Today's classic warship, USS Wateree
USS Wateree, a 1173-ton Sassacus class "double-ender" steam gunboat, was built at Chester, Pennsylvania. Unlike her numerous wooden sister ships, she was constructed with an iron hull. Commissioned in January 1864, Wateree was sent around Cape Horn to the Pacific, arriving at San Francisco, California, for post-voyage repairs in November 1864. From early 1865 until mid-1868, the gunboat patrolled along the west coasts of Central and South America as a unit of the South Atlantic Squadron.
On 13 August 1868, while she was at the Port of Arica, Peru (later part of Chile), a huge tidal wave struck the anchorage, breaking several ships loose from their anchors and casting them ashore. Wateree was carried nearly five-hundred yards inland, where she was deposited relatively intact. However, refloating and repairing her would have been impossibly expensive, so she was sold where she lay in November 1868. Reportedly, her hulk was subsequently employed as an inn.
