Contoocook-class Sloop

The ''Contoocook''-class was a series of screw sloops operated by the United States Navy following the American Civil War. The ships were designed during the war to serve in a post-war Navy, and were intended to operate as commerce raiders as an economic disincentive to European powers planning a future war. However, they suffered from poor construction quality and had a brief service life during peacetime as the Navy lost funding. Despite an initial ten ships planned, only four were launched and were all decommissioned after a decade in service.

Development

Despite the United Kingdom's official stance of neutrality during the American Civil War, British assets were used to support the rebelling Confederacy, particularly in the development of its navy. Shipyards in Liverpool indiscreetly constructed blockade runners and privateers for the Confederates, exploiting a legal loophole by ensuring the vessels were not armed until they reached Portugal. Among these ships were , , and , which wreaked havoc on Union shipping; ''Alabama'' alone was responsible for destroying 65 merchant vessels.

The Union Navy was alarmed by these developments, as the disruption of American trade routes drove up domestic prices, damaged the economy, and forced the reassignment of ships from blockade duties against the South. By 1863, the Union, already provoked by these developments, feared that Britain might intervene to support the Confederates directly - a scenario that would have left the Union Navy hopelessly outmatched by the Royal Navy. Faced with that prospect, the Union Navy began planning for a possible war with the United Kingdom. While the Union fleet could not match the Royal Navy in conventional battles, the plan called for employing tactics similar to those used by the Confederacy: commerce raiding. By using cruisers to launch hit-and-run attacks on British ports and merchant shipping, the Union hoped to make a war too costly for Britain to justify, ultimately forcing it back into neutrality.

For the new role, the Navy developed a breed of warship known as "commerce destroyers" that had the range and speed to intercept enemy ships at sea. Twenty-seven such ships were ordered by Congress in 1863, split into three classes varying in size, speed, and armament. Largest and fastest was the ''Wampanoag''-class frigate, most well armed was the ''Java''-class frigate, and the smallest was the ''Contoocook''-class sloop. The new ships were built according to a new doctrine of the Navy planned for the post-war era. Congress was only interested in a Navy that could directly protect the United States, not one that could rival the Royal or French Navies. Instead of large, costly, ocean-going ironclads such as USS ''Dunderburg'', the legislator wanted the Navy to only consist of costal ironclads that would protect the shoreline and the commerce destroyers to operate out at sea and deter aggression from said navies.

Design

The ships had a length of , beam of , draft of , and a displacement of . While the design initially called for a ram, it was later dropped. The ships were armed with one Parrott rifled muzzle-loading gun, a broadside of fourteen Dahlgren cannons, and three howitzers. As ''Contoocook'' was completed as a corvette, her spar deck carried an additional six Dahlgren guns. The ship hulls were long and narrow, resembling those of clippers, in an attempt to achieve high speeds. The ships were powered by four boilers, two of which were equipped with superheaters, which turned a single propeller. Combined with the ship-rigged sails, they could reach about if conditions were beneficial. As built, the ships had one funnel and had a crew of 350 sailors.

Service history

Following the end of the Civil War in 1865, the Navy faced severe funding cuts, which left many projects stalled; the next year, the last six ships of the class were cancelled. Four years later, the Secretary of the Navy disapproved of the large number of warships named after Native American tribes and the incoherent naming conventions used across the fleet. As a result, he ordered a systematic renaming of vessels, which included ''Contoocook'' becoming ''Albany; Mosholu'' named ''Severn''; and ''Pushmataha'' being renamed first to ''Cambridge'' and later ''Congress.'' The class's wartime construction meant the ships were built out of green wood, which limited their lifespan and usefulness. A post-war commission reviewed the class in 1869, and found that the design was unsatisfactory due to overengineering of the engines and a high length-to-beam ratio; by the next year, both the newly renamed ''Severn'' and ''Albany'' were decommissioned despite only having recently been completed. The last two ships were out of service by the end of the decade.

Ships in class

References

Sloop classes
Ship classes of the United States Navy
Sloops
Sloops of the United States Navy
{{Contoocook class sloop/frigate