Charlestown Naval Shipyard - Boston, MA - U.S. Civil War Sites on Waymarking.com

In the Boston neighborhood of Charlestown is the Charlestown (Boston) Naval Yard (CNY), a major naval base for the U.S. and both a supplier to existing ships and builder of new ships that would be used in the Civil War.

The CNY was established in 1800 and was one of the original six naval yards in this country. It was closed in 1974, and part of it became a National Histoic Park and is the home of the U.S.S. Constitution. By the time the Civil War broke out, the CNY was the major rope supplier, partly from the partially automated processes used in the Ropewalk building. It also had a drydock facility, the 2nd oldest in the country, where it could build and work on ships.

Perhaps CNY's greatest contribution to the Civil War was the building of the screw frigate, U.S.S. Merimack. This ship combined sail and steam power to move and allowed for better maneuverability. This ship had set sail from Boston in June 1855 and was in the Naval Yard at Portsmouth, VA, the time when the war broke out. Rather than let it fall into Confederate hands, orders were made to have the ship burned instead. The job was incomplete, however, and the ship was remade into a new class of ship: an ironclad that was the first of its type and renamed the C.S.S. Virginia.

Other ships known to have been built at CNY include the Frigate, U.S.S. Cumberland, the flagship of the Gulf Squadron; U.S.S. Housatonic, the first ship to have been sunk by a submarine; and the U.S.S. Hartford.

CNY was also the location where over 26,000 men joined the Union forces and began their naval careers.

See the web site link below for the Charlestown Naval Yard for times open and maps of the grounds. In the visitor center, there is an excellent publication published by the National Park Service that presents the history of the yard.

Sources:

hnsa.org (Charlestown Navy Yard Drydock #1):
(visit link)

National Park Service (Charlestown Navy Yard):
(visit link)

(Maritime History of Massachusetts - BNY):
(visit link)

(Ships Built at Charlestown Navy Yard):
(visit link)

Boston.com (Civil War Sites):
(visit link)

Newworldencyclopedia.org (Battle of The U.S.S. Monitor and U.S.S. Merrimack/C.S.S. Virginia):
(visit link)

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