USS Roanoke was a wooden-hulled screw frigate built for the United States Navy in the mid-1850s. She served as flagship of the Home Squadron in the late 1850s and captured several Confederate ships after the start of the American Civil War in 1861. The ship was converted into an ironclad monitor during 1862–63; the first ship with more than two gun turrets in history. Her conversion was not very successful as she rolled excessively and the weight of her armor and turrets strained her hull. Her deep draft meant that she could not operate off shallow Confederate ports and she was relegated to harbor defense at Hampton Roads, Virginia for the duration of the war. Roanoke was placed reserve after the war and sold for scrap in 1883. Description Roanoke was long between perpendiculars and had a beam of . The ship had a draft of and a depth of hold of . She displaced and had a burthen of 3,400 tons. Roanokes hull was strongly reinforced by wrought iron straps. Her crew numbered 674 officers and enlisted men. The ship had one horizontal two-cylinder trunk steam engine driving a single propeller using steam provided by four Martin boilers. The engine produced a total of and the ship had a maximum speed of under steam alone. The propeller could be hoisted and the single funnel lowered to increase speed under sail alone. Roanoke was ship rigged and had a sail area of . In 1861, the ship's armament consisted of one smoothbore Dahlgren pivot gun, twenty-eight Dahlgren guns and fourteen Dahlgren guns. The 10-inch Dahlgren weighed and could fire a shell up to a range of at +19° elevation. The nine-inch gun weighed and could fire a shell to a range of at an elevation of +15°. The eight-inch Dahlgren had a range of at an elevation of +10° with a shell. It weighed . Steam frigate service Roanoke, named after the Roanoke River, was laid down at the Norfolk Navy Yard in May 1854 and launched on 13 December 1855. The ship sank when launched and had to be refloated before she could be completed. She was commissioned on 4 May 1857 with Captain John B. Montgomery in command. Assigned to the Home Squadron as flagship, Roanoke transported the American filibuster and former President of Nicaragua, William Walker, and his men back to the United States from Aspinwall, Colombia,