USS Macedonian (1836)
{{other ships|USS Macedonian}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2022}}
{{More footnotes needed|date=October 2011}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= File:LC-DIG-PPMSCA-33814 (17367121731).jpg |Ship caption=Macedonian, port view, during the Civil War }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= United States |Ship flag= {{USN flag|1871}} |Ship name= USS Macedonian |Ship namesake= |Ship ordered= |Ship builder=Gosport Shipyard |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= 1836 |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned= 1836 |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship refit=Razeed to a sloop-of-war, 1852 |Ship homeport= |Ship motto= |Ship nickname= |Ship honours= |Ship fate=*Sold for merchant service, 1871
|Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship type= Frigate |Ship tonnage= 1341 |Ship length= {{convert|164|ft|m|abbr=on}} |Ship beam= {{convert|41|ft|m|abbr=on}} |Ship draft= {{convert|21|ft|6|in|m|abbr=on}} |Ship propulsion=Sails |Ship sail plan= |Ship speed= |Ship range= |Ship complement=489 officers and enlisted |Ship armament= 36 guns |Ship armor= |Ship notes= }} |
The second USS Macedonian, was a three-masted, wooden-hulled sailing frigate of the US Navy, carrying 36 guns. Rebuilt from the keel of the first {{USS|Macedonian|1810|2}} at Gosport (later Norfolk) Navy Yard, Portsmouth, Virginia beginning in 1832, the new Macedonian was launched and placed in service in 1836, with Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones in command.
Service history
=West Indies Squadron=
Macedonian was assigned to the West Indies Squadron to cruise in the West Indies and along the west coast of Africa from 1839 to 1847 as a continuing deterrent to Caribbean pirates.
By a joint resolution of Congress on 3 March 1847 Macedonian and sloop-of-war {{USS|Jamestown|1844|2}} were placed in civilian hands to carry food to Ireland during the Great Famine of the late 1840s.{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I22Y6Ssq4zIC&pg=PR10 |title = Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War|isbn = 9780807863244|last1 = Bennett|first1 = Michael J.|date = 15 December 2005}} With a volunteer crew, Macedonian, Captain George C. De Kay in command, departed New York on 15 June with 12,000 barrels of provisions for Ireland donated by private citizens of the United States, returning to Brooklyn Navy Yard some months later to resume navy service.
=Expedition to Japan=
In 1852, Macedonian docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to be razeed and converted to a sloop-of-war for Commodore Matthew Perry's expedition to Japan. Assigned as part of the East India Squadron
under command of Captain Joel Abbot, was one of the ten American ships entering Edo Bay, Japan, on 13 February 1854 during Perry's second visit to negotiate the opening of Japan to foreign trade, remaining as part of the show of force under the Convention of Kanagawa signed at Yokohama on 31 March 1854.
Macedonian remained on patrol in the North Pacific for the next three years. Then, from 1857 to 1861 she served with the Home Squadron in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean.{{citation needed|date=October 2019}} On 26 October 1858 she assisted with the refloating of {{HMS|Curacoa|1854|6}}, which had run aground on the Pelican Shoal, off Smyrna, Ottoman Empire.{{Cite news |title=The Running Ashore of the Curacoa |newspaper=Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle |location=Portsmouth |date=24 December 1858 |issue=3090 }}
=Civil war=
File:Three U.S. Navy ships, from left, the Macedonian, the Dale, and the Savannah anchored at the south wharf of West Point, Hudson River, New York LCCN2013647456.jpg, and the Savannah anchored at the south wharf of West Point, on the Hudson River, New York]]
With the American Civil War looming just ahead, the frigate departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire, for Pensacola, Florida, on 12 January 1861 to join {{USS|Brooklyn|1858|2}} in preventing a possible Confederate attack on the harbor. On 11 February Macedonian sailed for Veracruz, Mexico, arriving on the 24th. She then began patrol operations along the gulf coast and the coast of South America, with stops at Aspinwall (later Colón, Panama) and Portobelo, Panama; Martinique; and St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. On 3 December she got underway with {{USS|Dacotah|1859|2}} from St. Thomas for the east coast, arriving Boston Navy Yard on 16 January 1862. Macedonian spent most of the next two years with the West Indies Squadron. In July 1863 she cruised along the coast of Portugal with sloop-of-war {{USS|Kearsarge|1861|2}} hunting Confederate States ship {{ship|CSS|Sumter||2}}. It was around then that Alfred Thayer Mahan served aboard for a brief time.
From the end of that year through 1870, Macedonian served as school and practice ship for midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy, first at Newport, Rhode Island, then after the civil war at Annapolis, Maryland. In 1871 she was laid up in ordinary at the Norfolk Navy Yard, where she was sold to Wiggin and Robinson for merchant service.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
- {{DANFS|http://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/danfs/m/macedonian-ii.html}}
- James T. de Kay, Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian (W.W. Norton, New York, 1995)
External links
- [https://www.usna.edu/Library/sca/man-findingaids/MS_136.EAD.xml Log of the United States Ship Macedonian, 1865 MS 136] held by Special Collections & Archives, Nimitz Library at the United States Naval Academy
{{1922 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Sailing frigates of the United States Navy
Category:Ships built in Portsmouth, Virginia