USS Keystone State (1853)

Secessionists began bombarding Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861. The Union Navy was largely unprepared for war and reacted by acquiring civilian ships. Acting on orders from Commodore Hiram Paulding, the commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Captain Samuel F. DuPont, chartered Keystone State for naval service on 19 April 1861. DuPont received the order in the morning and chartered the ship in three hours. Her charter rate was $600 per day.[28] She was towed to the Navy Yard that day, and even during the tow machinists worked to convert her to a naval vessel. At 6 pm that evening DuPont began loading her with more than 50 Marines, 50 sailors, ammunition, seven days of coal, and two weeks of provisions. The ship was armed with four 24-pounder guns. She sailed at dawn on 20 April 1861, under the command of Lieutenant Maxwell Woodhull, to deliver arms and troops to Washington, D.C.[3]

On her way to Washington, Keystone State arrived off the Norfolk Navy Yard on the morning of 21 April 1861, by which time it was aflame to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Confederacy. She worked with several other Navy ships to extricate USS Cumberland from the docks through the obstacles placed by the Confederates, and helped evacuate sailors from the Navy Yard and USS Pennsylvania.[29] She reached Washington on 23 April 1861.[30] On 24 April 1861, now under the command of Lieutenant Stephen D. Trenchard, she was ordered to New York to take on supplies, and then to sail to back Washington D.C. The ship arrived in Washington on 1 May 1861.[31] On 3 May 1861 Keystone State embarked gun carriages and ordinance supplies from the Washington Arsenal for delivery to Fort Washington and Fortress Monroe. She then sailed back to New York to pick up yet more supplies to reinforce Washington, including five guns. She reached Washington on 14 May 1861.[3]

President Lincoln imposed a blockade of Confederate ports on 19 April 1861. The announcement caught a number of foreign vessels in port. As they sailed home, many were snapped up by the Union Navy. The British brig Hiawatha was heavily laden with tobacco when she sailed for Liverpool on 19 May 1861. USS Minnesota, part of the blockading force based on Fortress Monroe, fired two shots at her and then sent a prize crew aboard to take possession. Hiawatha was towed to New York by Keystone State, arriving on 23 May 1861.[32] On board, Keystone State had 115 women and children who were fleeing the conflict in the South, mostly from the Norfolk area.[33] On that same day she was ordered to sail to Philadelphia to be returned to her owners, ending her charter.[34]

Still short of ships, the Navy purchased Keystone State for $125,000 on June 10, 1861.[34] She was moved to the Philadelphia Navy Yard where she underwent a survey of needed repairs beginning the next day.[35] Repairs began within a week of acquisition, and included dry-docking and replacing the copper sheeting on her hull.[36] Her battery was upgraded to four 32-pounder guns.[37]

She was commissioned at the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 19 July 1861,[34] Commander Gustavus H. Scott in command.

Upon commissioning, Keystone State was assigned to the Gulf Blockading Squadron.[38] She sailed from Philadelphia in search of the commerce raider CSS Sumter. The chase went from Kingston, Jamaica to St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. She then circumnavigated Puerto Rico, stopping in Martinique along the way. Keystone State sailed to Port of Spain, Trinidad, where she found that she had missed Sumter by five days. She visited many other Caribbean ports and sailed as far south as Aspinwall, Panama before returning to the United States. While she failed in her mission to stop the Sumter, she did capture a blockade runner. The steamer Salvor was sailing from Havana to Tampa with a cargo that included 600 pistols and 500,000 percussion caps when she was captured by Keystone State near the Dry Tortugas on 14 October 1861.[39] The ship returned to Philadelphia, via Key West, with Salvor in tow, on 25 October 1861.[40]

While Keystone State was at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, she had her armament upgraded again. She was equipped with six 8-inch guns, two 32-pounders, and a Parrott rifle.[41]

At Philadelphia, Commander William E. Le Roy took command of the ship on 12 November 1861.[37] The sidewheeler left port on 8 December 1861.[42] She visited Bermuda still searching for Sumter,[43] and arrived back at Fortress Monroe on 26 December 1861 with nothing to show for her cruise but two cases of smallpox.[44]

Advertisement for the sale of Annie Dees cargo. The sale of ships and cargo seized for violating the Union blockade funded prize money distributed to Keystone State and other blockaders.

