Action at Shimonoséki
by Allen P. Wescott
The recent bombing of the Panay of the Yangtze river patrol was not Japan's first attack upon an American warship. In 1863—just three quarters of a century ago—the U. S. S. Wyoming was attacked, but in the battle which ensued, the Wyoming sank two Japanese ships, disabled a third, destroyed one land battery, damaged six others, and emerged with but trifling losses although heavily outnumbered both in men and metal. While this action, judged from either skill or audacity, rivals such famous sea fights as those between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis, the Constellation and La Vengeance, or the United States and the Macedonian, and while the Wyoming's commander, David Stockton McDougal, certainly possessed all the valor, and the ability as a seaman, of Jones, Hull or Decatur, the battle in the Straits of Shimonoséki, occurring as it did on the far side of the globe and at a time when we were involved in the Civil War, passed virtually unnoticed, and this daring exploit of the Wyoming, her gallant crew and commander, is all but unknown today.
The Wyoming was a sloop-of-war, second class, built at Philadelphia in 1858, and a sister ship to the renowned Kearsarge launched at Kittery, Maine, a bit later. She was long, narrow and fast with a tonnage of 726 and a displacement of 1560. She was about 200 feet in length with a 33-foot beam and a draught of about 16 feet. A screw ship of 843 horsepower and bark rigged, her speed was probably eleven or twelve knots. She mounted six guns—four 32-pounders and two 11-inch Dahlgren pivot-guns. Her crew numbered 160 officers and men. The two pivot-guns, one forward and one aft, were, in those days, among the heaviest
of naval ordnance. They weighed about
112
