&sq=&lang=&file=File:USS_Pocahontas_(1852).jpg) USS Pocahontas
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 U.S. | |
| Name |
|
| Laid down | 1852 |
| Acquired | by purchase, 20 March 1855 |
| Commissioned | 17 January 1856, as Despatch |
| Decommissioned | 2 January 1859 |
| Renamed | Pocahontas, 27 January 1860 |
| Recommissioned | 19 March 1860 |
| Decommissioned | 31 July 1865 |
| Fate | Sold, 30 November 1865 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Steamer |
| Displacement | 558 long tons (567 t) |
| Length | 169 ft 6 in (51.66 m) |
| Beam | 26 ft 3 in (8.00 m) |
| Depth of hold | 18 ft 6 in (5.64 m) |
| Propulsion | Steam engine and sails |
| Armament | 4 × 32-pounder guns, 1 × 10-pounder gun, 1 × 20-pounder Parrott rifle |
The first USS Pocahontas, a screw steamer built at Medford, Massachusetts in 1852 as City of Boston, and purchased by the Navy at Boston, Massachusetts on 20 March 1855, was the first United States Navy ship to be named for Pocahontas, the Algonquian wife of Virginia colonist John Rolfe. She was originally commissioned as USS Despatch – the second U.S. Navy ship of that name – on 17 January 1856, with Lieutenant T. M. Crossan in command, and was recommissioned and renamed in 1860, seeing action in the American Civil War. As Pocahontas, one of her junior officers was Alfred Thayer Mahan, who would later achieve international fame as a military writer and theorist of naval power.