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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
Online Library of Selected Images:
-- U.S. NAVY SHIPS --
USS Galena (1862-1872)
USS Galena, a 950-ton ironclad gunboat, was built at
Mystic, Connecticut. Commissioned in April 1862 as the second
of the U.S. Navy's first three armored warships, she was immediately
sent to Hampton Roads, Virginia, to join the Navy's pioneer ironclad
Monitor in containing
CSS Virginia.
On 8 May, Galena attacked enemy shore batteries on the
James River, part of an intended drive up the river to take Richmond,
the Confederate capital city.
After the Virginia was destroyed, Galena and
other Union warships steamed up the James on 15 May to bombard
Fort Darling, located at Drewry's Bluff about eight miles below
Richmond. In a sharp action, Confederate gunners badly damaged
Galena, killing twelve of her crew and demonstrating the
inadequacy of her relatively thin iron armor. Despite her injuries,
the ship remained in the James River area through the next four
months, shelling enemy shore positions on several occasions in
support of General McClellan's army during the flow and ebb of
its campaign on the Virginia Peninsula. After Galena left
the James in September 1862, she was stationed in Hampton Roads
until May 1863, when she went to Philadelphia for repairs and
alterations.
Recommissioned in February 1864, Galena had been stripped
of her iron plating, given a heavier gun battery and enlarged
sail rig. Now a conventional unarmored steam warship, in May she
joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron's pending assault on
Mobile Bay, Alabama. She was one of the ships that ran past the
Bay's defending Fort Morgan on the morning of 5 August 1864. During
that action, she assisted USS Oneida to safety after that
ship was disabled by Confederate gunfire. Later in the month,
Galena took part in the siege that led to Fort Morgan's
surrender.
Galena served in the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in
September-November 1864. After four months of shipyard repairs,
she served on Virginia's James and Nansemond Rivers through the
end of the Civil War. She decommissioned in June 1865 and was
thereafter inactive except for a brief time in the spring of 1869.
USS Galena was broken up in 1872 at the Norfolk Navy Yard,
where a new and somewhat larger Galena
was built under the administrative fiction of repairing the original.
This page features, or provides links to, all our views of
USS Galena (1862-1872).
For pictures of USS Galena in action, see:
USS Galena -- Actions & Activities.
Click on the small photograph to prompt
a larger view of the same image.
Photo #: NH 58863
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Line engraving, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862,
depicting the ship as she appeared when first completed, with
a two-masted schooner rig.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 129KB; 740 x 510 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 59305
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Line engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", July-December
1861, page 669, while the ship was under construction at Mystic,
Connecticut.
Details of this depiction are inaccurate, especially the elongated
gun ports shown fore and aft of the smokestack.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 153KB; 740 x 575 pixels |
 |
Photo #: NH 57820
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Wash drawing by R.G. Skerrett, 1898, depicting the ship as she
appeared while serving on the James River, Virginia, circa mid-1862.
Courtesy of the U.S. Navy Art Collection, Washington, D.C.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 69KB; 740 x 400 pixels |
 |
Photo #: NH 59541
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Watercolor by Oscar Parkes, depicting the ship as she appeared
in mid-1862, while serving on the James River, Virginia.
Courtesy of Dr. Oscar Parkes, 1936.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 57KB; 740 x 450 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 58752
U.S. Navy Warships, 1862
Line engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862,
depicting several contemporary U.S. Navy ironclad and conventional
warships. They are (from left to right: Puritan (in the
original twin-turret design); Catskill; Montauk,
Keokuk (citing her original name, "Woodna");
Passaic; Galena (behind Roanoke, with name
not cited); Roanoke; Winona; New Ironsides;
Naugatuck; Brooklyn and Monitor.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 59KB; 740 x 250 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 58864
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Line engraving, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862,
depicting the ship's gun deck as it appeared when she was first
completed.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 124KB; 740 x 450 pixels |
 |
Photo #: NH 53984
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Photograph looking forward along the ship's port side, shortly
after her 15 May 1862 action with Confederate batteries at Drewry's
Bluff, on the James River, Virginia.
Among the items visible are the muzzles of two of Galena's
IX-inch Dahlgren smoothbore guns; her unique horizontally-laid
interlocking iron side armor; armored gunport shutters; boat
davits; members of her crew; and at least one plugged hole from
enemy shot (near the waterline in bottom left center).
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 133KB; 670 x 675 pixels |
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Photo #: LC-B8171-652
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Photograph taken on board by Matthew Brady, shortly after the
15 May 1862 action with Confederate batteries at Drewry's Bluff,
Virginia.
This view looks forward on the starboard side of the spar deck,
and shows holes in Galena's smokestack (in left center)
made by Confederate cannon fire. Among the other items seen are
boat davits, canvas windsails, the elevated wooden conning platform
and the lookout position on the foremast.
Collections of the Library of Congress.
Online Image: 109KB; 740 x 610 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 58862
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Line engraving, published in "Harper's Weekly", 1862,
depicting the ship's midship's hull section, the arrangement
of her horizontally-laid interlocking side armor, and one of
her armored gun ports.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 65KB; 740 x 275 pixels |
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Photo #: NH 59306
USS Galena (1862-1872)
Line engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", July-December
1861, page 670, depicting the ship's hull section amidships.
She was then under construction at Mystic, Connecticut.
U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph.
Online Image: 103KB; 665 x 675 pixels |
 |
For pictures of USS Galena in action, see:
USS Galena -- Actions & Activities.
Return to Naval
Historical Center home page.
Page made 10 July 2001
Image added 31 August 2001