The Spanish Ironclad Arapiles-- Part 1: Imagine, the Spanish Ship That Captured New York City

From Wikipedia.

In my last post. I mentioned that at the time of the Virginius Affair in 1873 that the Spanish Navy was actually stronger than the U.S. Navy.   And, that was after all the ships in the Union Navy during the Civil War.  Kind of hard to believe.  This was only eight years after the war ended.

This realization caused the government to start building our Navy up.

What really struck home was that there was a Spanish ironclad frigate in New York Harbor being repaired that the general belief was could have taken any of our naval ships there.

The Spanish  ironclad Arapiles was a wooden-hulled, armored steam frigate bought from England during the 1860s for the Spanish Navy.  Begun as an unarmored steam frigate,  she was converted into an ironclad while under construction.  

Damaged when she ran aground in early 1873,  she was under repair in the United States during the Virginius Affair later that year as tensions arose between the United States and Spain over the incident.

The ship was hulked in 1879 and in such bad condition her reconstruction was cancelled in 1882.  The ship was scrapped a year or two later.

She most closely resembled the USS Ironsides.

--Old B-Runner