Baltimore III (Sidewheel Steamer)
(Sidewheel Steamer: tonnage 5,000; length 200'; beam 26'8"; depth of hold 10'; armament 1 32-pounder Smoothbore)
The largest city in Maryland and one of the major seaports of the United States.
III
The third Baltimore, a side-wheel steamer, was built in 1848 at Philadelphia, Pa.; captured on the Potomac River between Aquia Creek and Washington, D.C., by the Army on 21 April 1861; turned over to the Navy Department; and commissioned in April 1861, Lieutenant John H. Russell in command.
During the Civil War, Baltimore served as an ordnance vessel, operating between the Washington Navy Yard and nearby ammunition depots, was used occasionally to ferry Army troops across the Potomac River, and saw some service with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron as a dispatch and supply vessel. On 9 May 1862, she transported President Abraham Lincoln, and Secretaries Edwin M. Stanton and Salmon P. Chase from Fort Monroe to Norfolk, Va., in an attempt to get a close view of the destroyed Confederate ironclad Virginia.
Baltimore was turned over to the Norfolk Navy Yard on 22 May 1865 and sold on 24 June 1865 at Washington, D.C.
7 March 2006; corrections, Robert J. Cressman, 9 April 2007.
