Farragut's father, a sea captain, and his older brother, a midshipman, were leaving to go off to sea. She died in 1808 in the Asiatic cholera epidemic in New Orleans, while caring for Porter. When a friend of the family, David Porter, Sr., became ill, he was cared for by Farragut's mother, Elizabeth. James Glasgow Farragut was born on July 5, 1801, at Campbell's Station, Tennessee. The plan required a man who was loyal to the Union, acquainted with the Mississippi River, and who had years of experience at sea. If the North controlled the Mississippi, the Confederacy would be split in two. In Washington a plan was brewing with the goal of capturing New Orleans, ninety miles up the Mississippi River from the Gulf of Mexico.
Later that year the Hartford sailed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to be dry-docked for minor adjustments and for the addition of more guns. President Lincoln declared war and proclaimed a blockade of the southern ports from South Carolina to Texas. In April 1861, the Confederates attacked Fort Sumter. She had cost the government just over half a million dollars, a lot of money for that time.Īfter her sea trials in 1859, the Hartford left for her first tour of duty as flagship in the fleet known as the East Indies Squadron.
The Hartford was ready to be commissioned. Her tall smokestack was of a unique type which could be partially telescoped when the ship was not using her engines. Her two steam engines were built in the South Boston shop of Harrison Loring, under the supervision of Jesse Gray, chief engineer in the U.S. With sails set on her three masts she would be a beauty. She was 265 feet long and 44 feet wide, with a depth below waterline of only 13 feet. Delano, 350 shipyard workers had her ready for launching by November of that year. Under the direction of naval constructor Edward H. Her keel of white oak was laid in January, 1858. The Hartford was one of them, to be built in the Boston Navy Yard. A hundred years before that, in 1857, Congress had authorized construction of five sailing warships with auxiliary seam power. Over and over again she was repaired, rebuilt, and made ready to sail. Hartford served our country from 1859 until 1926.
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