Talk:USS General Burnside

Error Report Re paragraph titled: Constructed at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1862

Prior to writing my family history, I obtained information from several sources about the Union gunboat USS General Burnside (No.63). My g-grandfather served as a seaman on the vessel 1864-65. The Wiki References section indicates that the article includes text from the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. I have a copy of that text and it conflicts with other sources, which I believe to be correct,concerning when and where it was built.

These sources are as follows:

1. Charles Dana Gibson and E.Kay Gibson, THE ARMY'S NAVY SERIES, Dictionary of Transports and Combatant Vessels,Steam and Sail, Employed by the Union Army, 1861-1868, (Camden Maine: Ensign Press,1995)p.125.

This source indicates that there were four vessels named General Burnside and one named General A.E. Burnside during the Civil War period. The Wiki description matches the General Burnside built at Bridgeport,Alabama by the Quartermaster Department and launched in 1864....not a vessel by that name built in 1862.

2. U.S. Naval War Records Office, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, (Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office 1914), Series I, Vol.26.

Message on page 326 from Rear-Admiral David D. Porter USN, Commander Mississippi Squadron to Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy in 1864 that a steamer built at Chattanooga (Bridgeport) be named General Burnside.

Another message (page 566) dated September 26,1864 from LCDR Fitch to Rear Admiral Porter at Mound City,Ill. forwarded the dimensions and tonnage of the Burnside and three sister gunboats "built at Bridgeport,Alabama".

I would urge that the article be edited to correct the error in view of the above discrepancy.

Steamjer56 (talk) 23:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)