us coast guard collection
When Buchanan was elected president of the United States two years later, Harriet Lane moved with him to the White House and took on the role of hostess. The new bachelor president charged his niece with the responsibility for redecorating the White House staterooms and arranging all events on his social calendar. As the nation’s first to be called “First Lady,” she hosted White House dinner parties every week that included leaders from both the North and South during a time of deep political divisions. Lane possessed a combination of tact, poise, discretion, and political instinct that won her national popularity and the moniker “Democratic Queen.” Profile line drawing of the original US Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane, showing her sail rig, side paddlewheels, and coppered bottom. Illustration by John Tilley.
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than fifteen years and had served as a captain for three. Faunce won national acclaim for the cutter’s essential role in supporting the Punitive Expedition as it steamed up the Paraná River to Paraguay. The expedition’s Navy commodore, William Shubrick, reported:
Very rare photograph showing James Buchanan and Harriet Lane on the far left, with President James Polk and his wife Sarah in the center, and Dolley Madison to the right. In 1857, Buchanan’s close friend and treasury secretary, Howell Cobb, recommended that Lane serve as the namesake for a newly built ship in the US Revenue Cutter Service fleet. The 180-foot cutter Harriet Lane was commissioned in 1858 and would become the Revenue Cutter Service’s first successful side paddlewheel steamer. Built during the transition between sail and steam, the steam-powered cutter was rigged as a two-masted brigantine as a backup in case her steam powerplant malfunctioned. Built with iron strapping in her wooden hull for structural strength, Harriet Lane’s top speed of 12 knots under steam made her one of the
day’s swiftest Federal ships. She carried a powerful 8-inch rifled gun, four 32-pound cannons, and one 12-pound boat howitzer, making her not only the fastest, but also the largest and most heavily armed cutter in the revenue cutter fleet. After the vessel’s commissioning, Lane sent a portrait of herself to the cutter, which she affectionately called “my boat,” and she developed a close relationship with the crew. Revenue Cutter Harriet Lane’s operational fame began in her first year as part of the 1858 South American Punitive Expedition against Paraguay. The cutter’s first captain, John Faunce, had been an officer in the Revenue Cutter Service for more
…it is proper that I express my sense of appreciation of the skill and zeal with which Captain Faunce has used this very efficient vessel in extricating us from our difficulties. USS Fulton would have been lost altogether, if not for the assistance afforded by the Harriet Lane. The cutter returned to New York in 1860, and for the next year performed her usual duties as part of the Revenue Cutter Service. During this period, Miss Lane requested her namesake cutter to host visitors and dignitaries in Washington, DC. These dignitaries included the Prince of Wales—later King Edward VII—with whom Lane had established a relationship while living in London. During the prince’s 1860 visit to the US, the revenue cutter carried him, Lane, and President Buchanan on a cruise from the capital to George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. Forty years later, the prince extended a personal invitation to Lane to attend his coronation, which she accepted.
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