Catawba (Monitor)
1865
A river in the state of North Carolina.
(Monitor: displacement 2,100 tons; length 225'; beam 43'3"; dr. 11'6"; speed 13 knots; complement 100 (approximate) ; armament 2 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbores; class Canonicus)
Catawba--a harbor and river monitor built by Alexander Swift & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Niles Tool Works, Hamilton, Ohio -- was launched on 13 April 1864 and delivered to the Navy on 7 June 1865.
Placed in ordinary [an inactive status] at Mound City, Ill., the monitor, which never saw U.S. Navy service, remained there until sold back to her builder, Alexander Swift & Co., on 13 April 1868. Around that same time, the Peruvian government made an offer to purchase Catawba (as well as her sister ship Oneota) but the transaction was held up owing to disputes over the applicability of U.S. neutrality laws regarding armament sales to South America. Continued legal wrangling, and the need to repair deterioration suffered by the monitors while in storage, kept the monitors at New Orleans until the summer of 1869 when the ships finally sailed south to their Peruvian purchasers.
Named Atahualpa, for the last Emperor of the Inca Empire, the monitor served in the Peruvian Navy in the 1870s but suffered from neglect and poor maintenance. In 1879, after the outbreak of war between Chile and Peru, Atahualpa served at Callao in a port defense role as her poor engine state did not permit operations at sea. Although the monitor helped defend Callao against the Chileans during a long-range (up to four miles) gunnery duel on 11 December 1880, the warship was scuttled on 16 January 1881 to avoid capture when Chilean troops took the port. The hulk was later raised and used as a storeship until scrapped in the early 20th century.
Corrected by Dr. Timothy L. Francis
30 August 2007
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
30 October 2020
