Built as a monitor by the Union Iron Works (James B. Eads & Co.), Carondelet, Missouri for the USA Navy.
26 May 1862 laid down.
10 February 1864 launched as the USS CHICKASAW, named after an Indian land tripe now resident in Oklahoma. Three sisters.
Displacement 1300 ton, dim. 69.80 x 17.07 x 1.83m. (draught).
Powered by a horizontal non condensing steam engine, hp?, speed 9 knots.
Coal capacity 156 ton.
Armament 4 – 11inch Dahlgren smoothbores guns.
Crew 120.
08 May arrived at Mound City, Illinois.
14 May 1864 commissioned under command of acting Master J. Fitzpatrick.
The launching of this ship on Feb 10, 1864 resulted in an unsuspected calamity. After the wine-breaking ceremony, the ship "plunged into the river, rising again, and floating like a cork." "The anchor was jerked overboard, and the immense rope was being paid out with fearful rapidity." The huge coils of rope swept overboard the following guests: "Miss Jenny Eads, daughter of J.B. Eads; Miss Mary Maguire, daughter of Mr. John Maguire; Mr. O.B. Filley, son of Mr. O. D. Filley; and Mr. and Mrs. Wm. P. Bradley. The chair on which Miss Stewart sat was pulled into the river, and she herself thrown on the coil of ropes, where she was grasped by two gentlemen and literally dragged away from the rope. The unfortunate persons supported themselves in the water by getting hold of pieces of timber, until two skiffs pushed out into the river and picked them up, all save Mrs. Bradley, who was supposed to have been stunned by striking one of the timbers, and drowned. " [History of Saint Louis City and County, by J. Thomas Scharf; Louis H. Everts & Co.; 1883].
Between 14 May and 30 June 1864 CHICKASAW patrolled on the Mississippi River. Sailing to New Orleans, she joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron 9 July. While operating with the Squadron she participated in Admiral Farragut's victory the Battle of Mobile Bay (5 August 1864), during which she was struck by enemy shells 11 times, and the attacks on Forts Gaines (6 August) and Morgan (13 August). The monitor remained in the vicinity of Mobile Bay until 3 July 1865 when she sailed down river for New Orleans.
Upon her arrival at New Orleans 6 July 1865, CHICKASAW was decommissioned and laid up.
Between 15 June and 10 August 1869 she bore the name SAMSON and then reverted to CHICKASAW. She was sold at New Orleans 12 September 1874.
She was converted in a railroad ferry by New Orleans Pacific Railroad and in 1880 converted to a side-wheel propulsion under the name GOULDSBORO.
Used as a railway ferry across the Mississippi until the late 1930s after a new bridge was opened across the Mississippi.
An effort to convert the retired railroad ferry into a museum ship failed and the GOULDSBORO was sold in the 1940s to the New Orleans Coal &Bisso Towboat Co and spent her last years as a work barge for the Bisso family near New Orleans, Louisiana, sinking in the 1950s.
Grenada 2002 $1.25 sg?, scott?
Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1860-1905. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Chickasaw_(1864)