USS Michigan (1843)

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Career
Awarded:	�
Laid down:	1842
Launched:	5 December 1843
Commissioned:	29 September 1844
Decommissioned:	6 May 1912
Fate:	Renamed Wolverine, 17 June 1905. Scrapped in 1949
Stricken:	6 May 1912
General Characteristics
Displacement:	685 tons
Length:	163 feet
Beam:	27 feet
Draft:	9 feet
Powerplant:	Steam
Speed:	8 knots
Complement:	88 officers and men
Armament:	One 18 pounder

USS Michigan was the United States Navy’s first iron-hulled warship and served during the American Civil War.

Michigan was designed by naval constructor Samuel Hart; fabricated in parts at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, during the last half of 1842; and carried overland to Erie, Pennsylvania, where assembled. When Hart attempted to launch this pioneer steam man of war 5 December 1843, she slipped down the ways some 50 feet but halted and stuck before reaching water. After strenuous but fruitless efforts to prod the ship into resuming her descent were ended by darkness, the shipwrights retired for the night. But upon returning to the shipyard before the next morning, Hart found the ways empty. Some distance offshore Michigan floated easily in Lake Erie, after launching herself in the night. She commissioned 29 September 1844, Commnader William Inman in command.

Michigan was built by the Navy for defense of Lake Erie after the British Government had armed two steamers there during the Canadian rebellion. Secretary of the Navy Abel P. Upshur had selected iron for her hull “to use the immense resource of our country in that most valuable metal” and “to ascertain the practicability and utility of building vessels, at least for harbor defense, of so cheap and indestructible a material."

Michigan operated on the Great Lakes out of Erie, Pennsylvania, throughout her career. In May 1851, she assisted in the arrest of Mr. James Jesse Strang, known as “King James I,” who headed a dissident Mormon colony on Beaver Island at the head of Lake Michigan, some 40 miles from Mackinac. Strang was soon freed, but 5 years later was assassinated by two of his followers 19 June 1856. The assassins fled to Michigan for sanctuary and were taken to Mackinac and freed.

During the Civil War the Confederacy considered launching attacks against the North from Canada. Early in 1863, Lt. William Henry Murdaugh, CSN, planned to lead a group of southern naval officers to Canada where they would purchase a small steamer, man her with Canadians and steam to Erie to board Michigan and use the prize against locks and shipping on the Great Lakes. However, President Jefferson Davis would not approve.

Michigan cruised on the lakes during most of the war providing an element of stability and security. On 28 July, a short time after New York City had been seriously shaken by riots, Commander John C. Carter commanding Michigan reported from Detroit “I found the people suffering under serious apprehensions of a riot....The presence of the ships perhaps did something toward overawing the refractory, and certainly did much to allay the apprehensions of the excited, doubting people.” During August Michigan was called on for similar service at Buffalo, New York. During 1864, rumors of Confederate conspiracies in Canada again were rife. In March, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Michigan “prepared for active service as soon as the ice will permit.” In the fall, the Confederates finally struck. Led by Acting Master John Yates Beall, 20 southerners embarked on Philo Parsons as passengers and soon sieged the steamer. They next captured and burned steamer Island Queen.

Meanwhile Captain Charles H. Cole, CSA, a Confederate agent in the Lake Erie region, was attempting to ingratiate himself with Michigan’s officers as the Union steamer lay off Johnson’s Island helping to guard Confederate prisoners. However, Commander Carter discovered Cole’s duplicity and had him arrested before Beall reached Johnson’s Island in Philo Parsons. When the prearranged signals from shore were not made, Beall reluctantly abandoned his plan and retired to Sandwich, Canada, where he stripped and burned his prize.

After the war, Michigan continued her faithful service, and was the ship which intercepted and interned the army of the Fenian Brotherhood as it returned from its invasion of Canada near Buffalo, New York in 1866. Michigan was renamed USS Wolverine 17 June 1905. She decommissioned 6 May 1912. She was turned over to the Pennsylvania Naval Militia which she served for 11 years making training cruises in the summer for the U.S. Naval Reserve. On 12 August 1923, a connecting rod of her port cylinder broke ending her active career. In 1927, she was pushed up on a sandbank in Erie Harbor and loaned to the city of Erie as a relic. She was sold to the Foundation for the Preservation of the Original USS Michigan, Inc., 19 July 1948. But when fundraising efforts failed to acquire sufficient money for her restoration and preservation, she was cut up and sold for scrap in 1949. The next year her bow and cutwater were erected as a monument, near the shipyard where she had been built.

See USS Michigan for other ships of this name.

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. This article includes information collected from the Naval Vessel Register.