Service
A 413-ton side-wheel towboat, she was built at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1854 and converted to a ram in March-May 1862 for Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr.'s U.S. Ram Fleet. She played a distant role in the 6 June 1862 naval action off Memphis, Tennessee, and subsequently took part in operations in the Yazoo River and against Vicksburg, Mississippi.
On 25 March 1863, while commanded by Colonel Charles Rivers Ellet, Switzerland joined the ram Lancaster in an attempt to pass the Vicksburg fortress. Both ships were heavily hit by Confederate gunfire, with Lancaster being sunk. Despite her damage, Switzerland survived the trip and made a subsequent successful passage of the fortifications at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, on March 31. She took part in operations on the Red and Atchafalaya rivers in May and June 1863. Later in the war, Switzerland was part of the Mississippi Marine Brigade.
She was sold in October 1865 and was employed as the merchant steamer Switzerland until about 1870.
The USS Switzerland was never commissioned as a Navy vessel.
Read more about this topic: USS Switzerland (1854)
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“We have in the service the scum of the earth as common soldiers.”
—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke Wellington (1769–1852)
“His character as one of the fathers of the English language would alone make his works important, even those which have little poetical merit. He was as simple as Wordsworth in preferring his homely but vigorous Saxon tongue, when it was neglected by the court, and had not yet attained to the dignity of a literature, and rendered a similar service to his country to that which Dante rendered to Italy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The true courage of civilized nations is readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual counts as only one amongst many. The important thing here is not personal mettle but aligning oneself with the universal.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)