Torrent

Torrent was an American three-mast wooden barque that shipwrecked off the coast of Alaska on 15 July 1868 while transporting a company of United States Army artillerymen to Cook Inlet. Torrent was built in Bath, Maine in 1852. The ship consisted of two decks, was 576 tons, and likely measured 50 meters in length. Final voyage and wreck In October 1867, the United States and the Russian Empire signed the Alaska Treaty, through with the United States acquired new territories now belonging to the present state of Alaska. To protect the American interests, the United States Army sent an artillery company to construct a new fort near the mouth of the Kenai River on Cook Inlet. The fort would complement the existing forts being constructed at Sitka and Kodiak. Battery F of the Second Regiment of United States Artillery was chosen to construct the fort, departing Fort Vancouver in Washington Territory under the command of Brevet Captain/First Lieutenant John McGilvray in June 1868 aboard the vessel Torrent, which was one of two sailing ships chartered to carry the men, ammunition, supplies and building materials to the new fort at Cook Inlet. (Lieutenant McGilvray was commanding the company during the long-term absence of his battery commander, Captain Samuel Nicoll Benjamin, then detailed as an instructor at West Point.) The transported provisions were intended to last six months, and a second vessel, Milan, commanded by Captain Joseph Snow, followed carrying of lumber and 300 tons of coal.