USS Brockenborough ( 1862 ) USS " Brockenborough " ( 1862 ) was a sloop captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War . She was used by the Union Navy primarily as a ship ' s tender and also as a gunboat stationed off Confederate ports to prevent their trading with foreign countries . Sloop captured and converted to Union Navy service . On 16 October 1862 , the commanding officer of the Union steamer — Acting Lieutenant Edward Y . McCauley — ordered Acting Master Robert B . Smith to lead a reconnaissance expedition up the Apalachicola River . During the ensuing operation , Smith ’ s boats exchanged fire with Southerners ashore and signaled for help . That gunboat ’ s launch brought a howitzer into the fray , “ … cleared the banks of the guerrillas , ” and enabled the Union boats to continue on upstream . A short distance past the town of Apalachicola , Florida , Smith found a sailing ship which had grounded inside the mouth of a creek . She proved to be " G . L . Brockenborough " , a sloop carrying 64 bales of cotton . Her master and a single passenger were still on board . The Union sailors refloated the vessel and took her to Key West , Florida , where she was condemned by the prize court and purchased by the Navy on 15 November . Civil War service . Assigned to the East Gulf Blockade as a tender . Sent back to waters off the Apalachicola , " Brockenborough " — also spelled " Brockenboro " — served the East Gulf Blockading Squadron as a tender to the double - ended sidewheeler and the former ferryboat . On 18 February 1863 , while anchored off New Inlet , St . George ’ s Sound , " Somerset " sighted a schooner sailing westward along the southern coast of St . George ’ s Island ; and her captain — Lieutenant Commander A . F . Crosman — sent " Brockenborough " in pursuit of the stranger . The armed sloop overtook and captured " Hortense " , a schooner bound from Havana , Cuba , for Mobile , Alabama , with an escorted cargo . Crosman manned the prize from " Somerset " and sent her to Key West , Florida , for adjudication , and she was condemned by the prize court there . Attempting to tow a Confederate boat that had been sunk . On 20 March , Acting Volunteer Lieutenant George E . Welch — who commanded the Union bark — sent his executive officer , Acting Master Richard J . Hoffner , in " Brockenborough " to the mouth of the Ocklocknee River to investigate a report that a schooner was loading cotton at that place . The sloop , accompanied by " Amanda " s launch , struggled across the marshy waters of St . George ’ s Sound for three days before reaching the Ocklocknee where Hoffner found “ … a dismasted vessel lying close to [ the river ’ s ] starboard bank … . ” While the Union party approached the partially sunken ship , the Southerners who had been on board escaped to shore in boats . Hoffner tried to tow his quarry back toward the sound , but the prize — the schooner " Onward " — was stranded by the ebbing tide some two hours later . Attacked by Confederate cavalry , the tow is abandoned . The next morning , when " Onward " was again afloat , the expedition once more headed for deep water , but took the wrong channel and again struck the bottom . After strenuously , although futilely , striving to pull free , the Union sailors decided to wait for help from the rising tide . However , a short while later , some 40 mounted Confederate soldiers and about 150 Southern infantrymen arrived and attacked the expedition . Some of the bluejackets fought back with a howitzer and muskets while their companions set fire to the prize before the whole Union party withdrew in " Brockenborough " and the launch . Both scraped on the bottom but were kept in motion by wading sailors who dragged the boats for about half a mile over mud flats before they floated free . Confederate riflemen kept the party under fire throughout the retreat , killing one man outright and wounding eight others , including Acting Master Hoffner . Once the boats were free of the mud , they proceeded to waters off St . Mark ' s , Florida , where the wounded were embarked in the Union steamer . " Brockenborough " beached and burned to prevent her capture . " Brockenborough " soon returned to St . Georges Sound and , some two months later , was within signal distance of Port Royal , South Carolina , when boats from that ship captured the cotton - laden sloop " Fashion " on 23 May . That night a stiff breeze from the northeast arose and the next day it began to increase steadily in intensity . By the 27th , the wind had reached hurricane intensity and had created a shoreward , current through the West Pass in St . George ’ s Sound , threatening to drive " Brockenborough " ashore on the mainland where she and her crew would be at the mercy of Confederate forces . To avoid this eventuality , the sloop was intentionally beached on St . George ’ s Island where she was set afire to prevent her being recaptured by the South .