CSS Virginia was the first steam-powered ironclad warship built by the Confederate States Navy during the first year of the American Civil War; she was constructed as a casemate ironclad using the razéed original lower hull and engines of the scuttled steam frigate USS Merrimack. Virginia was one of the participants in the Battle of Hampton Roads, opposing the Union's USS Monitor in March 1862. The battle is chiefly significant in naval history as the first battle between ironclads.
The third USS Dolphin was the brig in the United States Navy. Her plans were the basis of other brigs of that time. She was named for the aquatic mammal.
The first USS Raritan was a wooden-hulled, three-masted sailing frigate of the United States Navy built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, laid down in 1820, but not launched until 13 June 1843, sponsored by Commodore Frederick Engle. She was one of the last sailing frigates of the United States Navy.
USS Columbus was a 92-gun ship of the line in the United States Navy. Although construction of the warship was authorized by Congress on 2 January 1813, plunder of the Washington Navy Yard by British troops in 1814 during the burning of Washington, combined with efforts to keep US military stores out of British hands, led to the destruction of any initial framing. Days after Congress re-authorized the vessel on 29 April 1816, a keel was laid and construction resumed.
The third USS Delaware of the United States Navy was a 74-gun ship of the line, named for the state of Delaware.
USS Pennsylvania was a three-decked ship of the line of the United States Navy, rated at 130 guns, and named for the state of Pennsylvania. She was the largest United States sailing warship ever built, the equivalent of a first-rate of the British Royal Navy. Authorized in 1816 and launched in 1837, her only cruise was a single trip from Delaware Bay through Chesapeake Bay to the Norfolk Navy Yard. The ship became a receiving ship, and during the Civil War was destroyed.
The first USS Columbia of the United States Navy to be commissioned was a three-masted, wooden-hulled sailing frigate, built at the Washington Navy Yard and carrying 54 guns. Her keel was laid in 1825, but as was typical of much Navy construction during this period, she was not launched until much later, on 9 March 1836.
A paddle steamer is a steamship or steamboat powered by a steam engine that drives paddle wheels to propel the craft through the water. In antiquity, paddle wheelers followed the development of poles, oars and sails, where the first uses were wheelers driven by animals or humans.
Steam frigates and the smaller steam corvettes, steam sloops, steam gunboats and steam schooners, were steam-powered warships that were not meant to stand in the line of battle. There were some exceptions like for example the French Napoléon class steam ship of the line was meant to stand in the line of battle, making it the world's first steam battleship. The first such ships were paddle steamers. Later on the invention of screw propulsion enabled construction of steam-powered versions of the traditional ships of the line, frigates, corvettes, sloops and gunboats.
USS Advance, the second United States Navy ship to be so named, was later known as USS Frolic, and was originally the blockade runner Advance captured by the Union Navy during the latter part of the American Civil War. She was purchased by the Union Navy and outfitted as a gunboat and assigned to the blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America. She also served as dispatch ship and supply vessel when military action eventually slowed.
USS Merrimack, also improperly Merrimac, was a steam frigate, best known as the hull upon which the ironclad warship CSS Virginia was constructed during the American Civil War. The CSS Virginia then took part in the Battle of Hampton Roads in the first engagement between ironclad warships.
USS Plymouth was a sloop-of-war constructed and commissioned just prior to the Mexican–American War. She was heavily gunned, and traveled to Japan as part of Commodore Matthew C. Perry's effort to force Japan to open her ports to international trade. She also served in European and Caribbean waters and, later in her career, she was used to train midshipmen.
USS Alligator, the fourth United States Navy ship of that name, is the first known U.S. Navy submarine, and was active during the American Civil War. During the Civil War the Confederate States Navy would also build its own submarine, H. L. Hunley.
USS Allegheny – the first United States Navy ship to be so named – was a large iron-hulled steamer that served as an American gunboat in the South Atlantic Ocean as well as in the European area. When the American Civil War occurred, Allegheny served the Union cause honorably, doing her part by supporting the Union Navy – because of her large size and operational condition – as a receiving ship.
USS Yankee was a steam-powered side-wheel tugboat acquired by the Union Navy just prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War.
The Hunter Wheel was a device intended to improve the propulsion of steam-powered ships and evaluated in the middle 1840s. At the time, as ships were transitioning from sail to steam engine power, the understanding of the principles of hydrodynamics and efficient use of steam was in its infancy.
USS Water Witch was a steamer designed and constructed by the U.S. Navy with an experimental propulsion system that never quite worked, the Hunter wheel.
The revenue cutter George M. Bibb was an iron-hulled steamboat built at Pittsburgh in 1845, named after the then-Secretary of the Treasury George M. Bibb, which served on blockade duty during the war with Mexico in 1846, and was transferred to the U.S. Coast Survey in 1847. Its engines were salvaged for a second Bibb that is sometimes considered to be a rebuild of the George M. Bibb.
HMS Penelope was first laid down as one of the many sail frigates that England built to a French model. She was then changed to a unique steam paddle frigate. For some time she was a very famous ship, having a claim to being the first steam frigate. In the end the promise that she would be the first of a line of true steam paddle frigates proved false.
United States