The first USS Tuscarora was a Mohican-class sloop of war in the United States Navy. The ship served during the American Civil War and then undertook a variety of naval duties, including cable laying and oceanographic study in the 1870s.
Design and construction
In 1857, US Secretary of the Navy Isaac Toucey requested USD 2,300,000 government funding for the construction of ten sloops of war. She left shortly and returned to Spanish waters in September. She cruised off the Azores during October, but again found nothing. On 1 December 1862, Tuscarora was ordered to remain off the European coast and to protect American shipping. On 15 March 1863, she reported that she had no intelligence that Confederate vessels were operating in her area. She returned to the Philadelphia Navy Yard later that month.
Tuscarora left Philadelphia on 6 June 1863, bound for the New York Navy Yard. She got underway again on 14 June to search for the bark and patrolled off Bermuda before putting into Hampton Roads for supplies on 22 June. Two days later, she headed north and cruised between Cape Henry and the coast of Nova Scotia before arriving at Boston, Massachusetts, 12 days later. During her time at sea, she failed to locate Tacony. During August, Tuscarora searched for Confederate raiders off the Grand Banks, Newfoundland, but encountered none before she returned to Boston on 3 September.
Early in October, Tuscarora left Boston for duty with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She arrived off Wilmington, North Carolina, on October 7 and was ordered to Beaufort, North Carolina, where she served as a storeship. The vessel subsequently returned to Boston and was decommissioned there on 4 June 1864.
North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 1864–1865
Tuscarora was recommissioned at Boston on 3 October 1864 and reassigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She put in at Hampton Roads on 8 October and took up blockade station off Wilmington. Tuscarora participated in the unsuccessful attempt to take Fort Fisher, on 24 December and 25 December. In mid-January 1865, she returned to waters off Wilmington, and a landing party from the vessel helped to capture the fort on the 15th. She suffered three men killed and 12 wounded during the assault.
South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, 1865
The next day, Tuscarora was reassigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Towing monitor , she sailed for Port Royal, South Carolina, on 17 January, and arrived on the 20th to deploy off Georgetown, South Carolina. She was transferred to the blockade off Ossabaw Sound, Georgia, on 5 March 1865, and escorted Jefferson Davis, his family, and other captured Confederate officials aboard the steamer William P. Clyde from Port Royal to Hampton Roads on 16 May to 19 May. After disembarking her famous passengers at Fort Monroe, Tuscarora continued north to the Boston Navy Yard where she was decommissioned on 30 May.
Post-Civil War, 1865–1880
Tuscarora was recommissioned later in the year and sailed on 2 November 1865 for the Pacific Ocean via Cape Horn. She served with the South Pacific Squadron from 1866 until May 1869. She stood off Valparaíso, Chile, during the Spanish bombardment on 31 March 1866 and was also present at Callao, Peru, when the Spanish shelled it on 2 May. In 1867, Tuscarora stopped at Tahiti and other islands of the Society group. She also touched at Fiji, where she received payment of awards made to United States citizens in 1855 and 1858 for injuries and losses sustained as a result of acts of the natives.
Tuscarora returned to South America in 1868 and was placed at the disposal of the Chilean government to assist victims of the great earthquake which had occurred on 18 November 1867. In February 1869, she investigated the imprisonment of the United States consul at Buenaventura, Colombia, and moved to Valparaíso at the end of the month. She departed Valparaíso on 12 May bound for the North Atlantic and arrived at Key West, Florida, on 28 July. Tuscarora ended the year stationed at Aspinwall, Colombia, now Colón, Panama.
Tuscarora remained at Aspinwall until April 1870; then returned to Key West. She cruised off the coast of Cuba in June and escorted the ironclads , , and from New Orleans to Key West. After again cruising the Caribbean, she arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 31 January 1871 and was decommissioned there on 10 February.
Cable laying and oceanographic work
thumb|right|Guatulco Santa Cruz and Tangola Tangola surveyed by USS Tuscarora 1879, published Admiralty 1883
In 1872, the decision was made for the ship to be recommissioned to undertake oceanographic and Hydrographic surveys under Commander Belknap. She was recommissioned on 16 May 1872 and assigned to the South Pacific Station.
The ship then departed San Francisco and surveyed the sea floor off the northwest coast to determine a suitable route for a submarine communication cable. As well as soundings for a cable route to Hawaii, the ship also undertook 34 depth soundings off Cape Flattery and carried out 83 soundings to determine the sea shelf off the West coast of America. She returned to San Francisco and was decommissioned at the Mare Island Navy Yard on 14 September 1876. Tuscarora was laid up for repairs during 1877.
Tuscarora was recommissioned at Mare Island on 10 January 1878, and was assigned special oceanic survey work off the western coasts of Central and South America. She returned to Mare Island for repairs on 30 June 1879 but headed south again on 25 September to resume her duties. Tuscarora again returned to Mare Island on 21 April 1880 and was decommissioned there on 31 May 1880 for repairs. The repairs and modifications were never completed, and the vessel was struck from the Navy List in 1883.
Tuscarora was sold at Mare Island to W. E. Mighell on 20 November 1883.
See also
- Confederate States Navy