The USS Agamenticus was a Miantonomoh-class monitor built for the United States Navy during the Civil War era. Constructed at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, her keel was laid in 1862, and she was launched on March 19, 1863, with her hull built from green wood to expedite construction. The ship measured 261 feet (80 meters) in overall length, with a beam of 52 feet (15.8 meters) and a draft of 12 feet 3 inches (3.7 meters). Displacing approximately 3,295 long tons (3,348 tonnes), she was powered by two horizontal vibrating-lever steam engines rated at 1,400 indicated horsepower, driving twin propellers that enabled a maximum speed of about 9 knots (17 km/h). Her coal capacity was around 300 long tons. Agamenticus's armament consisted of four 15-inch Dahlgren smoothbore muzzle-loading guns mounted in two twin turrets—fore and aft—each weighing about 43,000 pounds. These guns could fire shells up to 2,100 yards, with a shell weight of 350 pounds. Her armor protection included five layers of 1-inch wrought iron plates on her sides, tapering to 3 inches at the bottom, backed by 12–14 inches of wood, and additional armor on her turrets (ten layers of 1-inch plates) and pilot house (eight layers). The deck was protected by 1.5 inches of armor, with other protected areas including the bases of the funnel and ventilator. Laid down in 1862 and commissioned in May 1865, Agamenticus was prepared to counter the Confederate ironclad CSS Stonewall but saw no combat as the war was ending. She operated off the northeastern U.S. coast before being decommissioned in September 1865 and placed in reserve. Renamed Terror in 1869, she was reactivated in 1870, assigned to the North Atlantic Fleet, and operated mainly in the Caribbean during unrest in Spanish Cuba. The vessel was decommissioned again in 1872 and sold for scrap in 1874, although her sale was later used to fund the construction of a new iron-hulled monitor of the same name. Her design and service reflect the transitional period of naval technology during and immediately after the Civil War, emphasizing heavy armor and large-caliber guns in a relatively small, shallow-draft ironclad platform.

This description has been generated using GPT-4.1-NANO based on the Vessel's wikidata information and then modified by ShipIndex.org staff.