USS Roanoke ( 1855 ) USS " Roanoke " was a wooden - hulled screw frigate built for the United States Navy in the mid - 1850s . She served as flagship of the Home Squadron in the late 1850s and captured several Confederate ships after the start of the American Civil War in 1861 . The ship was converted into an ironclad monitor during 1862 – 63 ; the first ship with more than two gun turret s in history . Her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull . Her deep draft meant that she could not operate off shallow Confederate ports and she was relegated to harbor defense at Hampton Roads , Virginia for the duration of the war . " Roanoke " was placed reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1883 . Description . " Roanoke " was long between perpendiculars and had a beam of . The ship had a draft of and a depth of hold of . She displaced and had a burthen of 3 , 400 tons . " Roanoke " s hull was strongly reinforced by wrought iron straps . Her crew numbered 674 officers and enlisted men . The ship had one horizontal two - cylinder trunk steam engine driving a single propeller using steam provided by four Martin boiler s . The engine produced a total of and the ship had a maximum speed of under steam alone . The propeller could be hoisted and the single funnel lowered to increase speed under sail alone . " Roanoke " was ship rigged and had a sail area of . In 1861 , the ship ' s armament consisted of one smoothbore Dahlgren pivot gun , twenty - eight Dahlgren guns and fourteen Dahlgren guns . The 10 - inch Dahlgren weighed and could fire a shell up to a range of at + 19° elevation . The nine - inch gun weighed and could fire a shell to a range of at an elevation of + 15° . The eight - inch Dahlgren had a range of at an elevation of + 10° with a shell . It weighed . Steam frigate service . " Roanoke " , named after the Roanoke River , was laid down at the Norfolk Navy Yard in May 1854 and launched on 13 December 1855 . The ship sank when launched and had to be refloated before she could be completed . She was commissioned on 4 May 1857 with Captain John B . Montgomery in command . Assigned to the Home Squadron as flagship , " Roanoke " transported the American filibuster and former President of Nicaragua , William Walker , and his men back to the United States from Aspinwall , Colombia , ( now called Colón , Panamá ) . " Roanoke " arrived on 4 August and the ship was decommissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 24 September 1857 . Recommissioned on almost a year later on 18 August 1858 , " Roanoke " resumed her duties as flagship of the Home Squadron . For over a year , she was stationed at Aspinwall awaiting the arrival of a special Japanese embassy to the United States to ratify the 1858 Treaty of Amity and Commerce . They reached Aspinwall on 25 April 1860 and " Roanoke " reached Hampton Roads on 12 May 1860 with the delegation and was again decommissioned . After the start of the Civil War , " Roanoke " recommissioned on 20 June 1861 and was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron . She destroyed the schooner " Mary " off Lockwood Folly Inlet , North Carolina , on 13 July 1861 . The ship subsequently helped to capture the schooners " Albion " and " Alert " and the ship " Thomas Watson " off Charleston , South Carolina , on 15 October 1861 . " Roanoke " s deep draft prevented her from engaging the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS " Virginia " ( her former sister ) during the Battle of Hampton Roads on 8 – 9 March 1862 . The ship ferried north survivors from the sailing frigates and which " Virginia " had sunk . She arrived at New York City on 25 March , and decommissioned the same day to begin reconstruction as a monitor . Ironclad reconstruction . On 19 March 1862 , 10 days after the Battle of Hampton Roads where the fought the Confederate ironclad to a standstill , John Lenthall , Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair , and the Chief of Steam Engineering , Benjamin F . Isherwood , wrote a letter to Gideon Welles , the Secretary of the Navy recommending that " Roanoke " be converted into a seagoing ironclad as that would be cheaper and faster than new construction . They suggested that the ship be cut down to the top of her gun deck , armoring her sides and deck and mounting four revolving Ericsson gun turret s , each mounting two or guns . This scheme would give her an ample of freeboard . Aside from reinforcing her hull to carry the weight of the turrets , the only other changes