While reading an article about the renaissance of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I came across the first ship to be launched from there being the USS John Adams in 1798 and that it had been burned to prevent capture by the British in the War of 1812.
I checked it out in Wikipedia and found that the USS Adams frigate had been built there and that was the one that was burned.
There was ,however, a USS John Adams frigate that was built by the people of Charleston for the US Navy about the same time.
It participated in the the Quasi Wars, the two Barbary Wars, the War of 1812, operated in in the West Indies and Venezuela, the Mexican War, and was on the African Station intercepting slave ships from 1848 to 1853 and then in the Pacific and Far East. The Quasi Wars look like a subject for another entry as I know nothing about them.
That was quite a lengthy service, but the John Adams also served during the Civil War.
CIVIL WAR SERVICE
During the war, the Adams was a training ship for midshipmen after the Naval Academy was moved to Newport, RI, from Annapolis, Md., for safety.
In the summer of 1863, it joined the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and took up station off Morris Island as the flagship of the Inner blockade. It also entered Charleston Harbor after the city was evacuated in February 1865.
It was decommissioned in 1865 and sold in 1867.
I should mention that the USS Monitor was built elsewhere, but commissioned at the Brooklyn Naval Yard before its battle with the CSS Virginia.
Talk About Biting the Hand that Built You? --Old B-Runner
The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.
