Qualla: USS Wateree (1863)

USS Wateree (1863): Introduction

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. A warship does not belong a quarter mile inland, sitting upright in the desert. But on the evening of August 13, 1868, the sidewheel gunboat USS Wateree ended up exactly there, deposited by a 46-foot tsunami wave on the coastal plain north of Arica, Peru. The ship was intact. The crew was alive. And the vessel that had spent ten months fighting its way around Cape Horn would never touch the sea again.

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Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

USS Wateree (1863): The Long Way to the Pacific

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pinot (talk) (Uploads), Public domain. The Wateree was built at Chester, Pennsylvania, by Reaney, Son & Archbold, launched on August 12, 1863, and commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on January 20, 1864, under Commander F. E. Murray. Assigned to the Pacific Squadron during the final years of the Civil War, the ...

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Image: Pinot (talk) (Uploads) | Public domain

USS Wateree (1863): Dust at 5:20

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Courtesy of Murray Greene Day., Public domain. By August 1868, the Wateree was anchored at Arica, having moved south to avoid a yellow fever epidemic in Callao. She was enforcing the Monroe Doctrine in the aftermath of Peru's declaration of war against Spain. At 5:20 in the evening on August 13, the crew observed clouds of du...

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Image: U.S. Naval Historical Center Photograph. Courtesy of Murray Greene Day. | Public domain

USS Wateree (1863): A Ship on Dry Land

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pinot (talk) (Uploads), Public domain. The Wateree came to rest upright and structurally intact. Her flat-bottomed hull, designed for river operations, had ridden the wave rather than being tumbled by it. The boatswain, who had gone ashore with the medical party before the tsunami, was the only crew casualty. With the...

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Image: Pinot (talk) (Uploads) | Public domain

USS Wateree (1863): Taken by the Sea a Second Time

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pinot (talk) (Uploads), Public domain. On May 9, 1877, another massive earthquake struck the coast. The resulting tsunami reached the Wateree's resting place and this time destroyed what remained of her. Today, all that survives are parts of her boilers, mounted on the shore north of the present town of Arica and main...

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Image: Pinot (talk) (Uploads) | Public domain