USS Galena (1862)

A drawing of Galena cleared for action in 1862
History
United States
Name	USS Galena
Namesake	Galena, Illinois
Ordered	16 September 1861
Builder	H.L. & C.S. Bushnell, Mystic, Connecticut
Laid down	1861
Launched	14 February 1862
Commissioned	21 April 1862
Decommissioned	17 June 1865
Stricken	1870
Fate	Scrapped, 1872
General characteristics
Type	Ironclad screw steamer
Displacement	950 long tons (965 t)
Tons burthen	738 (bm)
Length	210 ft (64 m) (o/a)
Beam	36 ft (11 m)
Draft	11 ft (3.4 m)
Depth of hold	12 ft 8 in (3.86 m)
Installed power	800 ihp (600 kW) 2 Boilers
Propulsion	1 Shaft 1 Vibrating lever-steam engine
Sail plan	Schooner rig
Speed	8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph)
Complement	164 officers and enlisted
Armament	4 × 9 in (230 mm) Smoothbore Dahlgren guns 2 × 100-pounder Parrott rifles
Armor	3.12 inches (79 mm)

USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and supported Union forces during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. She was damaged during the Battle of Drewry's Bluff because her armor was too thin to prevent Confederate shots from the guns of Fort Darling from penetrating her hull. Widely regarded as a failure, Galena was reconstructed without most of her armor in 1863 and transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in 1864. The ship participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay and the subsequent Siege of Fort Morgan in August. She was briefly transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September before she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for repairs in November.

Repairs were completed in March 1865 and Galena rejoined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads the following month. After the end of the war, the ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in June. She was transferred to Hampton Roads in 1869, condemned in 1870, and broken up for scrap in 1872.