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Library of Congress

Military Quotes

I learned that good judgement comes from experience and that experience grows out of mistakes.

-- General Omar N. Bradley

USS Congress (1842-1862)

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USS Congress, a 1,867-ton sailing frigate, was built between 1839 and 1842 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine. Commissioned in May 1842, she made a Mediterranean cruise in that year and into 1843, then served off the South American east coast until early 1845. After a refit, she was sent to become flagship of the Pacific Squadron, remaining there until mid-1848. During that cruise, Congress took an active role in the war with Mexico.

From June 1850 until June 1853, the frigate served as flagship of the Brazil Squadron. Congress next deployed to the Mediterranean Sea for two years' duty as flagship, beginning in June 1855 and concluding in November 1857. On her next assignment, from 1859 until mid-1861, she was again the Brazil Squadron flagship.

The outbreak of the Civil War brought Congress back to U.S. waters, where she spent her remaining days. She joined the blockade of the Confederacy's Atlantic coast in September 1861. On 8 March 1862, while anchored off Newport News, Virginia, USS Congress was attacked by the ironclad CSS Virginia. After suffering heavy casualties in a one-sided action with a opponent that was virtually invulnerable to her guns, the veteran frigate was forced to surrender. She was subsequently destroyed by fire and the explosion of her powder magazine.

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This Day in History
1738: English parliament declares war on Spain.

1800: The USS Essex becomes first U.S. Navy vessel to pass the Cape of Good Hope.

1814: The HMS Phoebe and Cherub capture the USS Essex off Valparaiso, Chile.

1854: Britain and France declare war on Russia.

1862: Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass.

1864: A group of Copperheads attack Federal soldiers in Charleston, Illinois. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1917: The Womens Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) is founded, Great Britains first official service women.

1939: The Spanish Civil War ends as Madrid falls to Francisco Franco.

1941: Andrew Browne Cunningham, Admiral of the British Fleet, commands the British Royal Navys destruction of three major Italian battleships and two destroyers in the Battle of Cape Matapan in the Mediterranean.

1942: A British ship, the HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, explodes, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.