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You are Here>NCSUBVETS>USS North Carolina History
General Characteristics
Displacement: 2,633 tons
Length: 196.3 ft ( m)
Beam: 53.5 ft ( m)
Draft: 21.5 ft ( m)
Complement: 820 officers and men
Armament: 74 guns (42- and 32-pounders)
The first USS North Carolina was a 74-gun ship of the line.
North Carolina was the third launched but the first commissioned of a new class of ships-of-the-line designed by naval constructor William Doughty. She was one of "nine ships to rate not less than 74 guns each" authorized by Congress 29 April 1816. The Resolution of Congress 3 March 1819 specified that ships of her rate be named for States of the Union. Her sister ships were Alabama (renamed New Hampshire), Delaware, New York, Ohio, Vermont, and Virginia.
North Carolina was built by naval constructor Samuel Humphreys at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. Humphreys' own design was approved by the Navy Commissioners provided that timbers had not already been cut to William Doughty's design. But the timbers had been cut and Humphreys was content with permission to make alterations while following the dimensions of the Doughty design. The nature of these alterations are not clear but they were apparently minor. After completing North Carolina, Humphreys was permitted to build a ship-of-the-line of his own design-the gigantic Pennsylvania.
North Carolina's keel was laid February 1818. She launched at Philadelphia 7 September 1821 and was fitting out at Norfolk 24 June 1824 when Master Commandant Charles W. Morgan was ordered to command. She was pierced for 102 guns and is said to have originally mounted a total of ninety-four 32-pounder and 42-pounder guns. A Bureau of Ordnance Register shows her armament in 1845 as follows: Spar deck: two 32-pounders, twenty-four 42-pounders, two 9-pounders on board temporarily as signal guns, one 6-pounder carronade, and one boat gun. Main deck: four 8-inch chambered cannons, four 8-inch guns reamed up from 42-pounder cannon-"These guns were reamed up at the West Point foundry in 1841 and are considered of doubtful value," twenty-four 32-pounder cannon. Lower deck: thirty-two 42-pounder cannon.
On 15 December 1824, North Carolina became flagship of senior officer of the Navy, Commodore John Rodgers. She also carried captain of the fleet, Capt. Daniel T. Patterson, 10 lieutenants, 34 midshipmen, and a full quota of staff officers. Matthew C. Perry was her senior lieutenant. Several of her midshipmen would later become famous Navy leaders-Samuel F. DuPont, Thomas O. Selfridge, and S. P. Lee. Before sailing from Hampton Roads on her first foreign cruise, 26 March 1825, Commodore Rodgers entertained visitors including President James Monroe. Attorney General William Wirt said of North Carolina: "Genius at her prow and energy on her deck, her country asks no nobler representative on the ocean."
"The stately North Carolina" departed Hampton Roads 27 March 1825 and reached Gibraltar after a boisterous passage of 33 days. She led the Mediterranean Squadron guarding our merchant commerce during the war between Turkey and Greece. She was also instrumental in establishing the friendly relations and prestige that paved the way for our first commercial treaty with Turkey which opened the principal ports of the eastern Mediterranean and those of the Black Sea to American commercial traders.
Commodore John Rodgers in North Carolina, successfully sought out the Admiral of the Turkish Fleet to find out whether the Turkish Government was willing to make a treaty, the terms acceptable and the methods of negotiations preferred. He also let it be known that the United States sought trade with all Turkish ports on an equal footing with the most favored nations, free ingress and egress to the Black Sea which had been closed, except to favored European nations, since the capture of Constantinople in 1453, and permission to appoint consuls to any Turkish ports. He thus laid the keel of our first commercial treaty with Turkey.
The mighty ship-of-the-line cruised throughout the Mediterranean until 18 May 1827, then sailed from Port Mahon for return to Hampton Roads, 28 July 1827. She was placed in ordinary at Norfolk until decommissioned 30 October 1836 to fit out for duty on the Pacific station. She became flagship of Commodore Henry E. Ballard 26 December 1836 and departed Hampton Roads 12 January 1837 for the west coast of South America.
North Carolina arrived at Rio de Janeiro 4 March, called at Montevideo and Buenos Aires, then rounded Cape Horn to reach Callao, Peru, 26 May 1837. Commodore Ballard assumed command of the Pacific Squadron protecting our merchant commerce at a time when a war was raging between Chile and Peru, further complicated by strained relations between the United States and Mexico. In North Carolina, Ballard provided the qualities of traditional naval leadership emphasized more than half a century later by Secretary of State John Hay: "I have always felt relieved when a naval officer has arrived on the scene because he always kept within the situation."
