USS Dictator Civil War Navy Ship

USS Dictator
Civil War Union Naval Ship

USS Dictator (1864-1883)

USS Dictator , a 4438-ton single-turret seagoing monitor built at New York City, was commissioned in November 1864. Construction problems with her powerplant kept her initial service relatively brief and inactive, and she was decommissioned in September 1865 at the League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dictator was recommissioned in July 1869 for service with the North Atlantic Fleet, but was again laid up in June 1871. Her final period of commissioned service service lasted from January 1874 until June 1877 and was also spent in the Atlantic coast area. After six years "in ordinary" at League Island, USS Dictator was sold for scrapping in September 1883.

Watercolor by Oscar Parkes.
Courtesy of Dr. Oscar Parkes, London, England, 1936

Line engraving, published in "The Soldier in Our Civil War"

Confederate Ironclad 1861-65
Every aspect of Confederate ironclads is covered: design, construction, armor, armament, life on board, strategy, tactics, and actual combat actions.

Confederate Submarines and Torpedo Vessels 1861-65
Interesting information and many excellent illustrations. It addresses the CSA David class torpedo boats and the Hunley (and its predecessors), as well as Union examples such as the Alligator and the Spuyten Duyvil

Life in Mr. Lincoln's Navy
A tantalizing glimpse into the hardships endured by the naval leadership to build and recruit a fighting force. The seaman endured periods of boredom, punctuated by happy social times and terrifying bouts of battle horror

Confederate Phoenix: The CSS Virginia
The CSS Virginia of the Confederate States Navy destroyed two of the most formidable warships in the U.S. Navy. Suddenly, with this event, every wooden warship in every navy in the world became totally obsolete

Naval Strategies of the Civil War: Confederate Innovations and Federal Opportunism
Compare and contrast the strategies of the Southern Secretary of the Navy, Mallory, against his rival in the North, Welles. Mallory used technological innovation and the skill of individuals to bolster the South's seapower against the Union Navy's superior numbers

Engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", 3 February 1866 as part of a larger print entitled "The Iron-clad Navy of the United States.

View on deck, looking aft on the starboard side, while the ship was off an east coast Navy yard, circa the 1870s.
Note the elevated wooden wheelhouse atop the turret.
The original photograph is the right side of a stereograph pair published by the Littleton View Company, Littleton, New Hampshire, under the title "Man of War"

View on deck, looking forward on the starboard side, while the ship was off an east coast Navy yard, circa the 1870s.
Note the lightweight "flying deck" and bridge wings, wooden pilothouse mounted atop the gun turret, muzzle of a XV-inch Dahlgren gun visible in the turret gunport, davits, stanchions, and wooden boxes on deck.

Engraved plan of the ship's transverse section amidships, through the center of her gun turret.
Published in "The Artizan", 1 October 1867.
Note the XV" Dahlgren smoothbore gun in the turret, turret training gears, and the laminated iron armor on Dictator 's hull, turret and conning tower.

American Civil War Naval Book Titles
The Hunt for the Albemarle: Anatomy of a Gunboat War The Confederate ironclad Albemarle was the key to the river wars in North Carolina.	The Civil War on Hatteras Island North Carolina New light on the experiences of Civil War soldiers stationed on the Outer Banks. It follows the crucial maritime battles along the Outer Banks and the famous Burnsides Expedition. Aa fascinating history of how one of America's most treasured islands played a significant part in the Civil War	Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack The first ironclad ships to fight each other, the Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimack), were the unique products of American design genius	Battle on the Bay: The Civil War Struggle for Galveston Civil War history of Galveston is one of the last untold stories from America's bloodiest war, despite the fact that Galveston was a focal point of hostilities throughout the conflict. Galveston emerged as one of the Confederacy's only lifelines to the outside world.

Civil War History Documentary DVD Movie Titles
Halls of Honor The U.S. Navy Museum takes you on an informed and entertaining romp through one of North America s oldest and finest military museums. The museum has been in continuous operation at the Washington Navy Yard since the American Civil War	Raise The Alabama She was known as "the ghost ship." During the Civil War, the CSS Alabama sailed over 75,000 miles and captured more than 60 Union vessels. But her career came to an end in June of 1864 when she was sunk by the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Northern France	The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns Here is the saga of celebrated generals and ordinary soldiers, a heroic and transcendent president and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one	Civil War Combat: America's Bloodiest Battles The violent mayhem of the hornet's nest at Shiloh, the valiant charge on the sunken road at Antietam, the carnage in the wheat field at Gettysburg, and the brutal fighting at Cold Harbor

Sources:
U.S. National Park Service
U.S. Library of Congress
US Naval Archives

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USS Dictator Civil War Union Naval Ship

USS Dictator (1864-1883)

USS Dictator
Civil War Union Naval Ship