Dodge (Henry Dodge), 1855
Builder: Page and Allen, Portsmouth, VA
Cost: Unknown
Rig: Topsail Schooner
Length: 80' (oa)
Beam: 23'
Draft: 5' 6"
Displacement: 93 tons
Keel Laid: Unknown
Launched: Unknown
Completed: Unknown
Decommissioned: Unknown
Disposition: Seized by the Confederacy on 2 March 1861
Complement: 13 men + officers
Armament: 1 x 9-pdr.
Design History:
The cutters of the Allen-class were relatively small schooners, possibly with centerboards.
Cutter History:
Officially Henry Dodge, this cutter was stationed at Galveston, Texas, in 1855. On 2 March 1861, while under the command of First Lieutenant William F. Rogers, USRM and after Texas seceded from the Union, she was seized by the State of Texas and was subsequently turned over to the Confederate Navy. She then operated with the Texas Marine Department but maintained her identity as a ship of the Confederate States Navy. Remaining in Rogers' command, she assisted the Confederate Army in defending the Texas coast until December, 1862, when she was officially transferred to the control of the Confederate Army's Quartermaster at Houston.
In 1864 Dodge passed into private hands and under the name Mary Sorley she operated as a blockade runner. She was captured by the USS Sciota off Galveston, Texas, on 4 April 1864 en route to Havana with a cargo of cotton.
Sources:
Donald Canney. U.S. Coast Guard and Revenue Cutters, 1790-1935. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995.
U.S. Coast Guard. Record of Movements: Vessels of the United States Coast Guard: 1790 - December 31, 1933. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934; 1989 (reprint).
U.S. Navy. Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology, 1861-1865. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971.