Her building at the yard of Joseph Coldwell, New Yersey by the firm Perione, Secor &Co. of New York was ordered on 15 September 1862 and she was laid down in the same year, launched on 14 October 1863, commissioned on 6 June a year later, stricken from the Navy List on 14 December 1901 and sold on 24 March a year later. With a displacement of 2,100 tons were her dimensions 223’x 43’4”x 13’6” or 68 x 1,31 x 4,11 metres. Her one shaft Ericsson vibrating lever engine and the two boilers supplied 320 ihp allowing a speed of 8 knots. Her crew numbered 85 men and she was armed with 2-15”/38,1cm smoothbore Dahlgren guns placed in one gun turret. The armour made of iron consisted of a 1,5” thick deck while the turret was protected by 10”, the pilothouse by 8” and the sides by 3-5”.
The photo showed her in the 1880’s, source http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h74000/h74470.jpg
The magazine Scientific American dated 12 December 1863 supplied the following details dealing with this monitor and her sister ships.
p. 373: “Tippecanoe Class. Their principal dimensions are as follows:
Length on deck 224 feet
Widyh on deck 43 feet
Depth on deck 18 feet 6 inches
Length of iron hull 190 feet
Width of iron hull 87 feet 6 inches
Projection of armor shelf forward 9 feet 6 inches
Projection of armor shelf aft 24 feet 6 inches
The hull is of ½-inch plates, garboard stroke ½ (?)-inch. Frames 4-inch by 4 inch, 18 inches apart, and on every alternate one a 16-inch cross floor of ½-inch iron, topped with two bars of 3½ inch by 3½ inch angle iron. Deck timbers 12 inches square, and 3 feet from center to center, deck of 7-inch plank. The side armor is of 5 thicknesses of inch plates, in addition to which the vessels of this class have two massive bars of iron called “armor stringers,” running entirely around the ship, under the armor, and serving to support it near the water-line. These stringers are 6½ inches wide by 6 inches thick for about 70 feet at the bow, and for the remaining distance they are 6½ inches wide by 4 inches thick, thus making the armor in the part most liable to be hit nine inches in thickness. Tho deck armor is of two plates, the upper one 1-inch and the lower one ½-inch thick. To provide against such an accident as happened to the Monitor, there is introduced in the angle formed by the sides and the armor shelf a plate iron sponson, the space behind which is filled in with pine wood; the thickness of armor and wood backing is 2 feet 8 Inches.
The turret is made of 10 thicknesses of inch plates, is 9 feet high and 2 feet inside diameter. To avoid being disabled as the Passaic was, in the first attack on Charleston, the base of the turret is strengthened by a band of iron 15 inches wide and 5 inches thick, having its outer edges well rounded so as not to be “upset” by any chance shot. Instead of the original arrangement by which the recoll of the gun was checked, a more complicated plan Is adopted, by which the friction is produced on the periphery of a wheel which is connected to the gun carriage by a train of gearing; much greater control Is thus obtained over the motion of the carriage, but at the expense of simplicity. The pilot-house is like the turret, 10 inches thick and 6 feet inside diameter. The turret engines have cylinders 12 inch diameter and 16-inch stroke; those of the blower engines are 15-inch diameter and 12 inch stroke, and each drives one of Dlmpfel’s 60-inch blowers. The main engines are similar to those of the Passaic class, but are considerably larger, having cylinders 48 inch diameter and 24-inch stroke. Instead of the jet condenser they have a surface condenser containing 5,367 ½-inch tubes, each 5 feet long, through which the steam passes. The auxiliary engine for working the air pump which stands aft of the main engine is of the beam variety, with a cylinder 23¾ inch diameter and 23-inch stroke; at each side of the main beam and moving with It is a shorter one, the one of which works two air-pumps 22-inch diameter and 15-inch stroke, and the other two circulating pumps 18 inch diameter and 15-inch stroke. The two main boilers are of the horizontal tubular pattern, each one containing six furnaces, and 384 tubes 8 feet in length, and varying in diameter from 3¼ (?) inches In the bottom row, to 2¼ inches in the top row. In addition to these there are two auxiliary boilers, each with one furnace and 64 tubes, like the main ones. The total heating surface in the four boilers is 7,500 square feet. The propeller is a four-bladed one of cast-iron, 14 feet diameter and 20 feet pitch.”
According to the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Tippecanoe_(1864) belonged she to the Canonicus-class which consisted of the Canonicus, Catawba, Mahopac, Manayunk, Manhattan, Oneota, Saugus, Tecumseh and the Tippecanoe.
