page_title: USS Galena (1862)
section_title: Battle of Mobile Bay
hierarchical_section_title: USS Galena (1862) / Career / Battle of Mobile Bay
caption_attribution_description: English: USS Galena, after 1864 refit as a wooden sloop
context_page_description: USS Galena was a wooden-hulled broadside ironclad built for the United States Navy during the American Civil War. The ship was initially assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and supported Union forces during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862. She was damaged during the Battle of Drewry's Bluff because her armor was too thin to prevent Confederate shots from penetrating. Widely regarded as a failure, Galena was reconstructed without most of her armor in 1863 and transferred to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron in 1864. The ship participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay and the subsequent Siege of Fort Morgan in August. She was briefly transferred to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron in September before she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for repairs in November.
  Repairs were completed in March 1865 and Galena rejoined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron in Hampton Roads the following month. After the end of the war, the ship was decommissioned at Portsmouth, New Hampshire in June. She was transferred to Hampton Roads in 1869, condemned in 1870, and broken up for scrap in 1872.
context_section_description: Rear Admiral David Farragut, commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, was to split his ships into two columns. The four monitors would comprise the starboard column, closest to Ft. Morgan, and their mission was to bombard the fort while the wooden ships in the other column passed by, and to sink the ironclad ram CSS Tennessee. Once past the fort the wooden ships were to prevent the escape of the Confederate wooden gunboats to Mobile. To ensure that his wooden ships could get past Ft. Morgan, Farragut ordered that they be lashed together in pairs so that one ship could pull the other if the Confederates succeeded in knocking out its boilers or engines.
  Galena was tied to the port side of the larger sloop Oneida and the pair were the last ships in the port column when the battle began on the morning of 5 August. While passing the fort, Oneida had her starboard boiler disabled by a shell hit and her crew was attempting to reroute her steam to both engines when she was engaged by Tennessee at a range of 200 yards (180 m). The ironclad only managed to fire three shots that did little damage. Galena was struck six times while passing the fort with little damage, although her rigging was badly cut up. Two crewmen were wounded and another died of his wounds. Four of Galena's sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions during the battle: Seaman William Gardner, Quartermaster Thomas Jordan, Quartermaster Edward S. Martin, and Coxswain Edward B. Young.
  Galena intermittently bombarded Fort Morgan until it surrendered on 23 August and sailed from Mobile Bay on 31 August to temporarily serve as a part of the East Gulf Blockading Squadron at Key West, Florida. The transfer was made permanent on 24 September and she was ordered to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for repair a month later. The ship did not arrive until 4 November and repairs did not begin until 22 November. Galena was recommissioned on 29 March 1865 and was reassigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. She reached Newport News on 2 April where the ship patrolled the mouth of the Nansemond River and in the James River until her departure on 6 June for Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
  Galena was decommissioned there on 17 June until she was recommissioned on 9 April 1869 for transfer to back to Hampton Roads, where she was again decommissioned on 2 June. Condemned by survey in 1870, Galena was broken up in 1872 at the Norfolk Navy Yard.
caption: Galena, after 1864 refit as a wooden sloop
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