John Griffith (Schooner)
1862-1865
The Navy retained the name carried by this vessel at the time of her acquisition.
(Schooner: tonnage 240; length 113'8"; depth of hold 8'4"; complement 39; armament 1 13-inch mortar, 2 32-pounders, 2 12-pounder howitzers)
John Griffith was purchased by the Navy at New York, N.Y., from B. P. Woolsey on 16 September 1861; and commissioned at New York Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N.Y., on 20 January 1862, Lt. K. Randolph Breese in command.
The schooner was ordered to Key West, Fla., to join the Mortar Flotilla being organized by Cmdr. David Dixon Porter for the decisive attack up the Mississippi River. The flotilla sailed from Key West on 6 March 1862 and on 11 March anchored at Ship Island, Miss., the staging area for Flag Officer David Glasgow Farragut's New Orleans campaign. A week later John Griffith was towed across the bar at Pass a l'Outre with Porter's other mortar schooners. For the next month, while Farragut labored to move his deep-draft, sea-going ships across the bar and into the Mississippi, Porter's vessels drilled and prepared for the fight awaiting them.
The mortar boats moved into terminal position on 18 April 1862 and opened fire on Forts Jackson and St. Philip. John Griffith, now under Acting Master Henry Brown, was in the Third Division commanded by her old commanding officer, Lt. Breese, who placed his schooners along the western bank of the river just below the lower limit of Fort Jackson's fire. John Griffith pressed the attack with great vigor, leading the ships of her division on four days of the week long bombardment which continued until Farragut had succeeded in fighting his fleet past the forts to capture New Orleans in one of the war's most daring and strategically significant operations. This bold stroke deprived the South of her largest and wealthiest city, tightened the Union blockade, and gave promise of restoring the entire Mississippi Valley to the Union. When he was barely beyond the forts, Farragut paused to bury his dead, repair his ships, and dash off a note of thanks to Porter for the help of the mortars: "You supported us most nobly."
John Griffith's next major operation came on Farragut's second passage up the Mississippi. The mortars rained their 13-inch shells on the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg while the heavy ships steamed by the forts to meet Flag Officer Charles Henry Davis and his Mississippi Flotilla. The schooners then waited for Farragut below Vicksburg, occasionally enlivening their vigil by hurling a few shells at the forts. On 15 July 1862 they resumed the bombardment in earnest when the sound of heavy firing announced Farragut's approach.
John Griffith continued to serve the West Gulf Blockading Squadron until ordered north on 18 May 1864. The schooner decommissioned for repairs on 1 June and she was re-commissioned on 23 August 1864. The following day she received orders to sail to Port Royal for service in the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She reached Port Royal on 8 September and served on blockade duty and at the mouth of the Altamaha River, Ga., until ordered on 12 December to the Savannah River, where General William Tecumseh Sherman had just emerged at the end of his famous march to the sea. Five days later John Griffith shelled Fort Beaulieu, the Confederate fortress defending the mouths of the Vernon and Burnside Rivers. With Sonoma she maintained her steady and deliberate fire until the defenders finally evacuated on 21 December, four days before Christmas.
Thereafter John Griffith remained on blockade duty until after the end of the war. She was decommissioned on 21 August 1865 and was sold at public auction at Boston Navy Yard, Charlestown, Mass., to C. Foster on 8 September 1865.
Updated, Robert J. Cressman
30 May 2023
