USS Brockenborough
USS Brockenborough was a sloop captured by the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was used by the Union Navy primarily as a ship's tender and also as a gunboat stationed off Confederate ports to enforce the Union blockade which prevented trade with foreign countries. Brockenborough was wrecked in a storm and her crew burned her to prevent capture. Captured of Brockenborough On October 16, 1862, the commanding officer of the Union steamer — Acting Lieutenant Edward Y. McCauley — ordered Acting Master Robert B. Smith to lead a reconnaissance expedition up the Apalachicola River. During the ensuing operation, Smith's boats exchanged fire with Southerners ashore and signaled for help. That gunboat's launch brought a howitzer into the fray, "…cleared the banks of the guerrillas," and enabled the Union boats to continue on upstream. A short distance past the town of Apalachicola, Florida, Smith found a sailing ship which had grounded inside the mouth of a creek. She proved to be G. L. Brockenborough, a sloop carrying 64 bales of cotton. Her master and a single passenger were still on board. The Union sailors refloated the vessel and took her to Key West, Florida, where she was condemned by the prize court and purchased by the Navy on November 15. Civil War service Sent back to waters off the Apalachicola, Brockenborough — also spelled Brockenboro — served the East Gulf Blockading Squadron as a tender to the double-ended sidewheeler and the former ferryboat . On February 18, 1863, while anchored off New Inlet, St. George's Sound, Somerset sighted a schooner sailing westward along the southern coast of St. George's Island; and her captain — Lieutenant Commander A. F. Crosman — sent Brockenborough in pursuit. She overtook and captured Hortense, a schooner bound from Havana, Cuba, for Mobile, Alabama, with an escorted cargo. Crosman manned the prize from Somerset and sent her to Key West, for adjudication, and she was condemned by the prize court there. On March 20, Acting Volunteer Lieutenant George E. Welch — who commanded the Union bark — sent his executive officer, Acting Master Richard J. Hoffner, in Brockenborough to the mouth of the Ocklocknee River to investigate a report that a schooner was loading cotton at that place. The sloop, accompanied by Amandas launch, struggled across the marshy waters of St. George's Sound for three days before reaching the Ocklocknee where Hoffner found "…a dismasted vessel lying close to [the river's] starboard bank…." While the Union party approached the partially sunken ship, the Southerners who had been on board escaped to shore in boats. Hoffner tried to tow his quarry back toward the sound, but the prize — the schooner Onward — was stranded by the ebbing tide some two hours later. The next morning, when Onward was again afloat, the expedition once more headed for deep water, but took the wrong channel and again struck the bottom. After strenuously, although futilely, striving to pull free, the Union sailors decided to wait for help