The first USS Miantonomoh was the lead ship of her class of four ironclad monitors built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. Completed after the war ended in May 1865, the ship made one cruise off the East Coast before she began a voyage across the North Atlantic in May 1866 to conduct a lengthy showing the flag mission in Europe. Miantonomoh was decommissioned upon her return in 1867, but was reactivated two years later and assigned to the North Atlantic Squadron before decommissioning again in 1870. The monitor was sold for scrap three years later as part of a scheme where the Navy Department evaded the Congressional refusal to order new ships by claiming that the Civil War-era ship was being repaired while building a new monitor of the same name.
Description
The Miantonomoh class was designed by John Lenthall, Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair, although the ships varied somewhat in their details. Miantonomoh was long overall, had a beam of and had a draft of . a tonnage of 1,564 tons burthen and displaced . Her crew consisted of 150 officers and enlisted men. The engines were rated at and gave the ship a top speed of . She was designed to carry of coal.
Armament and armor
Her main battery consisted of four smoothbore, muzzle-loading, Dahlgren guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the single funnel.
The sides of the hull of the Miantonomoh-class ships were protected by five layers of wrought-iron plates that tapered at their bottom edge down to total of , backed by of wood. The armor of the gun turret consisted of ten layers of one-inch plates and the pilot house had eight layers. The ship's deck was protected by armor thick.
Construction and career
thumb|Miantonomoh (center right) and her escorts Augusta (left) and Ashuelot (right) in St John's, Newfoundland, May–June 1866
Miantonomoh, named after the Narragansett chief, Miantonomoh, was laid down in 1862 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, New York, launched on 15 August 1863, and commissioned on 15 September 1865
The nominal reason for the voyage was an instruction by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that Fox was to deliver to Tsar Alexander II of Russia a copy of a Joint Resolution of the Congress which expressed "deep regret" at the recent attempt by Dmitry Karakozov on the Tsar's life and congratulations on his escape from harm. Welles also requested that Fox collect information on naval developments in Europe. After reaching Queenstown on 16 June, where the ships were met by the British broadside ironclads and , they proceeded to Portsmouth, arriving on the 23rd. Miantonomoh was an object of great curiosity to the British public and newspaper reporters were allowed aboard to publish their impressions. Beaumont, Bythesea and Fox gave a guided tour to the Board of Admiralty and the inventor of a different type of armored turret, Captain Cowper Coles, on 29 June before her departure for France. The ship's Dahlgrens were fired for the visitors and the onlooking spectators.
Fox debarked at Cherbourg for unproductive talks with Emperor Napoleon III. Miantonomoh returned to England on 7 July to host more visitors, "The success of her reception in England typified her subsequent visits to other European nations during the next several months." Miantonomoh steamed to Denmark later that month where she was inspected by King Christian IX and his family before departing for Russia at the end of the month. and escorted her to Kronshtadt where she arrived 5 August. During that time Miantonomoh was viewed by the Tsar, his family, and leading Russian naval officers, including the naval architect Rear Admiral Andrei Popov, who later traveled aboard the ship from Hamburg, Prussia, to Cherbourg.
thumb|Miantonomoh in [[Kiel, Germany, 1866]]
Miantonomoh ferried Fox to Stockholm, Sweden, in mid-September and then to Kiel, Prussia, on 1 October. Over the next six months the monitor called at French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian ports before departing British Gibraltar on 15 May 1867 in company with Augusta. They steamed via the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, Caribbean ports and the Bahamas, before the monitor arrived at Philadelphia on 22 July, thus completing a cruise of more than . Miantonomoh was decommissioned there four days later.