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NavSource Online: "Old Navy" Ship Photo Archive

USS Fort Henry

Awards, Citations and Campaign Ribbons

Civil War Medal

Sidewheel Steamer:
  • Built, date and location unknown
  • Launched, date unknown
  • Purchased, 25 March 1862, at New York
  • Commissioned USS Fort Henry, 3 April 1862, Acting Lieutenant J. C. Walsh in command
  • Assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, Fort Henry arrived at Key West, Fla., 2 June 1862
  • Fort Henry performed blockade duty in the vicinity of St. George Sound and the Cedar Keys
  • She took one sloop in 1862, and in 1863, took four schooners, four sloops, and one smaller craft
  • In April 1863 Fort Henry, USS St. Lawrence and USS Sagamore mounted an expedition to scour the coast between the Suwanee River and Anclote Keys where the group took a sloop off Bayport 9 April, engaged an enemy battery and set a schooner on fire
  • On 20 July 1863, Fort Henry sent her launch to reconnoiter the Crystal River, two of her men were killed by fire from the shore
  • The steamer sailed north in June 1865, arriving at New York 19 June
  • Decommissioned, 8 July 1865, at New York, and sold 15 August 1865
  • Sold at public auction, 15 August 1865, to the Long Island Railroad for $18,500, renamed Huntington
  • Huntington served as a ferry operating between Manhattan and Hunter's Point, Queens
  • Final Disposition, while still in this service, she was burned to the waterline at Hunter's Point, 22 February 1868
    Specifications:
    Displacement 519 t.
    Length 150'6"
    Beam 32'
    Depth of Hold 11'9"
    Draft unknown
    Speed unknown
    Complement unknown
    Armament
    two 9" smoothbores
    four 32-pdrs
    Propulsion
    steam, twin sidewheels
    Click On Image
    For Full Size Image    		 Size Image Description Contributed
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    Fort Henry 57k
    Namesake
    Fort Henry was a five-sided, open-bastioned earthen structure covering 10 acres on the eastern bank of the Tennessee River, near Kirkman's Old Landing. The site was about one mile above Panther Creek and about six miles below the mouth of the Big Sandy River and Standing Rock Creek. The Battle of Fort Henry was fought on February 6, 1862, in Donelson Middle Tennessee, during the American Civil War. It was the first important victory for the Union and Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Western Theater. The surrender of Fort Henry opened the Tennessee River to Union traffic south of the Alabama border.
    Caption - Fort Henry, on the morning after its capture, February 6, from a sketch by Henry Lovie
    Library of Congress Catalog: https://lccn.loc.gov/2007675765 Image download: https://cdn.loc.gov/service/pnp/ppmscd/00000/00001v.jpg Original url: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2007675765/    		 Tommy Trampp
    USS Fort Henry
    Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS)<
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    Last Updated 30 September 2022