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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

USS Tennessee (III)
ex
 USS Madawaska (I) (1867 - 1869)

Screw Frigate:
  • Laid down, date unknown, as a wood-hulled screw frigate at Brooklyn Navy Yard.
  • Launched, 8 July 1865
  • Commissioned USS Madawaska, circa January 1867, CDR. Francis A. Roe in command
  • Renamed USS Tennessee 15 May 1869, timbered up to the necessary height to allow a spar deck to be installed
  • Tennessee served as flagship for the Asiatic Squadron from 1869 to 1879
  • Reassigned as flagship for the North Atlantic Squadron in 1879
  • Decommissioned, date unknown
  • Struck from the Naval Register, date unknown
  • Sold, 15 September 1886 to Burdett Pond, Meriden, CT.
  • Final Disposition, fate unknown
    Specifications:
    Displacement 3,281 t.
    Length 355'
    Beam 45' 2"
    Draft 21' 8"
    Speed 13.9 Kts
    Complement 480
    Armament
    two 8" rifles
    two 100-pdrs
    one 60-pdr
    eighteen 9" smooth bore guns
    Propulsion Steam and Sail
    As Built - two Ericsson vibrating lever engines
    1869 - two compound back-acting engines, 3,200hp
    Bunker - 380 t. coal
    ten principal sails, 22,500 square feet
    Click On Image
    For Full Size Image    		 Size Image Description Contributed
    By
    Tennessee 30k USS Tennessee (III) under way, after 1869 when her spar deck was added.
    US Navy photo # NR&L(O) 14155 from DANFS.    		 US Navy History and Heritage Command
    Tennessee 480k The wooden-hulled steam screw frigate USS Tennessee (III) at Brooklyn Navy Yard in 1875, after her conversion to a gun-deck frigate.
    US Navy photo from Warships of the Civil War Navies, p. 33, by Paul H. Silverstone, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD.    		 Robert Hurst
    Tennessee 142k USS Tennessee (III) in the early 1880s, location unknown.
    A U.S. Naval Institute photo from the Florida Keys Public Libraries photo # MM00014609.     		Robert Hurst
    Florida 218k Drawing comparing the machinery installation of USS Wampanoag, USS Tennessee and USS Trenton. It is marked: "Copy from Roach's April 16th (18)77". The plan emphasizes the savings in weight, space and personnel represented in the machinery and boilers of Tennessee and Trenton as compared with Wampanoag. The original drawing is # 107-10-5A in Record Group 19, National Archives.
    US Naval History and Heritage Command Photo # NH 76383    		 Robert Hurst
    USS Madawaska (I) / USS Tennessee (III)
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS)
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    This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo
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    Last Updated 15 December 2017