North Carolina continued as flagship of the Pacific Squadron until late March 1839 and returned off Sandy Hook, N.J., 27 June 1839. She became a receiving ship at the New York Navy Yard until decommissioned 7 September 1865. A demonstration of the triumphs of naval architecture the American genius was capable of producing, she was one of the most popular ships of her time. Often called "The stately North Carolina," she was sold 1 October 1867.
North Carolina's figurehead was a bust of Sir Walter Raleigh which was presented to the State in July 1909. Her tonnage was 2,633 and she was designed for a complement of 820 officers and men. Dimensions of North Carolina appear in naval constructor William Doughty's statistical table on the North Carolina class
Jump to - BB 52
NORTH CAROLINA (ACR-12)
Displacement: 14,500 t.
Length: 504’6”
Beam: 72’11”
Draft: 25’
Speed: 22 k.
Complement: 859
Armament: 4 10”; 16 6”; 22 3”; 12 3-pdrs.; 4 1-pdrs.; 2 .30 cal MG; 4 21” torpedo tubes
Class: TENNESSEE Class Armored Cruiser
The second NORTH CAROLINA (ACR-12) was laid down 21 March 1905 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va.; launched 6 October 1906; sponsored by Miss Rebekah Glenn, daughter of the Governor of North Carolina; and commissioned at Norfolk 7 May 1908, Captain William A. Marshall in command. Following shakedown along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean, NORTH CAROLINA carried President-elect William Howard Taft on an inspection tour to the Panama Canal in January and February 1909. Between 23 April and 3 August, the new battleship cruised the Mediterranean. Sailing with MONTANA (ACR-13) to protect Americans threatened by conflict in the Turkish Empire. NORTH CAROLINA sent a medical relief party ashore 17 May to Adana, Turkey, to treat both wounded and desperately ill Armenians, victims of massacre. NORTH CAROLINA provided food, shelter, disinfectants, distilled water, dressings and medicines, and assisted other relief agencies already on the scene. For the remainder of her Mediterranean cruise, NORTH CAROLINA cruised the Levant succoring American citizens and refugees from oppression.
In the years before World War I, NORTH CAROLINA trained and maneuvered in the western Atlantic and Caribbean and participated in ceremonial and diplomatic activities. Highlights included attending centennial celebrations of the independence of Argentina (May-June 1910) and Venezuela (June-July 1911); carrying the Secretary of War for an inspection tour of Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and the Panama Canal (July-August 1911); and bringing home from Cuba bodies of the crew of MAINE for their final interment in Arlington National Cemetery.
As war began in Europe, NORTH CAROLINA departed Boston 7 August 1915 to protect Americans in the Near East. After calling at ports of England and France, she cruised constantly between Jaffa, Beirut, and Alexandria, her presence a reminder of the might of the still neutral United States. She returned to Boston 18 June 1915 for overhaul.
Reaching Pensacola, Fla., 9 September 1915, NORTH CAROLINA contributed to the development of naval aviation through service as station ship. On 5 November 1915, she became the first ship ever to launch an aircraft by catapult while under way. This experimental work led to the use of catapults on battleships and cruisers through World War II, and to the steam catapults on present-day aircraft carriers.
When the United States entered World War I, NORTH CAROLINA sailed north to escort troop transports plying between Norfolk and New York. Between December 1918 and July 1919, she brought men of the AEF home from Europe. Renamed CHARLOTTE 7 June 1920 so that her original name might be assigned to a new battleship, she decommissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., 18 February 1921. Her name was struck from the Navy List 15 July 1930, and she was sold for scrapping 29 September 1930.
Statistics
624 feet long
105 feet wide at her beam
43,200 tons displacement
speed of 23 knots
armament of twelve 16-inch guns, plus 6-inch and 3-inch guns and two torpedo
tubes
Battleship number 52 was to be called NORTH CAROLINA, but she was never completed.
Between 1919 and 1925, the United States Congress approved the construction of six battleships, one of which would be christened NORTH CAROLINA. She and her five sister ships, IOWA, INDIANA, SOUTH DAKOTA, MASSACHUSETTS, and MONTANA were monster ships. They would have been the most heavily armed capital ship in the world at that time.
While the construction of new ships was exciting, most people did not want a repeat of the arms race that contributed to the tensions leading to World War I. Therefore, President Warren G. Harding invited Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and China to attend an international conference on the limitation of naval armaments. The group convened in Washington in November 1919 and the meeting became known as the famous Washington Conference producing the Five Power Treaty (included all attendees except China). The signing nations agreed to reduce the size of their navy and to cease building warships beyond an allotted number. In fact, there was a ten-year "holiday" declared on building battleships.
The keel for NORTH CAROLINA had been laid in Norfolk in 1919, but the signed treaty spelled her doom. She was sold for scrap in 1923 along with her five sister ships and WASHINGTON.