The first USS Saginaw was a sidewheel sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was in operation throughout the 1860s, but in 1870 wrecked on what is now known as Kure Atoll, a Pacific island. The event produced several books and one of the surviving boats from the ship is in a museum.
The wreck of the USS Saginaw was found in 2003.[1]
History
The first vessel built by the Mare Island Navy Yard, Saginaw was laid down on 16 September 1858; launched as Toucey on 3 March 1859; sponsored by Miss Cunningham, daughter of the commandant of the Navy Yard; renamed Saginaw; and commissioned on 5 January 1860, CommanderJames F. Schenck in command.
The new side-wheel ship sailed from San Francisco Bay on 8 March 1860, headed for the western Pacific, and reached Shanghai, China on 12 May. She then served in the East India Squadron, for the most part cruising along the Chinese coast to protect American citizens and to suppress pirates. She visited Japan in November but soon returned to Chinese waters. On 30 June 1861, she silenced a battery at the entrance to Qui Nhon Bay, Cochin China, which had fired upon her while she was searching for the missing boat and crew of American barkMyrtle.
On 3 January 1862, Saginaw was decommissioned at Hong Kong and returned to Mare Island on 3 July for repairs.
Relaunched on 3 December 1862 and recommissioned on 23 March 1863, Saginaw was attached to the Pacific Squadron and operated along the United States West Coast to prevent Confederate activity. She visited Puget Sound in the spring of 1863 to investigate reports that Confederate privateers were being outfitted in British Columbia, but returned after learning that the scheme had no chance of success.
Her cruises in 1864 took Saginaw to ports in Mexico and Central America to protect the interests of the United States endangered by Confederate activity and by European interference in Mexico. During the closing months of the year, she escorted steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company carrying rich cargoes of bullion from the California gold fields. In the spring of 1865, the ship was assigned to the United States Revenue Cutter Service but was returned to the Navy on 2 June 1865. She spent the remainder of 1865 protecting American citizens at Guaymas and other Mexican ports during the unrest and disorder which beset Mexico during the struggle between Emperor Maximilian I and Benito Juárez.
In March 1866, Saginaw returned to Mare Island. She sailed in August 1866 for Puget Sound to support settlers in the Pacific Northwest. While there, she aided the Western Union Company in laying a cable which brought the first telegraphic service to the region. After returning to Mare Island in December 1866, the ship remained at the navy yard through 1867.
In April 1868, a year after the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, Saginaw got underway for the Alaska Territory and, with the exception of a run home late in the year for replenishment, spent the next year exploring and charting the Alaskan coast. In the February 1869 Kake War the USS Saginaw destroyed three deserted villages and two forts near present-day Kake, Alaska. Prior to the conflict, two white trappers were killed by the Kake in retribution for the death of two Kake departing Sitka village in canoe. Sitka was the site of a standoff between the Army and Tlingit due to the army demanding the surrender of chief Colchika who was involved in an altercation in Fort Sitka. While no Kake, or possibly a single old woman, died in the destruction of the villages, the loss of winter stores, canoes, and shelter led to the death during the winter of some of the Kake.[2][3]
After steaming back to San Francisco Bay in April 1869, Saginaw departed her home port on 28 July 1869 and operated along the coast of Mexico until arriving back at Mare Island on 11 November 1869.
Fate
The Captain's depiction of Saginaw's fateCover of a book based on the ship's voyage, The Last Cruise of the Saginaw
Saginaw's next assignment took her to Midway Atoll to support dredging operations to deepen the entrance to the harbor. She reached Midway on 24 March 1870 and completed her task on 21 October 1870. A week later, she sailed for San Francisco, intending to touch at Kure Atoll (at that time known as Ocean Island) en route home to rescue any shipwrecked sailors who might be stranded there. The next day, 29 October 1870, as she neared this rarely visited atoll, Saginaw struck an outlying reef and grounded. Before the surf battered the ship to pieces, her 93 crew managed to transfer much of her gear and provisions to the atoll.
