USS Gettysburg (1858)
The first USS Gettysburg was a steamer in the Union Navy.
The ship was built in Glasgow, Scotland in 1858, named Douglas, and operated for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company between Liverpool, United Kingdom and Douglas on the Isle of Man until November 1862. She was then sold to the Confederacy, renamed Margaret and Jessie, and operated as a blockade runner until her capture by the Union on 5 November 1863. The ship was renamed Gettysburg, and commissioned into the Union Navy on 2 May 1864.
During her military service, Gettysburg operated with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, was involved in both the first and second attacks on Fort Fisher, helped lay telegraph cables between Key West and Havana and undertook navigational surveys of the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.
Gettysburg was decommissioned on 6 May 1879 and sold two days later.
Read more about USS Gettysburg (1858): Decommissioning and Fate
Famous quotes containing the word gettysburg:
“The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection—the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)