USS South Carolina (1860)

USS South Carolina 1861
History
United States
Name:	USS South Carolina
Laid down:	date unknown
Launched:	1860
Acquired:	3 May 1861
Commissioned:	22 May 1861
Decommissioned:	8 April 1862
In service:	16 June 1862
Out of service:	17 August 1866
Struck:	1866 (est.)
Fate:	sold, 5 October 1866
General characteristics
Displacement:	1,165 tons
Length:	217 ft 11.5 in (66.434 m)
Beam:	33 ft 6 in (10.21 m)
Draft:	14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
Depth of hold:	25 ft (7.6 m)
Propulsion:	steam engine screw-propelled
Speed:	12 knots
Complement:	115
Armament:	four 8" guns one 32-pounder gun

USS South Carolina (1860) was a steamer used by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.

She was used by the Navy as a gunboat to patrol navigable waterways of the Confederacy to prevent the South from trading with other countries. Post-war she was converted into a cargo ship prior to being decommissioned.

South Carolina, a screw steamer built at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1860, was purchased by the Navy at Boston on 3 May 1861 and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on 22 May 1861, Capt. James Alden in command.

The steamer departed Boston on 24 May 1861 and carried ordnance and ammunition to Pensacola, Florida. She joined the Gulf Blockading Squadron at Berwick Bay, Louisiana, on 24 June 1861 and then took station off Galveston, Texas. On 4 July, she celebrated Independence Day there by capturing six small schooners. She took two more the next day and one each on the 6th and 7th.

South Carolina engaged Confederate batteries at Galveston on 3 August. On 11 September, she made a prize of Galveston steamer Anna Taylor, laden with coffee and masquerading as the Tampico ship, Solodad Cos. She captured schooners Ezilda and Joseph H. Toone off Southwest Pass on 4 October; and, on the 16th, took Edward Barnard, after that British schooner had run the blockade out of Mobile, Alabama, with 600 barrels of turpentine. On 17 October, she joined the USS Vincennes in pursuit of the CSS Ivy up the Southwest Pass of the Mississippi. She fired on the Ivy, and one other Confederate steamer, but both escaped.

Sloop Florida fell prey to the vigilant blockader on 11 December. On 19 February 1862, South Carolina and USS Brooklyn chased steamer Magnolia in the Gulf of Mexico after the steamer had slipped away from the Confederate coast carrying a large cargo of cotton. Magnolia's crew exploded one of her boilers, set her afire, and attempted to escape; but South Carolina captured the Southerner's boats, boarded the flaming steamer, and put out the fire. In March, South Carolina received orders to return to Boston where she was decommissioned on 8 April for badly needed repairs.