeciras. The Enterprise showed her colors and hailed the gunboats, but the latter kept up a running fight until driven off by the fire of the schooner.
In the summer of 1807, the Enterprise was ordered home and did not refit until a year and a half later, when under Lieutenant John Trippe (January 1, 1809), she once more sailed for the Mediterranean station. On her return to the United States, in 1811, she was altered to a brig, and crowded with sixteen guns and a hundred men. Her burthen was increased to 165 tons. Master Commandant Johnston Blakely was ordered to command her on April 8, 1811, and during the first year of the War of 1812 he cruised her off the eastern coast, where she did good service in chasing away or capturing several Nova Scotia or New Brunswick privateers. Soon after, Lieutenant William Burrows was ordered to her, and on September 5, 1813, while standing along shore near Penguin Point, a few miles eastward of Portland, Maine, she sighted a man-of-war brig, which proved to be H.M.S. Boxer, commanded by Captain Samuel Blyth, mounting fourteen 18- pounder carronades and manned by a crew of seventy-two men. Both crews cheered loudly as they neared each other, and at 3:15, the two brigs being on the starboard tack, they opened fire. The opening broadsides were very destructive. Captain Blyth of the Boxer fell dead, struck full in the body by an 18-pound shot. Lieutenant Burrows fell, mortally wounded, with a canister shot in his thigh. After another discharge, the Enterprise ranged ahead, crossed the Boxer’s bow, and fired one or two more broadsides, until the enemy surrendered, her colors still nailed to the mast. The Enterprise had one man killed and thirteen wounded; the Boxer, seven killed, fourteen wounded. The Boxer’s injuries were not so severe as to prevent her captors from bringing her into port as a prize, and no incident of the war touched the sensibilities of the people more deeply than the common funeral of the two commanders, both well-known and favorites in their respective services, buried with the same honors and mourners, in the old Eastern Cemetery at Portland, overlooking the scene of their battle.
Lieutenant Edward R. McCall succeeded Lieutenant Burrows in command of the Enterprise, and was in turn relieved by Lieutenant James Renshaw on October 2, 1813. She left port a few months later, when the weather drove the blockaders from their station on the New England coast, and joined the 14-gun brig Rattlesnake in a cruise in the northern Caribbean. Eleven vessels were overhauled in the course of eight weeks, and twice the brigs themselves were chased. On February 25 they were compelled by a third pursuer to separate. The stranger chose to keep after the Enterprise, which was obliged to throw overboard most of her guns in order to enable her to make her escape. She reached Wilmington, North Carolina, on March 9, 1814, and, being considered unfit for further service as a cruiser, she was transferred to Charleston, South Carolina, where she was employed as a guard- ship until the close of hostilities.
After the war, the Enterprise, under the command of Lieutenant Lawrence Kearney, was again attached to the Mediterranean squadron, and in 1821 she was sent to the West Indies to aid in putting an end to the depredations of the pirates who infested those waters. Lieutenant Kearney succeeded in breaking up the rendezvous of the notorious pirate Lafitte at Galveston, after which he shifted his cruising ground to the coast of Cuba, where his vigilance was rewarded by no less than thirteen prizes. Among his captures were several vessels belonging to the noted pirate Gibbs, upon whom he came while the latter was in the act of robbing two American merchantmen. Lieutenant Kearney burnt two of the pirate vessels, drove Gibb's schooner on shore, and brought three others into Charleston, South Carolina, where they were condemned. In 1823 the Enterprise returned to her cruising ground in the West Indies, under Lieutenant John Gallagher (1823), on what proved to be her last cruise, for she was wrecked shortly after on little Curacoa Island, all hands being saved.
The fourth Enterprise was a 10-gun schooner launched at the New York navy yard in 1831. She was one of the vessels built in accordance with the terms of the Naval Appropriation Act of February 3, 1831, and was completed at a cost of $27,935.00. Her principal characteristics were: burthen, 196 tons; length, 88'; breadth, 24' 1"; depth of hold, 10'. Her battery comprised two long 9’s and eight 24-pounder carronades.
The Enterprise put to sea on her maiden cruise on January 12, 1832, under Lieutenant Samuel W. Downing (December 30, 1831), with orders to proceed to the Brazil station. Lieutenant A. S. Campbell relieved Lieutenant Downing in command on June 10, 1834, and after a season in the South Atlantic, he left New York in the spring of 1835 for the East Indies, where he cruised on the coast of Asia in company with the Peacock for the protection of American commerce in those waters. Lieutenant George N. Hollins joined the Enterprise at Macao, China, in June, 1836, and brought her back to the American west coast on April 26, 1837, where she was detailed for service with the Pacific squadron. Lieutenant William M. Glendy assumed command of the schooner at Callao, Peru, on July 4, 1837, being relieved four months later by Lieutenant Harry Ingersoll (November 27, 1838), who returned in her to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 29, 1839. Four months were spent in repairing her and refitting her for service, after which she was recommissioned by Lieutenant Frank Ellery (November 29, 1839). Her cruising ground for the next five years was along the eastern coast of South America, where the presence of a strong naval force was rendered advisable by the internal dissensions which agitated the republics of that continent. On several occasions, she also visited the west coast of Africa, which was at that time the scene of a flourishing traffic in slaves. Her commanding officers on this cruise were: Lieutenant Percival Drayton (June 1, 1840), Lieutenant Louis M. Goldsborough (July 7, 1840), Lieutenant James P. Wilson (March 11, 1842), Lieutenant Thomas J. Manning (April, 1843), and Lieutenant James M. Watson (August 27, 1843). In the summer of 1844 she was ordered north, reaching Boston on June 24, 1844, and was placed out of commission four days later. She was sold at public auction at Boston in 1845.