that they recommended were the elimination of the hoisting screw , replacement by a propeller smaller in diameter , and the addition of a ram . The wrought iron side armor would be a maximum of in thickness with a taper down to at its bottom edge , about below the waterline . The deck armor was to be thick and an additional steam engine would be necessary to rotate the turrets and run the ventilation fans . They estimated that this conversion would take three and a half months and cost $ 495 , 000 . Welles accepted their recommendation and " Roanoke " began her reconstruction at the Brooklyn Navy Yard when she arrived in New York City on 25 March . The navy yard removed her masts , rigging and everything above the upper deck except her funnel while the Novelty Iron Works received a contract in early April to shape and mount all of her metal work . To save weight the number of turrets was reduced to three and her deck armor to . Each turret was virtually identical to those of the s and consisted of eleven layers of plates . The forward two turrets were surmounted by a stationary pilothouse with armor nine inches thick . Novelty was given a choice in protecting " Roanoke " s sides , it could either with six layers of plates or a single plate thick that reduced to inches below the waterline . It chose the latter and delays in their delivery were largely responsible for drawing out the reconstruction time to around a year . The plates were manufactured by the " Franklin Forge " of Tugnot , Dally & Co . An auxiliary boiler was added to provide steam for the engines that powered the turrets , fans and steering and little to nothing was done to reinforce the hull to withstand the weight of her armor and turrets . The deck beneath each turret was reinforced by a series of stanchion s that transferred their weight to the ship ' s bottom , which was not reinforced to handle their weight . The stress caused " Roanoke " to leak around per day by the end of the war . In her new configuration , her crew numbered 347 officers and men . " Roanoke " was armed with two muzzle - loading smoothbore 15 - inch Dahlgren guns , two Dahlgren guns and a pair of eight - inch , 150 - pounder Parrott rifle s . The forward turret mounted one 15 - inch Dahlgren and a 150 - pounder Parrot rifle , the middle turret was fitted with 15 - and 11 - inch Dahlgrens and the aft turret with one 11 - inch Dahlgren and a 150 - pounder rifle . Shortages of the 15 - inch Dahlgren forced the substitution of two 11 - inch Dahlgrens . Each of the former guns weighed approximately . They could fire a shell up to a range of at an elevation of + 7° . The 11 - inch Dahlgren weighed and could fire a shell up to a range of at + 5° elevation . The 150 - pounder Parrot rifle weighed and fired eight - inch shells that weighed . " Roanoke " was also fitted with an ax - shaped ram . It was formed from two 4 . 5 - inch plates that projected past her bow and presumably was the height of a single plate , . Ironclad service . The ship was accepted by the Navy on 16 April 1863 although she was not recommissioned until 29 June , the first warship with more than two turrets in history . Ignoring pressure by local politicians to keep " Roanoke " in New York , the Navy ordered her to Hampton Roads , Virginia , to join the blockading squadron there . On the voyage south , the ship reached a maximum speed of and averaged . Captain Benjamin F . Sands reported that the ship ' s roll was so great that it would " preclude the possibility of fighting her guns at sea , and I was obliged to secure them with pieces of timber to prevent them fetching away " . " Roanoke " was assigned as harbor defense ship at Hampton Roads where she remained through the end of the war . On 14 July , Sands test - fired his guns for the first time and both of the 15 - inch Dahlgrens and one 150 - pounder Parrott rifle dismounted themselves by their violent recoil . Her rear turret required nearly 5 minutes to make a full rotation . Captain Guert Gansevoort replaced Sands in command of the ship later in 1863 . He was succeeded by Captain Augustus Kilty . " Roanoke " arrived back in New York on 27 April 1865 . She was decommissioned and placed in reserve on 20 June at New York Navy Yard . The ship ' s only postwar service was as flagship of the Port Admiral at New York . She was recommissioned on 13 January 1874 until reduced to reserve again on 12 June 1875 . On 5 August 1882 , " Roanoke " was struck from the Navy List and later sold for scrap on 27 September 1883 .