An Interesting Inquiry

This morning I received an email asking for information about a Union gunboat, Hussar or Huzzar. Occasionally these kinds of requests pop up and they provide interesting little research projects for me. Luckily, this time there was information that was easily accessible in my personal library.

In Richard Sauers book on the Burnside Expedition there are numerous references to said vessel being used as a troop transport, mainly for the 23rd Massachusetts. But here's the bulk of what I found, citation included:

Purchased by the Quartermaster Department by order of Major General Burnside on Oct. 8, 1861, at New York, for $22,500. Assigned as an armed transport and gunboat as part of Burnside’s fleet in the expedition to Hatteras and later attack on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, during Feb. of 1862. Her armament consisted of one 30-lb. Parrott gun and two field pieces which were rifled 10-pounders. (Sauers’ order of battle indicates a 30-pounder Parrott and two 6-pounder Wiard rifles) Reported in Croatan Sound on Feb. 3; remained in North Carolina, being reported coaling at Roanoke Island in Aug. 1862. Shortly thereafter appears in naval action report as being engaged in a river operation on the Neuse in the vicinity of New Bern, North Carolina. On Nov. 28, 1862, while lying in the Neuse River, the crew of the HUZZAR mutinied and were placed in irons by a naval detachment upon request of Major General J.G. Foster, commanding forces in the area. This was the third mutiny found to have been recorded involving crews of vessels operated in the employ of the Army. The HUZZAR’s activity later in the war was as a troop carrier from Key West in the reinforcement of the garrison at Fort Myers, Florida, April of 1864. Record indicates vessel was still owned by the United States on Oct. 15, 1864. Reported operating from Pensacola to Apalachicola during the summer of 1865.

The Army’s Navy Series: Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels, Steam and Sail, Employed by the Union Army, 1861-1868. Compiled by Charles Dana Gibson and E. Kay Gibson. Camden, Maine: Ensign Press, 1995, page 155.

*And my only comment on this pertains to the mutiny; it's kinda funny to me that the Navy had to handle that little situation for the Army. And I'll leave it at that.