USS Calhoun (1851)
USS Calhoun
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Calhoun |
| Ordered: | as Cuba |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | 1851 at New York City |
| Commissioned: | March 19, 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | May 6, 1864 |
| Struck: | 1864 (est.) |
| Captured: | by Union Navy forces, January 23, 1862 |
| Fate: | sold on June 4, 1864 to the Union Army |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Gunboat |
| Displacement: | 508 long tons (516 t) |
| Length: | Unknown |
| Beam: | Unknown |
| Draft: | Unknown |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | Unknown |
| Complement: | Unknown |
| Armament: | 2 × 32-pounder guns, 1 × 30-pounder rifled gun |
USS Calhoun (1851) was a captured Confederate steamer and blockade runner acquired by the Union Navy from the prize court during the American Civil War.
Calhoun was put into service as a gunboat by the Union Navy to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries.
Calhoun was built in 1851 at New York City as Cuba, was commissioned as a privateer by the Confederates on May 15, 1861, and while operating as a Confederate privateer and blockade runner was captured by Colorado off Southwest Pass, Louisiana on January 23, 1862. Commissioned for Federal service under Lieutenant J. E. De-Haven, she joined the West Gulf Blockading Squadron on March 19, 1862.
In her service on patrol off the Passes of the Mississippi River, Calhoun established herself as one of the most successful blockading ships, taking part in the capture of 13 ships before May 5, 1862, when she steamed up the Mississippi River for duty in Lake Ponchartrain.
Here she continued to add to her score, chasing and capturing a steamer, a gunboat, two schooners, and a sloop. Later in the year, she sought out and captured another sloop in Atchafalaya Bay.
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