USS Aroostook was a built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Aroostook was used by the Navy to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Construction and design
Aroostook -- a wooden-hulled, steam-propelled, screw gunboat—was laid down by Nathaniel Lord Thompson sometime soon after 6 July 1861, at Kennebunk, Maine; launched on or around 19 October 1861; and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 20 February 1862, Lt. John C. Beaumont in command.
Civil War service
Rescue of Vermont
On 1 March 1862, toward the end of the gunboat's fitting out process, word reached the yard that, during a fierce storm, had lost her rudder, her bower anchors, all of her rigging, and four of her boats and was drifting helplessly amid raging seas some 95 miles south-southeast of Cape Cod Light. Capt. William L. Hudson, the commandant of the yard, ordered Beaumont to proceed in Aroostook to the vicinity where the disabled ship of the line had last been seen and, upon finding Vermont, to stand by her until other aid arrived.
After getting underway on 2 March, Aroostook located the distressed vessel on the 7th and then lay to, shielding Vermont from the wind. During the ensuing week, Aroostook lost her smokestack and suffered other damage. On the 15th, after the steamer Saxon arrived on the scene and relieved her, Aroostook headed for the Delaware capes.
The gunboat entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the 23d and, following repair of her storm damage and the installation of a new smoke stack, she headed for the Virginia Capes on the last day of March and entered Hampton Roads on 2 April.
Monitor vs. Virginia
The preceding month had been the most dramatic in the history of that busy anchorage. CSS Virginia—the scuttled and burnt screw frigate Merrimack, raised and rebuilt as a Southern ironclad ram—had made her deadly foray into that roadstead and destroyed the frigate and , originally a frigate but cut down to a razee sloop of war. The next day, the novel and plucky Union ironclad Monitor had challenged and checked Virginia when the dreaded Confederate warship reentered Hampton Roads to finish off the remaining Union blockading squadron.
Their fierce fight to a draw on the historic afternoon of 9 March began some two months of an uneasy naval stalemate in Hampton Roads while Union Army transports brought the troops of General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac to the area to launch a drive toward Richmond, Virginia, up the peninsula formed by the York and James Rivers. Strict Confederate secrecy covered Virginia during the weeks following the epic, but inconclusive, battle. The Southern ironclad had reentered the Norfolk Navy Yard to get a new ram to replace that which had broken off in Cumberland's hull as Virginia backed free of her first victim. She also received new armor plates to replace those cracked in battle as well as an armored belt just below her vulnerable casemate eves.
Countering CSS Virginia
Meanwhile, the Union Navy withdrew its sailing warships and some of its deep-draft steamers from Hampton Roads and replaced them with light-draft steam gunboats which were able to maneuver freely in the trick shoal waters inside the Virginia Capes. Aroostook was one of these gunboats, and, after entering Hampton Roads, remained constantly ready for action. During this period, the leaders of the Union Navy showed great imagination in devising innovative tactics for combating the ironclad. Lt. Beaumont decided that he might bring Virginia to bay by ensnaring her propeller in a long heavy net and seine that Aroostook's crew had made of "rattling" stuff. Such a procedure, he reasoned, would "...neutralize her motive power."
When his fellow commanding officers had learned of Beaumont's plan, they seemed to fear Aroostook even more than they dreaded Virginia lest the gunboat's now notorious net might foul their own screws. For instance, Comdr. James P. McKinstry, the captain of the screw steamer , would constantly warn his officers,
Keep out of Beaumont's way. Don't let Beaumont get near you. Keep your eye on the Aroostook.
Virginia rounded Sewell's Point on 11 April; but, since strategic considerations prevented her from challenging Monitor or the other nearby Union warships, Aroostook's dreaded net never entered the water. Nevertheless, forces were then at work which would enable the Union gunboat to play a highly significant role in one of the more dramatic scenes of the Civil War.
On 24 April, the new and lightly armored gunboat joined the Union flotilla serving in Hampton Roads. Her captain, Comdr. John Rodgers, was one of the Navy's most imaginative strategists and most skillful tacticians; and he immediately began studying the situation facing Union forces in the area.
James River
When President Abraham Lincoln arrived there about a fortnight later, Rodgers visited him and suggested that "...there was a great opening for a Naval movement up James River ...." Prompt action was necessary since Virginia was then at Norfolk, Virginia, undergoing yard work but was expected to emerge the following afternoon. Should she reach the mouth of the James before the Union task force began its ascent, the Confederate ironclad could bring the whole plan to naught.
After conferring with Flag Officer Goldsborough, the commander of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Lincoln approved the plan, and Rodgers received command of the little task force—consisting of Galena, Aroostook, and —which got underway shortly after dawn on 8 May. By mid-morning, they were taken under fire by a Confederate battery at Fort Boykin which their counter fire silenced. A second group of Southern guns at Fort Huger offered more resistance, forcing Galena to pass and re-pass that point seven times before Rodgers had Galena lie still abreast the battery which her own cannon engaged while her unarmored consorts slipped by unscathed.
