USS Ascutney
large steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War
USS Ascutney was a large steamer with powerful guns acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat in support of the Union Navy blockade of Confederate waterways. Post-war, she performed some steamship service for the Navy.
Service history
Ascutney—a wooden-hulled, side-wheel gunboat ordered by the Navy in the autumn of 1862—was launched on 4 April 1863 by George W. Jackman Jr. at Newburyport, Massachusetts, on 4 April 1863. Delivered to the New York Navy Yard in June 1863, she was commissioned on 28 July 1864, Lt. Comdr. William Mitchell in command.
On 1 August 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles ordered Mitchell to ". . . visit the fishing grounds on the eastern coast [of the] French Islands, in the Bay [Gulf] of St.
The public source identifies “USS Ascutney” as large steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ascutney, large and steamer.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “USS Ascutney”, the useful work is to connect “large steamer acquired by the Union Navy during the American Civil War” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7867442. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1862, 1863 and 1864.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “USS Ascutney” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.