On 18 November, a party of five men, headed by Lieutenant John G. Talbot, the executive officer, set out for Honolulu in a small boat to get relief for their stranded shipmates. As they neared Kauai, 31 days and some 1,500mi (2,400km) later, their boat was upset by breakers. Only CoxswainWilliam Halford survived to obtain help. He landed on Kauai, where Captain Dudoit of the schooner Wainona offered to take him straight to Honolulu leaving his return freight for a later trip. They sailed on Tuesday 20 Dec and arrived at Honolulu on Saturday 24 December and was taken to the United States Consulate there.
The US Consul authorised the despatch of a fast sailing coaster, the Kona Packet, which departed on Sunday 25 December, and the King of Hawaii, Kamehameha V, sent the inter-island steamer, Kilauea under Captain Thomas Long, to rescue the shipwrecked sailors. After loading with coal for 2 days and food and copious fresh water they departed on Monday 26 December.[4] The Kilauea arrived at Kure on 4 January 1871, and the Kona Packet a day later. Due to uncertainty over the coal required for the return journey they steamed to Midway Island loading 40 tons of coal and left on 7 January, arriving back in Honolulu on 14 January, a round trip of 2350 miles. Captain Long was presented with a heavy gold-cased chronometer watch by the U.S. Government as thanks for successfully undertaking the rescue mission.
The Saginaw's gig survived being capsized in the breakers, and was sold at auction in January 1871. The purchaser presented it to the rescued crew of the Saginaw, whereupon it was transported back to San Francisco on the A.P. Jordan.[5] Until 2015, it was displayed in the Curator Collection at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History in Saginaw, Michigan. As of May 2021, the boat was stored off public display in the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) Headquarters Artifact Collection.[6]
The crew of the Saginaw may have been aware of the loss of the whaler Gledstanes on the same reef on 9 July 1837, as the crew of the Gledstanes faced the same predicament and constructed a schooner Deliverance from the wreckage of the Gledstanes over many months, whereupon Captain J.R. Brown with 8 men sailed for Hawaii on 15 Dec to secure a rescue ship which took the remaining men off the atoll in February.[7] The wreck of Saginaw was discovered in 2003 and remains under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.
The book A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters: Life on Board USS Saginaw (by Hans Van Tilburg, University Press of Florida, 2010) covers the ship's construction, her ten years of service in the Pacific, and her loss at Kure Atoll. Van Tilburg led the team which discovered the wreck site in 2003.
The book The Wreck of the Saginaw (by Keith Robertson, The Viking Press, 1954, 144 pp) covers the voyage of the five sailors who sailed a small boat to Hawaii seeking rescue for the survivors remaining on Kure Atoll.
Midway Atoll is a 2.4 sq mi (6.2 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean. Midway Atoll is an insular area of the United States and is an unorganized and unincorporated territory. The largest island is Sand Island, which has housing and an airstrip. Immediately to the east of Sand Island across the narrow Brooks Channel is Eastern Island, which is uninhabited and no longer has any facilities. Forming a rough, incomplete circle around the two main islands and creating Midway Lagoon is Spit Island, a narrow reef.
Kure Atoll or Ocean Island is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean 48 nautical miles west-northwest of Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at 28°25′N178°20′W. A coral ring six miles across encloses a lagoon several meters deep. The only land of significant size is called Green Island and is a habitat for hundreds of thousands of seabirds. A short, unused and unmaintained runway and a portion of one building, both from a former United States Coast Guard LORAN station, are located on the island. Politically, it is part of Hawaii, although separated from the rest of the state by Midway, which is a separate unorganized territory. Green Island, in addition to being the nesting grounds for tens of thousands of seabirds, has recorded several vagrant terrestrial birds, including snow bunting, eyebrowed thrush, brambling, olive-backed pipit, black kite, Steller's sea eagle and Chinese sparrowhawk. It is currently managed as a Wildlife Bird Sanctuary by the State of Hawaii's Department of Land and Natural Resource–Division of Forestry and Wildlife as one of the co-trustees of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument with support from the Kure Atoll Conservancy.