In January 1862 Keystone State was assigned to South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.[45] Her first assignment was to blockade the port of Fernandina, Florida.[45] She engaged Confederate batteries at Amelia Island while on station, apparently with little damage on either side.[46][45] Keystone State captured the British schooner Mars off Fenandina on 5 February 1862. She was laden with a cargo of salt.[47]

In March 1862, Keystone State was part of Flag Officer DuPont's fleet which captured Fernandina and the surrounding islands, putting an end to the need to blockade the port.

On her next cruise, she was assigned to blockade the port of Georgetown, South Carolina. On 10 April 1862, she chased schooner Liverpool of Nassau ashore where she was burned to the water's edge. Schooner Dixie, bound for Nassau with a cargo of 100 bales of cotton, 234 barrels of turpentine, 40 bushels of peanuts, and 3,000 pounds of rice, was captured on 15 April 1862.[45][48]

After returning to port for coal and supplies, Keystone State returned to blockade duty, this time off Charleston. On 29 May 1862 she captured the British steamer Elizabeth, in bound from Nassau with 50 crates of Enfield rifles in cargo.[49] The schooner Cora was taken two days later.[50] Keystone State took schooner Sarah, laden with cotton, and Catalina,[51] off Charleston on 20 June 1862.[52] She captured the schooner Fanny attempting to slip into Charleston with a cargo of salt on 22 August 1862.[53] Keystone State participated in the capture of schooner Annie Dees on 17 November 1862.[54]

The battle off Charleston on January 31, 1863. Keystone State is on the right.

At dawn on 31 January 1863, Keystone State was at anchor, part of the blockading force off Charleston Harbor. Two Confederate ironclads, CSS Palmetto State and CSS Chicora came out of the early morning fog to challenge the Union ships. They attacked USS Mercedita and succeeded in ramming her, disabling her machinery, and killing several of her crew. They turned next to Keystone State, which was hit by ten shells. At approximately 6 am, a shot ripped into Keystone State's steam drum, killing 19 men and wounding a further 20.[55] Since she carried a crew of 163 men,[4] her losses were a quarter of the crew. USS Housatanic engaged the ironclads, which retired to Charleston,[56] but Keystone State was on fire, leaking badly, and had two feet of water in the hold. She was taken under tow by USS Memphis and reached Port Royal, South Carolina, where temporary repairs were made.[57]

The ship got underway on 22 February1863 for blockading duty off St. Simons Sound, Georgia. She served there until departing for Philadelphia on 2 June 1863 for permanent repairs. Keystone State was found to be "very much out of order" on her arrival at the Navy Yard and faced months of work. She was decommissioned on 10 June 1863 and her crew given a 10-day furlough.[58] The ship was hauled out in a floating drydock to repair hull damage from her encounter with the Confederate ironclads. Her engines were overhauled.[59]

Keystone State was recommissioned on 3 October 1863, Commander Edward Donaldson in command, and stood out to sea on 27 October.[60] Three days later she joined the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron at Wilmington, North Carolina. Sometime around the turn of the year, Donaldson yielded command of the ship to Commander Pierce Crosby.[61] By this point in the war, Wilmington was the last major Confederate port, concentrating both blockaders are blockade runners alike. Keystone State participated in the capture of six ships during her final year of blockade duty including the steamer Margaret and Jessie[62] in 1863, and Caledonia,[63] Rouen,[64] Lilian,[65] Elsie,[66] and Siren[67] in 1864.[39]

The ships captured by Keystone State not only helped the war effort, but were profitable for the ship's crew as well. Under the laws of the day, special courts evaluated whether ships were captured legally, which ships had participated in their capture, and how much the captured ships were worth, net of expenses. Prize courts then awarded cash in the form of prize money to ship's crews. Keystone State was lucky in prize money:[68]

In addition to participating in the capture of sixteen ships listed above, Keystone State also plucked from the sea almost 300 bales of cotton thrown overboard by blockade runners seeking to destroy valuables that would fall into the hands of their captors. These generated almost $200,000 pf prize money for Keystone State.[69]

In order to finally close Wilmington to blockade runners, the Union determined to take the forts on the Cape Fear River, starting with Fort Fisher. Admiral David Porter assembled a fleet at Fortress Monroe for the offensive. Porter commanded Keystone State, now captained by Commander Henry Rolando, to lead the reserve line of battle.[4] At 7:30 am on 24 December 1864 Rolando signalled the reserve division to get underway, and by 8:00 am the ships were steaming westward towards Fort Fisher in line of battle. At 2:52 pm Keystone State began firing over and between the ships in the first echelon, to support Army troops as they landed and fought to take the fort. She ceased firing at approximately 5:00 pm. During this action she fired 56 rounds from her 30-pounder Parrott rifle, 24 rounds from her 50-pounder Parrott rifle and 14 rounds from the 32-pounder broadside gun. However, late in the afternoon, the Union Army commander, General Benjamin Franklin Butler, decided that the Confederate works could not be taken and ordered his troops to reembark. Keystone State withdrew to Beaufort for coal and supplies.[4]

