Mobile I (Sidewheel Gunboat)
1864-1865
A city in the southwestern part of the state of Alabama, located at the mouth of the Mobile River and at the head of Mobile Bay.
I
(Sidewheel Gunboat: tonnage 1,275; length 210'0"; beam 33'0"; draft 16'6"; armament 2 32‑pounders, 1 30‑pounder Parrott rifle, 1 12‑pounder [1863])
The side wheel steamerTennessee was built at Baltimore, Md. in 1854 for Charles Morgan's Texas Line, was seized on 15 January 1862 and put into service as a Confederate government‑operated blockade runner. Captured by U.S. forces at New Orleans on 25 April 1862, however, she was commissioned as Tennessee on 8 May 1862, Acting Master John D. Childs in command.
On 1 September 1864, following the capture of the Confederate ironclad Tennessee and her commissioning as a ship of the U.S. Navy, the side‑wheel gunboat was renamed Mobile. Heavily damaged soon after in a gale off the Rio Grande, Mobile was sent to New York for repairs.
Sold to Russell Sturgis on 30 March 1865, the ship was redocumented as Republic on 12 May 1865. Ultimately, she foundered at sea off Savannah, Ga., on 25 October 1865.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
12 June 2024
