The second ship John B. Montgomery commanded was the USS Roanoke, one of the most powerful and newest ships in the U.S. Navy when the Civil War started.
From Wikipedia.
The USS Roanoke was a wooden-hulled Merrimack-class screw frigate. There were a total of six of these ships in that class. Three of them, the USS Minnesota, USS Colorado and USS Wabash took part in the bombardments of Fort Fisher.
She served as the flagship for the U.S. Home Fleet in the late 1850s.
She was converted into an ironclad monitor during 1862-1863; the first-ever ship with more than two turrets (three).
However, her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull. Her depth was too much to operate off shallow Confederate ports so spent the rest of her career in harbor defense at Hampton Roads, Virginia.
The Roanoke was placed in reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1883.
--Old B-Runner
No comments:
Post a Comment