USS Housatonic (1861)

USS Housatonic was a screw sloop-of-war of the United States Navy, taking its name from the Housatonic River of New England.

Housatonic was launched on 20 November 1861, by the Boston Navy Yard at Charlestown, Massachusetts, sponsored by Miss Jane Coffin Colby and Miss Susan Paters Hudson; and commissioned there on 29 August 1862, with Commander William Rogers Taylor in command. Housatonic was one of four sister ships which included USS Adirondack (1862), USS Ossipee (1861), and USS Juniata (1862). Housatonic is recognized as being the first ship sunk in combat by a submarine when she was attacked and sunk by H.L. Hunley in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina.

Blockading Charleston
Housatonic departed Boston on 11 September and arrived at Charleston, South Carolina, on 19 September to join the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She took station outside the bar.

Capture of Princess Royal and Confederate counter-attack
On 29 January 1863, her boats, aided by those of USS Augusta (1853), USS G. W. Blunt (1856), and USS America, boarded and refloated the iron steamer USS Princess Royal (1863). The gunboat USS Unadilla (1861) had driven the blockade runner ashore as she attempted to slip into Charleston from England with a cargo consisting of two marine engines destined for Confederate ironclads and a large quantity of ordnance and ammunition. These imports were of such great potential value to the South that they have been called "the war's most important single cargo of contraband."

It is possibly in the hope of recovering this invaluable prize that the Confederate ironclad rams CSS Chicora and CSS Palmetto State slipped out of the main ship channel of Charleston Harbor to attack the Union blockading fleet in the early morning fog two days later. They rammed USS Mercedita (1861), forcing her to strike her colors "in a sinking and perfectly defenseless condition", and moved on to cripple USS Keystone State (1853). Gunfire from the rams also damaged USS Quaker City (1854) and USS Augusta (1853) before the Confederate ships withdrew under fire from Housatonic to the protection of shore batteries.

Capture of Georgiana
On 19 March 1863, Housatonic and USS Wissahickon (1861), responding to signal flares sent up by America, chased the 407 ton iron-hulled blockade runner SS Georgiana ashore on Long Island, South Carolina. Georgiana's cargo of munitions, medicine and merchandise was then valued at over $1,000,000. Georgiana was described in contemporary dispatches and newspaper accounts as more powerful than the Confederate cruisers CSS Alabama, CSS Shenandoah, and CSS Florida. This was a serious and very important blow to the Confederacy. The wreck of Georgiana was discovered by pioneer underwater archaeologist Lee Spence in 1965.

Further captures, and attacks on Charleston
Housatonic captured the sloop Neptune on 19 April as she attempted to run out of Charleston with a cargo of cotton and turpentine. She was credited with assisting in the capture of the steamer Seesh on 15 May. Howitzers mounted in Housatonic's boats joined in the attack on Fort Wagner on 10 July, which began the continuing bombardment of the Southern works at Charleston. In ensuing months her crew repeatedly deployed boats which shelled the shoreline, patrolled close ashore gathering valuable information, and landed troops for raids against the outer defenses of Charleston. On Sept 9th, 1863 Charles W. Pickering, Captain of the USS Housatonic, would submit a report to Rear Admiral Dahlgren concerning the men of his command who were involved in the attack on Fort Sumter of the evening prior. He would list men of the 4th cutter- Lieut Edwin T. Brower, commanding. Among the 17 men of Cutter Four was Frederic Augustus James - the report ends with "All the above, with the boat, are missing."

Sunk in the first submarine attack
At just before 9pm, 17 February 1864, Housatonic, commanded by Charles Pickering, was maintaining her station in the blockade outside the bar. Robert F. Flemming, Jr., a black landsman, first sighted an object in the water 100 yards off, approaching the ship. "It had the appearance of a plank moving in the water," Pickering later reported. Although the chain was slipped, the engine backed, and all hands were called to quarters, it was too late. Within two minutes of the first sighting, the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley rammed her spar torpedo into Housatonic's starboard side, forward of the mizzenmast, in history's first successful submarine attack on a warship. Before the rapidly sinking ship went down, the crew managed to lower two boats which took all the men they could hold; most others saved themselves by climbing into the rigging which remained above water after the stricken ship settled on the bottom. Two officers and three men in Housatonic died. The Confederate submarine escaped but was lost with all hands not long after this action; new evidence announced by archaeologists in 2013 indicates that the submarine may have been much closer to the point of detonation than previously realized, thus damaging the submarine as well. In 2017, researchers at Duke University further established through simulation that the Hunley's crew were most likely killed immediately at their posts by the blast's pressure wave damaging their lungs and brains.

Wreck
On February 20, 1864, Capt. Joseph W. Green of the USS Canandaigua surveyed the wreck and observed that the ship's spar deck was about [15ft below the water and that the deck "appears to have been entirely blown off." Soon thereafter, the Union began recovery efforts to raise the Housatonic's guns, which was accomplished later in 1864. In 1872, the Army Corps of Engineers commissioned Benjamin Maillefert to clear some of the wrecks from the Charleston Harbor, including the Housatonic. Throughout 1873 and 1874, Maillefert scavenged the wreck of any useful materials, and in 1909, the remnants of the ship (notably, its boilers) were further broken up to ensure the wreck was not a hazard. In 199596, NUMA-funded researchers tentatively located the wreck of the Housatonic, and in 1999, the wreck was surveyed by researchers from the Submerged Resources Center, the Naval Historical Center, and SCIAA.