USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSSĀ Alabama off Cherbourg, France during the American Civil War. Kearsarge was the only ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were later named Kearsarge in honor of the ship.
USS Kearsarge (1861)
Chart of Battle Between the CSS Alabama and the USS Kearsarge 1864
Firing the forward 11-inch gun on Kearsarge
Crew of USS Kearsarge in 1864 after the battle; showing both 11-inch guns pointed to starboard as they were during the battle
In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term sloop-of-war encompassed all the unrated combat vessels, including the very small gun-brigs and cutters. In technical terms, even the more specialised bomb vessels and fireships were classed as sloops-of-war, and in practice these were employed in the sloop role when not carrying out their specialised functions.
The 1854 USS Constellation, a later United States Navy sloop-of-war named after the original frigate
1831 painting of a three-masted Bermuda sloop of the Royal Navy, entering a West Indies port.
USS Portsmouth in 1896.
The Grimsby-class HMS Wellington. Launched in 1934, the vessel is now berthed on the Thames