USS Onondaga (1863)

Onondaga at anchor on the James River, c. 1864–1865
History
United States
NameOnondaga
NamesakeA lake and county in New York
Ordered26 May 1862
BuilderContinental Iron Works, Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Laid down1862
Launched29 July 1863
Sponsored bySally Sedgwick
Commissioned24 March 1864
Decommissioned8 June 1865
FateSold to her builder, 7 March 1867, and subsequently resold to France
Second French Empire
NameOnondaga
Acquired7 March 1867
Stricken2 December 1904
FateSold for scrap, 1904
General characteristics (as built)
TypeDouble-turreted monitor
Displacement2,592 long tons (2,634 t)
Tons burthen1,250 tons (bm)
Length226 ft (68.9 m) (o/a)
Beam51 ft 5 in (15.7 m)
Draft12 ft (3.7 m)
Depth12 ft 10 in (3.9 m)
Installed power
Propulsion2 × propellers; 2 × back-acting steam engines
Speed7 knots (13 km/h; 8.1 mph)
Range720 nmi (1,330 km; 830 mi)
Complement130 officers and enlisted men
Armament
Armor

USS Onondaga was an ironclad monitor built for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. Commissioned in 1864, the ship spent her entire active career with the James River Flotilla covering the water approaches to the Confederate States capital of Richmond, Virginia, although her only notable engagement was the Battle of Trent's Reach. After the war, she was purchased by France where she served as a coastal defense ship in the French Navy (Marine Nationale).

Onondaga saw little active service with the French, spending most of the next four decades in reserve, although she was mobilized during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The monitor became a guard ship in 1898, but she was stricken from the naval register and sold for scrap in 1904; the ship was demolished in 1905.