USS Camanche
| USS Camanche | |
|---|---|
Career | |
| Type and class | Ironclad monitor Passaic class |
| Authorized | 1862 |
| Shipyard | Secor Brothers, Jersey City, New Jersey |
| Keel laid | 1863 |
| Launched | November 14, 1864 |
| Commissioned | August 22, 1865 |
| Fate | Sold for scrapping, March 22, 1899 |
| Specifications | |
| Length | 200 feet |
| Beam | 46 feet |
| Draft | 11 feet |
| Displacement | 1,875 tons |
| Propulsion | Steam engine Single screw propeller |
| Speed | 7 knots |
| Armament | Two 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbores |
| Compliment | 75 officers and men |
USS Camanche, whose name was based on an archaic spelling of the Indian tribe of Texas, was built in 1863 by Secor Brothers, Jersey City, New Jersey and disassembled and shipped to California on board Aquila, which sank at her dock in San Francisco on 14 November 1863, soon after her arrival. Salvaged from Aquila's hulk, Camanche was assembled there and launched on 14 November 1864; she was commissioned 22 August 1865, Lieutenant Commander C. J. McDougal in command.
For more than a year, until the arrival of the larger twin-turret monitor Monadnock, Camanche was the Navy's only ironclad warship on the Pacific coast, and she was one of but two stationed there for nearly two and a half decades. Laid up at Mare Island throughout most of her career, Camanche served as a training ship for the California Naval Militia in 1896 and 1897. She was sold at Mare Island 22 March 1899.
This article incorporates text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, a work in the public domain.
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