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USS Onondaga

History of USS Onondaga

With the outbreak of interstate warfare in the American Civil War (1861-1865), Union war planners quickly sought to strengthen their position in the inland waterways and assigned many ships to the task. The USS Onondaga was ordered for this purpose on May 26, 1862, and was designed as a river monitor - a large river battleship with heavy artillery and a shallow draft. The Onondaga, described as a twin-tower river monitor, was laid in the same year (by Continental Steel Works) and launched on July 29, 1863. She entered service on March 24, 1864, and survived the entire war with the North.

She was decommissioned and sold to France on June 8, 1865, and interestingly, she continued to use the same name. Her hull was sold as scrap in 1904.

When constructed, the USS Onondaga had a displacement of 2,635 tons (short), a length of 226 feet, a beam of 51.5 feet, and a draft of 12.9 feet. Her power comes from 4 x boilers powering 2 x horizontal retrospective steam engines, driving 2 x propellers. The crew size was 130, and the armament consisted of 2 x 15" Dahlgren smoothbore guns as the main guns. The secondary guns consisted of 2 x 150 pound Parrott rifled guns. The ship's profile consisted of a continuous flat main deck with the fore and turret located in the central smoke funnel Above.

Armor protection ranges from 11.75" on the turret to 5.5" at the waterline and 1" on the deck.

USS Onondaga's notable action during the war was as part of the James River Fleet in General Grant's march on the Confederate capital of Richmond. From there began a memorable operation against a Confederate river squadron, which resulted in Onondaga's commander being court-martialed for "dereliction of duty" after deciding to move the ship further downstream.

In the months following the war, the warship returned north and eventually had to be decommissioned in New York waters.

While serving in France, she received a 9.4" rifled main gun, replacing the existing gun battery of the original design. She was acquired on March 7, 1867, and served in the French Navy on June 15, 1869, until she was abandoned at the end of the century.