Porter immediately began planning for a second assault, this time with a different Army general in charge of the land forces. Most of the fleet that participated in the first battle also joined the second fight. Keystone State was one of three exceptions. She was loading coal in Beaufort when the fort fell. She arrived at the scene of the battle on 16 January 1865 with a coal schooner in tow.[4][70]

After Fort Fisher fell, the campaign to take Wilmington continued on the river. On 20 January 1865, Keystone State towed the monitor Monadanock over the Cape Fear River bar. Admiral Porter requested use of the monitor Montauk for the final assault on Wilmington, and Keystone State was assigned to tow the ship up the Cape Fear River on 21 January 1865.[38] During February 1865, Keystone State supported Army advances along the shore of the River.[45]

Porter's success in closing the last major Confederate port meant that blockaders such as Keystone State no longer had a role to play. She got underway on 13 March 1865 towing monitor Montauk to Hampton Roads, and arrived at Baltimore, Maryland on 20 March 1865.

Commander Rolando was detached from the ship and Keystone State decommissioned on 25 March 1865.[71] She was sold at auction at Washington, D.C. on 15 September 1865 to Marshall O. Roberts for $54,000.[72]

Marshall Roberts led a commercial shipping business which sailed between New York and San Francisco via ships in the Atlantic and Pacific connected by an overland crossing of Nicaragua. He sent Keystone State to the Morgan Iron Works in New York to be converted into a civilian merchant vessel suitable for this trade.[73] The ship was renamed San Francisco.[74] Roberts sold control of the company to William H. Webb in 1866 and it became known as the North American Steamship Company. San Francisco completed multiple trips between New York and Greytown, Nicaragua[75] before the company closed in 1868.[76]

Beginning in July 1868, Webb chartered San Francisco to the New York and Mexican Mail Steamship Line owned by Francois Alexandre.[77] She sailed from New York to Havana, Cuba to Sisal, Mexico, and finally to Vera Cruz, Mexico before returning to New York.[78] Her last run on this route was in February 1869.[79]

October 1870 ad for San Francisco's service between New York and Bermuda

The government of Bermuda solicited offers for regular steamship service between New York and Hamilton. Webb offered San Francisco in response to the tender offer. The ship arrived in Hamilton on 7 August 1870 for inspection, as required by Bermudian law. It was not clear that a ship of her size could enter Hamilton Harbor, and in fact, she grounded on her first attempt. A more experienced pilot guided her in safely, however, and the ship was accepted by the government. Thereafter San Francisco completed two roundtrips per month between New York and Hamilton. A first-class passage in either direction cost $30, and a steerage berth cost $15.[80] The government of Bermuda paid Webb 240 pounds sterling per round-trip as a subsidy.[81] This original contract was set to expire on 31 December 1871,[82] but Webb won a renewal in November 1871.[83]

Concern over San Francisco's ability to enter Hamilton was well founded. She went aground again on 18 September 1870.[84] While entering Hamilton Harbor on 5 December 1870, the ship hit a rock and sank in 15 feet of water.[74] She was refloated and repaired at the Royal Naval Dockyard.[85]

San Francisco brought people, mail, news, food, and manufactured goods of all kinds to Bermuda. She was so important to the island that the Colonial Secretary ordered a special flag to be flown from government telegraph stations from the moment the ship was first sighted inbound to Hamilton.[86] The ship was significant to the export economy of Bermuda as well. On 22 April 1871 she cleared Hamilton with the single largest cargo that had ever been shipped from the island, over 9,000 barrels and 20,000 boxes of various crops.[87] While Bermuda was a colony of Great Britain, there was no direct steamship service between the two islands. Thus, British government officials sailed the Atlantic to New York, and then completed their trip to Bermuda aboard San Francisco. In May, 1871, the ship received a 17-gun salute from the Royal Artillery at Fort Albert upon arrival in Hamilton with Major General John Henry Lefroy, the new governor, aboard.[88]

Webb's renewal application in November 1871 stated that the 240 pound sterling per round-trip subsidy was not enough to cover his losses operating San Francisco on the route, and he expected that the government would work to improve the profitability. Apparently, the situation did not improve and Webb notified the government in late December 1872 that he would abandon the route in January 1873.[89]