page_title: USS Saginaw (1859)
section_title: Fate
hierarchical_section_title: USS Saginaw (1859) / Fate
caption_attribution_description: English: USS Saginaw (1859)
context_page_description: The first USS Saginaw was a sidewheel sloop-of-war in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
context_section_description: Saginaw's next assignment took her to Midway Atoll to support dredging operations to deepen the entrance to the harbor. She reached Midway on 24 March 1870 and completed her task on 21 October 1870. A week later, she sailed for San Francisco, intending to touch at Kure Atoll (at that time known as Ocean Island) en route home to rescue any shipwrecked sailors who might be stranded there. The next day, 29 October 1870, as she neared this rarely visited atoll, Saginaw struck an outlying reef and grounded. Before the surf battered the ship to pieces, her 93 crew managed to transfer much of her gear and provisions to the atoll.
  On 18 November, a party of five men, headed by Lieutenant John G. Talbot, the executive officer, set out for Honolulu in a small boat to get relief for their stranded shipmates. As they neared Kauai, 31 days and some 1,500 mi (2,400 km) later, their boat was upset by breakers. Only Coxswain William Halford survived to obtain help. He landed on Kauai, where Captain Dudoit of the schooner Wainona offered to take him straight to Honolulu leaving his return freight for a later trip. They sailed on Tuesday Dec 20th and arrived  at Honolulu on Saturday 24 December and was taken to the United States Consulate there.
  The US Consul authorised the despatch of a fast sailing coaster, the Kona Packet, which departed on Sunday 25 December, and the King of Hawaii, Kamehameha V, sent the inter-island steamer, Kilauea under Captain Thomas Long, to rescue the shipwrecked sailors. After loading with coal for 2 days and food and copious fresh water they departed on Monday 26 December. The Kilauea arrived at Kure on 4 January 1871, and the Kona Packet a day later. Due to uncertainty over the coal required for the return journey they steamed to Midway Island loading 40 tons of coal and left on 7 January, arriving back in Honolulu on 14 January, a round trip of 2350 miles. Captain Long was presented with a heavy gold-cased chronometer watch by the U.S. Government as thanks for successfully undertaking the rescue mission.
  The Saginaw's gig survived being capsized in the breakers, and was sold at auction in January 1871. The purchaser presented it to the rescued crew of the Saginaw, whereupon it was transported back to San Francisco on the A.P. Jordan. It survives as part of the Curator Collection at the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History in Saginaw, Michigan.
  The crew of the Saginaw may have been aware of the loss of the whaler Gledstanes on the same reef on 9 July 1837, as they faced the same predicament and constructed a schooner Deliverance from the wreckage over many months. Captain Brown with 8 men sailed for Hawaii on 15th Dec to secure a rescue ship which took the remaining men off the atoll in February. The wreck of Saginaw was discovered in 2003 and remains under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.
  The book A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters: Life on Board USS Saginaw (by Hans Van Tilburg, University Press of Florida, 2010) covers the ship's construction, her ten years of service in the Pacific, and her loss at Kure Atoll.  Van Tilburg led the team which discovered the wreck site in 2003.
  The young readers’ book The Wreck of the Saginaw (by Keith Robertson, The Viking Press, 1954, 144 pp) tells the story of the voyage of the five sailors who sailed a small boat to Hawaii seeking rescue for the survivors remaining on Kure Atoll. It includes charming illustrations and a map (by Jack Weaver).
caption: The Captain's depiction of Saginaw's fate
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