USS Squando (1865)

A rough color sketch of the USS Squando at Charleston, SC, in December 1865.
History
Name	USS Squando
Ordered	April 1863
Builder	McKay & Aldus, Boston, Massachusetts
Launched	6 January 1865
Commissioned	6 June 1865
Decommissioned	26 May 1866
Fate	Broken up, August 1875
General characteristics
Class and type	Casco-class monitor
Displacement	1,175 long tons (1,194 t)
Length	225 ft (69 m)
Beam	45 ft (14 m)
Draft	9 ft (2.7 m)
Propulsion	Screw steamer
Speed	9 knots (10 mph; 17 km/h)
Complement	60 officers and enlisted
Armament	2 × 11 in (280 mm) smoothbore Dahlgren guns
Armor	Turret: 8 in (200 mm) Pilothouse: 10 in (250 mm) Hull: 3 in (76 mm) Deck: 3 in (76 mm)

USS Squando was a Casco class light draft monitor built during the American Civil War for operation in the shallow inland waters of the Confederacy. She was built by McKay & Aldus at East Boston, Massachusetts.

Operational history[]

While Squando was still on the ways under construction, the launching of Chimo on 5 May 1864 revealed that the displacement of the Casco class monitor had been miscalculated; and that, as a result, she had too little freeboard to be seaworthy. The Navy attempted to correct this defect in other Casco-class monitors by making various changes in the unfinished ships. In the case of Squando, on 24 June 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered the contractor to raise the monitor's deck 22 inches to give her sufficient freeboard for safe coastal operations. Her turret and pilot house were installed as originally planned.

The ship was launched on 6 January 1865, and work on her was completed on 30 March. She was delivered to the Navy at the Boston Navy Yard on 5 April, and she was commissioned there on 6 June 1865, Acting Master George H. Leinas in command.

After being fitted out at Boston and New York City, the monitor departed New York harbor on 30 July 1865 and proceeded to Charleston, South Carolina, for service in the North Atlantic Squadron. Following duty in that historic South Carolina harbor, encouraging the return of stability to the still uneasy birthplace of the Confederacy, Squando returned north in May 1866. She was decommissioned on 26 May 1866 and laid up at League Island, Pennsylvania.

While in reserve, the ship was renamed Erebus on 15 June 1869, but she resumed the name Squando on 10 August of the same year. The monitor was broken up at League Island in 1874.

References[]

• This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.