The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1895-04-17
sUNKEN SHIPS.
American Gunbcat5 That Wont
Down Forever.
BRIEF Rovicw of Naval Losses During. Cen.
fury Famous Men of = War Tint
Have Mystcriousiy Disappeared
from Wow.


sci has been swallowed up In the waves.
In some instances the fate of the lost
vessels has been learned from the
wreckage seen by passing ships; but it
has happened, many times since men
first began to go down into the deep in
ships, that an apparently stout stanch
vessel has set sail gayly from port only
to vanish as completely as If her voyage
had been outside of the solar system.
Even the American navy has suffered
such losses, that arc to-day and perhaps
always will be IN unsolvcd mystery.
The first important loss of this kind,
says the Boston Advertiser, was the
cighteen-gun man-of-war Saratoga, one
of the few ships that composed the
American navy TIC years ago. The loss
OF the Saratoga was in itself n story
that might we'll attract tho notice
OF writer of fiction, as it occurred at
the close of what promised to be Il sig
nally successful cruise. The Saratoga
sailed from Philadelphia carly in tho
autumn OF 1850, and in October captured
three vessels bound from jamaica to
New York. Returning toward Phila-
dclphia with her prizes the Saratoga
sighted the British nan-of-war Intrepid,
and being clearly out-lnatchcd escaped
by putting off to the cast. Her prizes
We're rccaptured by the British, and she
herself disappeared utterly from human
ken.
Just about twenty years later tho
United States frigatc Insurgcnt, carry
ing thirty-siX guns, sailed from the
Chesapeake Capes under orders to
cruise between longitudes sixty-siX de-
grecs and siXty-eight degrees west and
TO go no farther south than thirty do
grecs north. 1t is probably within that
very tract of the ocean that the Saratoga
was lost, and it was regarded us sgnifi-
cant by some of the old salts of tho
American navy at tho beginning Of the
present century that the Insurgent,
too, sailed off into the list of ships
whose faith no man knows For all one
can say to the contrary the Insurgcnt
and the Saratoga lie side by side off the
Chesapeake Capcs.
In the same year, the only year in
which two of the American mcn-of. war
mystcriously disappeared, the fourteen
gun brig Pickering was ordered to
Gu',dcloupc to cruise along the coast
there. In September, $500, a heavy
gale swept the ocean, and it was gencr-
ally believed at tho time that the In
surgcnt and the Pickering went down
ut about the same time and il practic-
ally the same storm. The Pickering
was not very scaworthy vessel when
equipped with guns, and there is little
question that she foundcred during a
gale, although there is of course no Ger
tainty us to her fate.
When in 1905 the United States de-
cidcd to send ten gunboats to help in
the war against Tripoli one of these
vessels, known as "Gunboat No IN
met with mishap after leaving port
and was forced to put back again Per
haps if Lieut.. James Lawrence, who
commanded "Gunboat No. a. had
been assigned to the unlucky "No. q"
which Lieut.. Ogclvic commanded,
American naval history might have
been different AS it was mo 6" ar
rived safely, and Lawrence lived to de-
feat tho Peacock and to fight the Shan
non; but Lieut.. Ogclvic's gunboat went
. forth again after repairs and sailed
into the mysterious waters of the un-
known, and another ''missingn shin
was entered on the navy's rolls.
The most famous of all the missing
ships of the American navy was the
Wasp In its brief history it had
brilliant record, having within a pc
Rod OF five months taken fifteen YES
sells, valued at more than two hundred
thousand dollars. Its prowess as
terror Of the seas was so remarkable
that its name had grown to be q menace
to British merchantmen. Late in the
year 1914, less than six months after
she had left the Portsmouth navy ward
for her career of victory, the Wasp dis
appeared completely. Perhaps some
damage received in an encounter with
the enemy had weakened the sloop's
timbers so chat she fell an easy prev to
wind and water; but, whatever hap
pened, she left no trace
The last American man-of-war to
vanish was the brig Epervier, which
sailed from Decatur's fleet to the
United States to bear the treaty made
with the Dey of Algiers. July 70, 1918,
the Epervier was last seen near the
strait of Gibraltar. Since that time She.
too, has joined the fleet of the missing.
Where the vessels of that fleet lie and
what became of the crews are matters
TINT may never be known until the
Judgment day; but perhaps chance
may yet throw some light on the qucs-
ticn. In the meantime the theme is one
that may well invite the attention of
the imaginative novelist.