Another danger soon became apparent. The channel marks had been moved causing Galena to run aground off Hog Island, 4 miles downstream from Jamestown on the southern side of the James River. Aroostook and Port Royal labored incessantly for 36 hours before they managed to refloat their stranded flagship which then led them farther upstream.
The Confederate gunboats Patrick Henry and Yorktown—which had been in sight during the action at Mother Tyne's Bluff—had retired upstream ahead of the northern flotilla where Rodgers believed they had joined three other Southern warships. Feeling that he was badly outmatched, Rodgers dropped down to Jamestown Island and sent a messenger to Goldsborough asking for reinforcements.
This appeal reached the flag officer at a most propitious moment, for the South had just evacuated Norfolk and, since Virginia had lost her base, had destroyed the dreaded ironclad ram—lest she fall into Union hands—Goldsborough for the first time, was able to deploy elsewhere the forces he had held in Hampton Roads to check the rebuilt Merrimack. He promptly ordered Monitor and to ascend the James to reinforce Rodgers. The two ships joined Rodgers off Jamestown Island on the 12th, and the combined force moved up to City Point the next day. As they continued on upriver on the 14th, Galena ran aground as the tide was falling, and Aroostook and her consorts labored four hours before they refloated the flotilla flagship.
Drewry's Bluff
Only one obstacle stood between the Union warships and Richmond, the Confederate capital which they hoped to capture, just as a Federal force commanded by Flag Officer David Farragut had taken New Orleans, Louisiana, a few weeks before. This was a battery on Drewry's Bluff above a bend in the river some eight miles below the threatened city.
Before dawn on the 15th, Rodgers ships weighed anchor to resume their ascent of the James and came
...under a sharp fire of musketry from both banks, to which ...[they] replied occasionally with howitzers and small arms.
At 7:35 A.M., they sighted puffs of smoke blossom on Drewry's Bluff as the Southern batteries opened fire. Shortly afterwards lookouts spotted obstructions in the channel that would soon halt their progress. Galena anchored some 600 yards from the Confederate cannon, and Monitor stopped immediately below the flagship. At 8:00 A.M., Aroostook, Port Royal, and Naugatuck moored about 400 yards farther downstream, and Aroostook began firing with her 11-inch Dahlgren gun.
She kept up the bombardment until the cliffside gunners found her range at 9:45. The gunboat then dropped 100 yards farther downstream and resumed her shelling. By 11:00, Galena and Monitor had almost emptied their magazines, prompting Rodgers to break off the action and then to retire downstream. Aroostook—which had "...received a shot at the waterline under the after part of the starboard forechains ..." and another "...through the starboard bow one foot above the sheet hawse hole"—suffered no personnel casualties during the engagement.
Return downstream
For the next few months, the gunboat continued to operate in the James, occasionally dropping as far downstream as Fort Monroe, but never venturing far enough upriver to come within range of the guns at Drewry's Bluff.
During this period, she carried messages, munitions, and supplies and gathered intelligence of Confederate activity for the use of both McClellan and Goldsborough. Occasionally, she came under small arms attack from the riverbanks; and silenced her assailants by well-directed gunfire. On 9 June, the ship proceeded to Jamestown Island where she landed a party which destroyed the guns, ammunition, gun carriages and buildings of the abandoned Confederate batteries.
Four days later, she performed similar service by wrecking the former Southern works at the mouth of Archershape Creek and reconnoitered the then abandoned riverside artillery positions at Harden's Bluff and Day's Point.
Seven Days campaign
Meanwhile, after inching its way up the peninsula, the Union army was just outside Richmond, preparing to lay siege to the Confederate capital. In mid-June, McClellan, alarmed about his vulnerable dangling right flank and the line of communications to his base at the White House, ordered a reconnaissance probe toward the James to determine the feasibility of establishing a base on the north bank of that river where his army would enjoy the support of Union warships. On the 18th, after receiving favorable reports, McClellan ordered transports and supply ships from the York River to Harrison's Landing on the north bank of the James.
The wisdom of this measure became apparent during the Seven Days campaign late in the month. In a series of bloody battles which began on 25 June, Robert E. Lee drove McClellan's troops across the peninsula to this new base on the James where Aroostook joined other Union warships in protecting the beleaguered Federal ground forces.
She continued to carry out this duty through the ensuing weeks, first while McClellan was hoping to resume the offensive and later while he was withdrawing his troops from the peninsula to resume operations in northern Virginia.
Escaped slaves
During this period, Beaumont became ill and was relieved in command of Aroostook by Lt. Samuel Rhoads Franklin. About this time, the ship chanced upon a group of runaway slaves and offered them refuge on board. When Franklin asked one if he and his companions had not been afraid of being shot for attempting to escape, he confidently replied
No, saah, when we seed de Old Rooster coming along, we knowed we was all right.
Thereafter, her crew affectionately called their ship the "Old Rooster."
Potomac River Flotilla