The fifth Enterprise was one of the steam corvettes with auxiliary sail power authorized by Congress on February 10, 1873. She was built at the Kittery navy yard, Maine, by a private contractor, John W. Griffith, working in cooperation with the government officials. She was a bark-rigged screw steamer, built of live oak, with the following dimensions: Displacement, 1,375 tons; burthen, 615 tons; length 185'; breadth, 35'; draft, 14' 3". Her machinery was built by the Woodruff Iron Company, of Hartford, Connecticut, at a cost of $175,000.00, and consisted of one set of vertical compound engines of 800 horsepower and 24-inch stroke, for which steam was supplied by one Scotch boiler. Her speed was 11.4 knots. She carried 130 tons of coal in her bunkers. When first commissioned, the Enterprise mounted one 11-inch smoothbore, four 9-inch shell guns, one 6o-pounder Marsilly rifle, and one light howitzer. This was changed in August, 1881, to one 8-inch M.L.R., four 9-inch smoothbores, one 60-pounder B.L.R., and three smaller pieces. In October, 1892, her armament included four 32-pounders of 45 cwt., and two 3-inch rifled howitzers, and in 1898 this was again reduced until she mounted only two guns, one 3-inch howitzer and one saluting gun. Her complement was twenty officers and 164 men.
The Enterprise was commissioned on March 16, 1877, at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and made her first cruise on the North Atlantic station in command of Commander George C. Remey. She proved herself one of the fastest and most efficient vessels of the squadron. In December, 1877, she was ordered on surveying duty in the Mississippi River. Returning to Norfolk, Virginia, in the following spring, she was placed in command of Commander Thomas C. Selfridge (April 26, 1878), who was charged with the duty of surveying the Amazon and Madeira rivers a distance of 1,300 miles from their mouth. Upon the completion of this work, she was sent across the Atlantic to reinforce the European squadron, returning to the United States on May 10, 1880. The Enterprise was recommissioned on January 12, 1882, and cruised on the coast for a year under the command of Commander Edwin M. Shepard, after which she was ordered to the Atlantic station under Commander Albert S. Barker (December 8, 1882). The route selected by the Navy Department was via the Cape de Verde Islands and the Cape of Good Hope, and thence across the Indian Ocean to the Straits of Sunda. Commander Barker was instructed to take deep-sea soundings at intervals of one hundred miles, and to keep an accurate record of his observations and discoveries for the purpose of adding to the existing knowledge of the ocean’s bed. During this cruise, which lasted for over four years, the Enterprise visited the Chinese treaty ports, and was present at the bombardment of Foochoo by the French squadron under Admiral Courbet. Returning from the Far East by way of Australia and the Cape of Good Hope, Commander Barker ran a line of soundings across the Pacific Ocean. Several important discoveries were made during this cruise around the world, which added materially to the previous hydrographic knowledge of the contour of the bottoms of the North and South Atlantic Oceans. Among the discoveries made by Commander Barker, were two submarine peaks in the South Atlantic Ocean, and air extensive sand-bank several hundred miles from the coast of South America; and further north, in the vicinity of the Virgin Islands, a specimen was brought up from the bottom from a depth of 4,529 fathoms, or five and one-eighth miles.
Upon her return from this cruise, the Enterprise was refitted at the New York navy yard, October 4, 1887, and sent to the European squadron, under Commander Bowman H. McCalla. The cruise was uneventful, and in February, 1890, the ship was back in New York for a new crew, but did not refit until mid-summer. Under Commander George A. Converse (July 8, 1890) and Commander George W. Pigman (July 28, 1891), the Enterprise formed part of the North Atlantic squadron until September 9, 1891, when she was assigned to duty as cadet training and practice ship at the Naval Academy. On October 17, 1892, she was turned over to the state of Massachusetts for use as a nautical school ship at Boston, where she remained in service for almost seventeen years. She was returned to the Navy Department on May 4, 1909, and shortly after stricken from the Navy register, August 6, 1909, and ordered sold.
The sixth Enterprise was a motor patrol boat bought on September 25, 1917, from E. C. Steward for $24,101.00. She was a wooden pleasure craft built at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, in 1917. Her principal characteristics were: registered tonnage, 16 gross tons; length 65'; breadth, 12'; draft, 3' 7". Her propelling machinery consisted of twin-screw Sterling 4-cycle engines of 400 horsepower, capable of driving her at a speed of 22 knots. She mounted one 1-pounder and one machine gun, and carried a crew of eight men.
The Enterprise was placed in service on December 6, 1917, for patrol duty in the Second Naval District. On the conclusion of the World War, she was transferred to the Bureau of Fisheries, August 2, 1919.