| History | |
|---|---|
 United States | |
| Name | USS Louisiana |
| Namesake | Louisiana |
| Launched | 1812 |
| Fate | broken up 1821 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | sloop-of-war |
| Tons burthen | 341 tons |
| Length | 99 feet |
| Beam | 28 feet |
| Depth of hold | 14 feet |
| Armament | 16 x 24-pounders |
| Notes | |
USS Louisiana, was a sloop built in New Orleans in 1812 and she played a vital role in the defense of Louisiana during the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Originally built as a merchant ship for the cost of $15,500, the USS Louisiana displaced 341 tons, and rated sixteen 24-pounder guns. She measured ninety-nine feet, six inches on the deck, beam of twenty-eight feet, and a fourteen foot deep hold. Louisiana was unmanned at the start of the campaign, and commanded by Captain Charles C. B. Thompson. [1] From 23 December 1814 to 8 January 1815, the sloop Louisiana pounded advancing British troops, providing naval gunfire support for General Andrew Jackson's forces. When British troops advanced up river beyond the range of the deadly cannon fire of the Louisiana, the crew did not let the absence of wind deter their support. Crewmembers waded ashore with mooring lines and towed their sloop up river against the currents of the Mississippi River to re-engage. The Louisiana was credited with playing a key role in the defeat of the British and keeping the valuable port of New Orleans in American hands. [2]
The War of 1812 was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It began when the US declared war on 18 June 1812 and, although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by Congress on 17 February 1815.
The Battle of New Orleans was fought on January 8, 1815 between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson, roughly 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the French Quarter of New Orleans, in the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana.
USS Adams was a 28-gun (rated) sailing frigate of the United States Navy. She was laid down in 1797 at New York City by John Jackson and William Sheffield and launched on 8 June 1799. Captain Richard Valentine Morris took command of the ship.
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
The first USS Arizona was an iron-hulled, side-wheel merchant steamship. Seized by the Confederate States of America in 1862 during the American Civil War, she was captured later the same year by the United States Navy.
The first USS Sea Horse was a one-gun schooner that the Navy purchased in 1812 for service on Lake Borgne, near New Orleans, Louisiana. It is claimed she was one of 15 vessels available to Commodore Daniel Todd Patterson in New Orleans at the outbreak of war with Britain in 1812. The Sea Horse and USS Alligator accompanied a squadron of five gunboats at the end of 1814. In addition to these vessels, there was also a further gunboat at Fort St. Philip, as well as the USS Carolina (1812) and USS Louisiana (1812).
USS Sciota was a Unadilla-class gunboat built on behalf of the United States Navy for service during the Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat, with both a 20-pounder rifle for horizontal firing, and two howitzers for shore bombardment, and assigned to the Union blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America.
USS Peacock was a sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the War of 1812.
USS Alligator was a sloop in the United States Navy during the War of 1812. The U.S. Navy purchased Alligator in 1813 at New Orleans, Louisiana. Commissioned as a tender at New Orleans, she served on that station under the command of Sailing Master Richard S. Sheppard until late in 1814 when the British captured her at the Battle of Lake Borgne.
HMS Starr was a 16-gun Merlin-class ship sloop of the Royal Navy. She was built by Tanner, of Dartmouth, to plans by Sir William Rule, and launched in July 1805. As a sloop she served on convoy duty, though she also participated in the invasion of Martinique in early 1809. She was rebuilt as a bomb vessel in May 1812 and renamed Meteor. As Meteor she served in the Baltic and then off the United States, participating in attacks on up the Potomac and on Baltimore and New Orleans. She was sold in October 1816.
The results of the War of 1812, which was fought between the United Kingdom and the United States from 1812 to 1814, included no immediate boundary changes. The main result of the War of 1812 has been two centuries of peace between both countries.
The third USS Virginia was a 581-ton blockade-running steamer captured by the United States Navy and put to use by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Virginia served the U.S. Navy primarily as a mortar gunboat. Her ordnance included six 24-pounder howitzers and a 12-pounder rifled gun.
Fort Bowyer was a short-lived earthen and stockade fortification that the United States Army erected in 1813 on Mobile Point, near the mouth of Mobile Bay in what is now Baldwin County, Alabama, but then was part of the Mississippi Territory. The British twice attacked the fort during the War of 1812.
The Battle of Lake Borgne was a coastal engagement between the Royal Navy and the U.S. Navy in the American South theatre of the War of 1812. It occurred on December 14, 1814 on Lake Borgne. The British victory allowed them to disembark their troops unhindered nine days later and to launch an offensive upon New Orleans on land.
The siege of Fort St. Philip was a ten day long distance bombardment of exploding bomb shells - by two Royal Navy bomb vessels, mounting a total of four mortars - against the American garrison of Fort St. Philip. The fort was unable to retaliate at the start, as the bomb vessels were out or the range of its solid shot cannon, and its mortar did not have ammunition. This was remedied by supply boats, whereby the fort counter-attacked the bomb vessels with its mortar on January 17, and the British duly withdrew. This riverine engagement took place during the concluding hostilities of the War of 1812.
The New Orleans Squadron or the New Orleans Station was a United States Navy squadron raised out of the growing threat the United Kingdom posed to Louisiana during the War of 1812. The first squadron consisted of over a dozen vessels and was mostly defeated during the war. Afterward, new ships were stationed at New Orleans which engaged in counter-piracy operations for over twenty years. The New Orleans Squadron was eventually merged with the Home Squadron.
CSS Carondelet was a sidewheel steamer that served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. Construction for the vessel started in 1861, and she was launched on January 25, 1862, and commissioned on March 16. Her sister ship was CSS Bienville. On April 4, Carondelet, along with CSS Oregon and CSS Pamlico, took part in a small naval action near Pass Christian against USS New London, USS John P. Jackson, and the troop transport USS Henry Lewis. Carondelet suffered damage to her wheel during the fight, and likely fired the only two shots that struck John P. Jackson. Later that month, with the Confederates abandoning New Orleans, Louisiana, Carondelet was scuttled by her crew in either Lake Pontchartrain, the Tchefuncte River, or the Bogue Falaya River.
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