The Kake War was the destruction in February, 1869, of three semi-permanent winter villages and two forts near present-day Kake, Alaska by the USS Saginaw. Prior to the conflict, two white trappers were killed by the Kake in retribution for the death of two Kake departing Sitka village by canoe. Sitka was the site of a standoff between the Army and Tlingit due to the army demanding the surrender of chief Colchika who was involved in an altercation in Fort Sitka.
The second USS Portsmouth was a wooden sloop-of-war in the United States Navy in service during the mid-to-late 19th century. She was designed by Josiah Barker on the lines of a French-built privateer, and built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, directly across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was described as an improvement over USS Saratoga built in the same shipyard a year earlier. Portsmouth was launched on 23 October 1843 and commissioned on 10 November 1844, with Commander John Berrien Montgomery in command.
The first USS Lackawanna was a screw-propelled sloop-of-war in the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was named after the Lackawanna River in Pennsylvania.
The first USS Mohican was a steam sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War. She was named for the Mohican tribe and was the first ship of her class.
The first USS Iroquois was a Mohican-class sloop of war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
William Halford was a sailor, and later an officer, in the United States Navy. He also received the Medal of Honor.
The first USS Jamestown was a sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the Mexican–American War and the American Civil War.
I-68, later renumbered I-168, was an Imperial Japanese Navy Kaidai–type cruiser submarine of the KD6 sub-class commissioned in 1934. She served in World War II, operating in support of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and taking part in the Battle of Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign, and the Aleutian Islands campaign before she was sunk in 1943. She is best known for her achievements during the Battle of Midway when, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Yahachi Tanabe, she sank the only United States Navy warships lost in the battle: the already badly damaged aircraft carrier USS Yorktown(CV-5) and the destroyer USS Hammann(DD-412).
The third USS Perry (DD-340/DMS-17) was a Clemson-class destroyer in the United States Navy following World War I. She was one of eight ships named for Oliver Hazard Perry.
Rear Admiral Montgomery Sicard was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
USS Nyack was a wooden-hulled screw gunboat of the United States Navy that saw action in the American Civil War. After the Civil war, she was transferred to the Pacific where she patrolled the west coast of South America until she was decommissioned in 1871. She was sold and broken up in 1883.
USS PC-1141 was a PC-461-class submarine chaser built for the United States Navy during World War II. She was renamed USS Pierre (PC-1141) in 1956, was decommissioned from the U.S. Navy in October 1958, and transferred to the Indonesian Navy as KRI Tjakalang.
The USS Macaw (ASR-11) was a Chanticleer-class submarine rescue ship in service with the United States Navy from 1943 to 1944.
USS Joyce (DE-317) was originally commissioned as a US Coast Guard Edsall-class destroyer escort built for the U.S. Navy during World War II. She served in the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and provided destroyer escort protection against submarine and air attack for Navy vessels and convoys. During its World War II service, on two different engagements with enemy submarines, the Joyce rescued survivors of the tanker SS Pan- Pennsylvania and its sister ship USS Leopold. Joyce received one battle star for its service during World War II.
Chiyoda was a light aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II. Originally constructed as the second vessel of the Chitose-class seaplane tenders in 1934, she continued to operate in that capacity during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the early stages of the Pacific War until her conversion into a light aircraft carrier after the Battle of Midway. She was sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf by a combination of naval bombers, cruiser shellfire and destroyer-launched torpedoes.
The first USS Thetis was a three-masted, wooden-hulled steam whaler in the United States Navy used to rescue a polar expedition and later in the Revenue Cutter Service.
The Angoon Bombardment was the destruction of the Tlingit village of Angoon, Alaska, by US Naval forces under Commander Edgar C. Merriman and Michael A. Healy in October 1882.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States
