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If there is one thing you can count on in war it is that there is nothing you can count on in war.

-- Richard M. Watt

Huntsville (American Steamship, 1857-1877)

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Huntsville, an 840-ton (burden) wooden screw steamship, was launched at New York City in 1857 and subsequently employed commercially along the U.S. Atlantic Coast. After the American Civil War began in April 1861 she was chartered for U.S. Navy service and converted to a gunboat. Placed in commission as USS Huntsville in May, she was formally purchased in August, while serving in the Gulf of Mexico. Except for a few months of repairs in the spring of 1862, the steamer operated in the Gulf for the next three years. Her duties primarily involved enforcing the blockade of the Confederate coast, a task she performed successfully, capturing a dozen blockade runners, among them the steamers Adela (on 7 July 1862), Reliance (21 July 1862) and Union (19 May 1863). She assisted in the taking of others and beginning in May 1864 supported troops ashore at Tampa Bay, Florida. While off Tampa her crew suffered greatly from yellow fever, so Huntsville was sent north in July and decommissioned in August.

Recommissioned in late March 1865, Huntsville made transport voyages to New Orleans and Panama between early April and late June. She then carried passengers between New York and Boston and escorted a monitor to Philadelphia. Following decommissioning in late August and sale at the end of November 1865, Huntsville resumed her commercial career, which lasted until she burned in December 1877.


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