USS Columbus (1819)
90-gun ship of the line in the United States Navy / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Columbus was a 92-gun ship of the line in the United States Navy. Although construction of the warship was authorized by Congress on 2 January 1813, plunder of the Washington Navy Yard by British troops in 1814 during the burning of Washington,[1] combined with efforts to keep US military stores out of British hands,[2] led to the destruction of any initial framing. Days after Congress re-authorized the vessel on 29 April 1816,[3][4] a keel was laid and construction resumed.[1]
USS Columbus | |
History | |
---|---|
United States | |
Name | USS Columbus |
Builder | Washington Navy Yard |
Launched | 1 March 1819 |
Commissioned | 7 September 1819 |
Decommissioned | March 1848 |
Fate | Scuttled, 20 April 1861 |
General characteristics | |
Tonnage | 2480 |
Length | 191 ft 9 in (58.45 m) |
Beam | 53 ft 5 in (16.28 m) |
Draft | 25 ft (7.6 m) |
Complement | 780 officers and men |
Armament | 68 × 32-pounder (15 kg) guns, 24 × 42-pounder (19 kg) carronades |
Columbus was launched on 1 March 1819 into the Anacostia River at the Washington Navy Yard; her dimensions were "191 feet 10 inches, between perpendiculars; breadth of beam from outside to outside, 53 feet 6 inches".[1] The warship was commissioned on 29 November 1819, Master Commandant John H. Elton, commanding.[1] Her original armament comprised "92 guns: 68 long 32-pounders and twenty-four 42-pounder carronades";[1] this was greater than the Naval artillery equipping most of the nine ships-of-the-line authorized by Congress in the 1816 legislation, which specified that these warships "rate not less than seventy-four guns each".[1][3]
Enslaved laborer and diarist, Michael Shiner, documented the launching thus, "The United States Ship Columbus 74, constructed and built by Colonel William Doughty and launch on 4 March 1819 on Monday at Washington Navy Yard the United States Ship Columbus 74."[5]