During the 18th and 19th centuries, a sloop-of-war was a warship of the British Royal Navy with a single gun deck that carried up to 18 guns. The rating system of the Royal Navy covered all vessels with 20 or more guns; thus, the term encompassed all unrated warships, including gun-brigs and cutters . In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fire ships were classed by the Royal Navy as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the role of a sloop-of-war when not carrying out their specialised functions.
37-615: The first USS Levant was a second-class sloop-of-war in the United States Navy . Levant was launched on 28 December 1837 by New York Navy Yard ; and commissioned on 17 March 1838, with Commander Hiram Paulding in command. Levant sailed from New York on 1 April 1838 for four years' service in the West Indies Squadron protecting American interests in the Caribbean and South Atlantic . Returning to Norfolk, Virginia ,
74-585: A ship is a square-rigger with three or more masts, though never more than three in that period). In the Napoleonic period, Britain built huge numbers of brig sloops of the Cruizer class (18 guns) and the Cherokee class (10 guns). The brig rig was economical of manpower – important given Britain's chronic shortfall in trained seamen relative to the demands of the wartime fleet. When armed with carronades (32-pounders in
111-548: A violent hurricane had occurred in September 1860 in a part of the Pacific Ocean which Levant was to cross. In June 1861, a mast and a part of a lower yardarm believed to be from Levant were found near Hilo . Spikes had been driven into the mast as if to form a raft. Rumors also circulated that she had run aground on an uncharted reef off California. In July 1861, a small bottle was found at Cape Sable Island , Nova Scotia. It
148-517: Is needed). On 24 July 1861, the United States Congress passed a law to compensate the widows and orphan children of the officers, seamen, marines and others who were lost with the Levant . The law made a provision for accounts paid and received by the ship's purser, Andrew J. Watson, which were to be settled. The law was included in the "Private Acts" section of the statutes book. The deaths of
185-616: The Grimsby and Kingfisher classes, were built in the interwar years. Fleet minesweepers such as the Algerine class were rated as "minesweeping sloops". The Royal Navy officially dropped the term "sloop" in 1937, although the term remained in widespread and general use. During World War II , 37 ships of the Black Swan class were built for convoy escort duties. However, the warship-standards construction, propulsion and sophisticated armaments of
222-756: The Battle of the Atlantic . In 1948 the Royal Navy reclassified its remaining sloops and corvettes as frigates, even though the term sloop had been officially defunct for nine years. The Royal Navy has proposed a concept, known as the " Future Black Swan-class Sloop-of-war ", as an alternative to the Global Corvette of the Global Combat Ship programme. James Armstrong (Commodore) Second Opium War Commodore James Armstrong (17 January 1794 – 27 August 1868)
259-633: The Bermuda sloop , both as a cruiser against French privateers , slavers, and smugglers, and also as its standard advice vessels, carrying communications, vital persons and materials, and performing reconnaissance duties for the fleets. Bermuda sloops were found with gaff rig, mixtures of gaff and square rig, or a Bermuda rig . They were built with up to three masts. The single masted ships had huge sails and harnessed tremendous wind energy, which made them demanding to sail and required large, experienced crews. The Royal Navy favoured multi-masted versions, as it
296-541: The Boston Navy Yard 6 April 1858. After repairs into 1859, Levant , Comdr. William E. Hunt in command, sailed on 15 June for the Pacific, arriving at Valparaíso , Chile on 11 October, to serve as Pacific Squadron flagship, wearing Commodore John B. Montgomery 's broad pennant, through December. In January 1860 Levant sailed for the coast of Nicaragua , where she relieved Saranac and began five months of showing
333-717: The Cape of Good Hope , and Hong Kong , where she arrived to join the East India Squadron on 12 May 1856. On 1 July she embarked the U.S. Commissioner to China for transportation to Shanghai , arriving 1 August. At the outbreak of hostilities between the British and the Chinese , Levant arrived Whampoa on 28 October. Comdr. Andrew H. Foote then sent a landing party from Levant and his own ship, Portsmouth , to Canton to protect American lives and property there. On 15 November, while in
370-511: The Cruizer class, 18-pounders in the Cherokee class), they had the highest ratio of firepower to tonnage of any ships in the Royal Navy, albeit within the short range of the carronade. The carronades also used much less manpower than the long guns normally used to arm frigates. Consequently, the Cruizer class were often used as cheaper and more economical substitutes for frigates , in situations where
407-522: The Hunt class of "minesweeping sloops", those intended for minesweeping duty. The Royal Navy continued to build vessels rated as sloops during the interwar years. These sloops were small warships intended for colonial " gunboat diplomacy " deployments, surveying duties, and acting during wartime as convoy escorts. As they were not intended to deploy with the fleet, sloops had a maximum speed of less than 20 knots (37 km/h). A number of such sloops, for example
SECTION 10
