USS Santiago de Cuba (1861)

USS Santiago de Cuba (1861) was a brig acquired by the Union Navy during the first year of the American Civil War. She was outfitted as a gunboat with powerful 20-pounder rifled guns and 32-pounder cannon and was assigned to the Union blockade of the Confederate States of America.

Commissioned in New York City in 1861

USS Santiago de Cuba was a wooden, brigantine-rigged, side-wheel steamship built in 1861 at Brooklyn, New York. She was purchased by the Navy on 6 September 1861 at New York City; and was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 5 November 1861, Commander Daniel B. Ridgely in command.

Civil War service

Gulf of Mexico operations

The new steamer was ordered to Havana, Cuba,

“... to protect legitimate commerce and to suppress communications and traffic with or by the insurgents . . .”

She reached Havana on 17 November. On 3 December, she captured British blockade runner schooner, Victoria, at sea some 90 miles west of Point Isabel, Texas, and sent the prize to Galveston, Texas. Four days later, she chased and overtook British schooner, Eugenia Smith, but released her for want of evidence justifying a seizure. Thus, she began a career which kept her at sea during much of the Civil War.

Santiago de Cuba scored next on 26 April 1862 when she took schooner, Mersey, of Charleston, South Carolina; and she captured schooner, Maria, on the 30th off Port Royal, South Carolina. Schooner, Lucy C. Holmes, laden with cotton, fell into her clutches on 27 May,...
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