USS Dale, a 566-ton sailing sloop-of-war, was built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Pennsylvania. She was placed in commission in December 1840 and began a long voyage around Cape Horn to take her place on the Navy's Pacific Station. After returning to the United States in October 1843, Dale was laid up for nearly three years. Between June 1846 and August 1849, she deployed to the Pacific for her second tour, this time taking part in war operations off California and the Mexican west coast. During the 1850s, Dale primarily served off Africa as part of the effort to supress the slave trade.

Dale cruised along the Confederacy's Atlantic shore in 1861, capturing two schooners in October and November. For the rest of the Civil War she was employed as a store ship at Port Royal, South Carolina, and Key West, Florida. Between 1867 and the mid-1880s, the sloop was stationed at Annapolis, Maryland, as a training ship for U.S. Naval Academy Midshipmen. She then became receiving ship at the Washington Navy Yard, District of Columbia. Beginning in 1895, Dale served with the Maryland State Naval Militia and was renamed Oriole in November 1904. She was finally sold in December 1921.

USS Dale was named in honor of Commodore Richard Dale (1756-1826), who served in the Continental Navy during the Revolutionary War and in the United States Navy in the late 1790s and early 1800s.