#1732884816419444-711: The battle of the Pearl Forts , Armstrong's health began to fail and he returned to the United States. In 1860 Armstrong was given command of the Pensacola Navy Yard . On January 12, 1861, two days after Florida voted to secede from the Union he surrendered the facility to the secessionists. Captain Armstrong was Court Martialed on May 4, 1861. "The proceedings of Captain Armstrong's court martial appears to be missing from
481-445: The destroyer escorts of the United States Navy , and also performed similar duties to the smaller corvettes of the Royal Navy. A sloop-of-war was quite different from a civilian or mercantile sloop , which was a general term for a single-masted vessel rigged in a way that would today be called a gaff cutter (but usually without the square topsails then carried by cutter-rigged vessels), though some sloops of that type did serve in
518-431: The 1740s, and from the mid-1750s most new sloops were built with a three-masted (ship) rig. The third mast afforded the sloop greater mobility and the ability to back sail. In the 1770s, the two-masted sloop re-appeared in a new guise as the brig sloop , the successor to the former snow sloops. Brig sloops had two masts, while ship sloops continued to have three (since a brig is a two-masted, square-rigged vessel, and
555-526: The 18th century British Royal Navy , particularly on the Great Lakes of North America. In the first half of the 18th century, most naval sloops were two-masted vessels, usually carrying a ketch or a snow rig. A ketch had main and mizzen masts but no foremast. A snow had a foremast and a main mast immediately abaft which a small subsidiary mast was fastened on which the spanker was set. The first three-masted, i.e., " ship rigged ", sloops appeared during
592-473: The Capitol at Washington, D.C. After embarking the U.S. Minister to Turkey and his family at Piraeus, Greece on 24 June, Levant sailed to Constantinople , arriving on 5 July. Returning to Hampton Roads , Virginia , on 29 April 1855, Levant decommissioned at New York Navy Yard on 4 May. Recommissioned on 31 October, Comdr. William N. Smith in command, Levant sailed on 13 November for Rio de Janeiro ,
629-455: The Pearl once again safe for American shipping. Levant , close in through most of the action, received the major part of the Chinese bombardment, with 22 shot holes in her hull and rigging, one man dead, and six injured. Destruction of the earthworks was completed by 5 December, and Levant cruised between Hong Kong and Shanghai until she departed Hong Kong on 7 December 1857 for home, arriving at
666-578: The classifications of sloops, corvettes and frigates. Instead a classification based on the intended role of the ship became common, such as cruiser and battleship . During the First World War , the sloop rating was revived by the British Royal Navy for small warships not intended for fleet deployments. Examples include the Flower classes of "convoy sloops", those designed for convoy escort, and
703-655: The east coast. Upon arriving at Norfolk on 28 April 1847, the sloop was placed in ordinary. Levant was recommissioned on 12 July 1852, Comdr. George P. Upshur in command, and sailed for the Mediterranean . When Commander Upshur died on board Levant off Spezia, Italy on 3 November, Comdr. Louis M. Goldsborough , later to win fame in the American Civil War , took command. On 7 April 1853 at Leghorn, Italy , Levant loaded statues by American sculptor Horatio Greenough , including one of George Washington , destined for
740-517: The equivalent of British post-ships. The Americans also occasionally used the French term corvette. In the Royal Navy , the sloop evolved into an unrated vessel with a single gun deck and three masts, two square rigged and the aft-most fore-and-aft rigged (corvettes had three masts, all of which were square-rigged). Steam sloops had a transverse division of their lateral coal bunkers in order that
777-591: The flag off the coasts of Central and South America . In May 1860, Levant was ordered to the Hawaiian Islands at the request of the Secretary of State to investigate the disbursement of relief funds to American merchant seamen. After receiving a state visit by King Kamehameha IV at Honolulu on 7 May, and investigating at Lahaina, Maui , and Hilo, Hawaii , Levant sailed for Panama on 18 September 1860, but never made port. Commodore Montgomery reported that
SECTION 20
#1732884816419814-567: The frigates' high cruising endurance was not essential. A carronade-armed brig, however, would be at the mercy of a frigate armed with long guns, so long as the frigate maneuvered to exploit its superiority of range. The other limitation of brig sloops as opposed to post ships and frigates was their relatively restricted stowage for water and provisions, which made them less suitable for long-range cruising. However, their shallower draught made them excellent raiders against coastal shipping and shore installations. The Royal Navy also made extensive use of
851-622: The lower division could be emptied first, to maintain a level of protection afforded by the coal in the upper bunker division along the waterline. During the War of 1812 sloops of war in the service of the United States Navy performed well against their Royal Navy equivalents. The American ships had the advantage of being ship-rigged rather than brig-rigged, a distinction that increased their manoeuvrability. They were also larger and better armed. Cruizer- class brig-sloops in particular were vulnerable in one-on-one engagements with American sloops-of-war. In
888-464: The officers of Levant were recorded in the Navy Register of 1863 as occurring on 30 June 1861. (This was probably to allow the survivors of the lost men to collect 6 months of their pay as compensation.) In 1863, when Edward Everett Hale wrote the patriotic short story The Man Without a Country , the announcement of the death of the exiled Philip Nolan while at sea is said to have been while he
