USS Aroostook was a built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Aroostook was used by the Navy to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Construction and design
Aroostook -- a wooden-hulled, steam-propelled, screw gunboat—was laid down by Nathaniel Lord Thompson sometime soon after 6 July 1861, at Kennebunk, Maine; launched on or around 19 October 1861; and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 20 February 1862, Lt. John C. Beaumont in command.
Civil War service
Rescue of Vermont
On 1 March 1862, toward the end of the gunboat's fitting out process, word reached the yard that, during a fierce storm, had lost her rudder, her bower anchors, all of her rigging, and four of her boats and was drifting helplessly amid raging seas some 95 miles south-southeast of Cape Cod Light. Capt. William L. Hudson, the commandant of the yard, ordered Beaumont to proceed in Aroostook to the vicinity where the disabled ship of the line had last been seen and, upon finding Vermont, to stand by her until other aid arrived.
After getting underway on 2 March, Aroostook located the distressed vessel on the 7th and then lay to, shielding Vermont from the wind. During the ensuing week, Aroostook lost her smokestack and suffered other damage. On the 15th, after the steamer Saxon arrived on the scene and relieved her, Aroostook headed for the Delaware capes.
The gunboat entered the Philadelphia Navy Yard on the 23d and, following repair of her storm damage and the installation of a new smoke stack, she headed for the Virginia Capes on the last day of March and entered Hampton Roads on 2 April.
Monitor vs. Virginia
The preceding month had been the most dramatic in the history of that busy anchorage. CSS Virginia—the scuttled and burnt screw frigate Merrimack, raised and rebuilt as a Southern ironclad ram—had made her deadly foray into that roadstead and destroyed the frigate and , originally a frigate but cut down to a razee sloop of war. The next day, the novel and plucky Union ironclad Monitor had challenged and checked Virginia when the dreaded Confederate warship reentered Hampton Roads to finish off the remaining Union blockading squadron.
Their fierce fight to a draw on the historic afternoon of 9 March began some two months of an uneasy naval stalemate in Hampton Roads while Union Army transports brought the troops of General George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac to the area to launch a drive toward Richmond, Virginia, up the peninsula formed by the York and James Rivers. Strict Confederate secrecy covered Virginia during the weeks following the epic, but inconclusive, battle. The Southern ironclad had reentered the Norfolk Navy Yard to get a new ram to replace that which had broken off in Cumberland's hull as Virginia backed free of her first victim. She also received new armor plates to replace those cracked in battle as well as an armored belt just below her vulnerable casemate eves.
Countering CSS Virginia
Meanwhile, the Union Navy withdrew its sailing warships and some of its deep-draft steamers from Hampton Roads and replaced them with light-draft steam gunboats which were able to maneuver freely in the trick shoal waters inside the Virginia Capes. Aroostook was one of these gunboats, and, after entering Hampton Roads, remained constantly ready for action. During this period, the leaders of the Union Navy showed great imagination in devising innovative tactics for combating the ironclad. Lt. Beaumont decided that he might bring Virginia to bay by ensnaring her propeller in a long heavy net and seine that Aroostook's crew had made of "rattling" stuff. Such a procedure, he reasoned, would "...neutralize her motive power."
When his fellow commanding officers had learned of Beaumont's plan, they seemed to fear Aroostook even more than they dreaded Virginia lest the gunboat's now notorious net might foul their own screws. For instance, Comdr. James P. McKinstry, the captain of the screw steamer , would constantly warn his officers,
Keep out of Beaumont's way. Don't let Beaumont get near you. Keep your eye on the Aroostook.
Virginia rounded Sewell's Point on 11 April; but, since strategic considerations prevented her from challenging Monitor or the other nearby Union warships, Aroostook's dreaded net never entered the water. Nevertheless, forces were then at work which would enable the Union gunboat to play a highly significant role in one of the more dramatic scenes of the Civil War.