R.R. Cuyler, a 1202-ton (burden) wooden screw steamship, was built at New York City in 1859-60. She was employed in trade between New York, Cuba and New Orleans until the outbreak of the Civil War. Chartered by the Navy for war service in May 1861 and purchased three months later, in June R.R. Cuyler was sent to enforce the blockade of Florida's west coast. Over the next three years, she was involved in the capture of several blockade runners, both steamer and sailing types, off Florida and elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.

In 1864, R.R. Cuyler's operating area was changed to the waters off the Confederacy's Atlantic coast. On 4 December of that year she assisted in the capture of the noted blockade runner Armstrong. In mid-January 1865 R.R. Cuyler took part in the successful assault on Fort Fisher, thus closing the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, to the blockade running trade.

With the defeat of the Confederacy having eliminated the Navy's need for her services, R.R. Cuyler was decommissioned in July 1865 and sold in August. She returned to commercial service under the same name, but was sold to the Republic of Columbia in 1866 for addition to that nation's navy. Renamed El Rayo, on 12 September 1867 she was wrecked by a storm at Cartagena.