925-523: The process of withdrawing this force, Commander Foote was fired on while passing in a small boat by the "Barrier Forts" on the Pearl River below Canton. On the 16th Levant was towed upriver to join Portsmouth and San Jacinto in keeping the Pearl open to American shipping. As the forts were being strengthened in disregard of American neutrality, Foote was ordered by Commodore James Armstrong , commanding
962-508: The rest of the proceedings deposited in the National Archives so the testimony surrounding exactly what happened that day between Conway and Renshaw that lead to the Court submitting a communication to Welles is unavailable. Conway eventually got "some appropriate mark of approbation" bestowed in 1939 and 1942 when hulls DD-70 and DD-507 were named in his honor." - General Naval Order Armstrong
999-409: The second half of the 19th century, successive generations of naval guns became larger and with the advent of steam-powered sloops , both paddle and screw, by the 1880s even the most powerful warships had fewer than a dozen large calibre guns, and were therefore technically sloops. Since the rating system was no longer a reliable indicator of a ship's combat power, it was abolished altogether and with it
1036-525: The sixth rate of the British Navy). The name corvette was subsequently also applied to British vessels, but not until the 1830s. American usage, while similar to British terminology into the beginning of the 19th century, gradually diverged. By about 1825 the United States Navy used "sloop-of-war" to designate a flush-deck ship-rigged warship with all armament on the gun deck; these could be rated as high as 26 guns and thus overlapped "third-class frigates,"
1073-414: The sloop of that time shared bottlenecks with destroyers and did not lend themselves to mass production on commercial shipyards, thus the sloop was supplanted by the corvette , and later the frigate , as the primary escort vessel of the Royal Navy. Built to mercantile standards and with (initially) simple armaments, these vessels, notably the Flower and River classes, were produced in large numbers for
1110-588: The sloop-of-war decommissioned 26 June 1842. She recommissioned 27 March 1843, Comdr. Hugh N. Page in command, and departed Norfolk to join the Pacific Squadron under Commodore John D. Sloat . From 1843 to 1845 Levant cruised between Panama and Latin American ports carrying diplomats and dispatches and generally furthering American national policy. With the Mexican–American War impending, Levant
1147-488: The squadron, "to take such measures as his judgment would dictate... even the capture of the forts." Commander Foote complied with all the dash and courage for which he became famous during the Civil War. On 20 November he took the first fort by leading an amphibious assault with 300 men, then silenced the second with cannon captured from the first. Next day he took the third, and by the 24th all four were in American hands and
USS Levant - Misplaced Pages Continue
1184-535: Was (by virtue of having too few guns) outside the rating system . In general, a sloop-of-war would be under the command of a master and commander rather than a post captain , although in day-to-day use at sea the commanding officer of any naval vessels would be addressed as "captain". A ship sloop was generally the equivalent of the smaller corvette of the French Navy (although the French term also covered ships up to 24 guns, which were classed as post ships within
1221-626: Was aboard the USS Levant on 11 May 1863. In reality, the ship was last heard from in September 1860. Sloop-of-war In World War I and World War II , the Royal Navy reused the term "sloop" for specialised convoy -defence vessels, including the Flower class of the First World War and the highly successful Black Swan class of the Second World War, with anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities. They performed similar duties to
1258-573: Was an officer in the United States Navy . Armstrong joined the United States Navy as a midshipman in 1809 and served on the sloop-of-war Frolic when it was seized by the British in 1814 during the War of 1812 . Promoted to commodore and given command of the East India Squadron in 1855, Armstrong served aboard the squadron's flagship , San Jacinto during the Second Opium War . Following
1295-409: Was corked and contained a card that read in part: "Pacific Ocean" "Levant" "Written by the last remaining" "three" "in a boat" "God forgive us". Unfortunately, the card was damaged when it was removed from the bottle and parts of the message were unreadable. This card was in the possession of Thomas Willett of Pubnico, Nova Scotia , in 1862, who lost a son aboard this vessel.(How? Further information
1332-585: Was ordered to the California coast to protect American citizens and property, and was en route when Mexico declared war on 12 May 1846. The sloop arrived off Monterey, California , on 1 July, and six days later a landing force from Levant , Savannah , and Cyane took possession of the recently proclaimed Republic of California . On 23 July, Commodore Sloat relinquished command of the Pacific Squadron because of illness, and sailed 29 July in Levant for
1369-465: Was perennially short of sailors at the end of the 18th century, and its personnel received insufficient training (particularly in the Western Atlantic, priority being given to the continuing wars with France for control of Europe). The longer decks of the multi-masted vessels also had the advantage of allowing more guns to be carried. Originally a sloop-of-war was smaller than a sailing frigate and
#418581