USS Huntsville (1857) - Gulf Blockading Squadron

Gulf Blockading Squadron

Huntsville sailed for Key West, Florida, arriving 11 May 1861, and joined the Gulf Blockading Squadron. In early August she steamed from the Florida coast westward and almost immediately captured two small schooners off Mobile, Alabama. She cruised on blockade duty from Alabama to Texas, and on 24 December she engaged Florida off Mobile Bay. Following an hour-long gun battle, she turned the blockade runner back into Mobile.

Huntsville returned to New York in the spring of 1862, and she decommissioned 5 April. She recommissioned 11 June, Lt. Howard Rogers in command, and returned to blockade duty along the U.S. Gulf Coast. By the end of July she had taken three prizes, Confederate steamers Adela and Reliance and British schooner Agnes, carrying cargoes of cotton, rosin, and other commodities. Before the end of the year, she captured two additional blockade runners, schooners Courier and Ariel, trying to run into Mobile with cargoes of lead, tin, medicines, wines, and coffee.

As the relentless pressure of the blockade against the South continued, the third year of the war proved even more profitable for Huntsville. During 1863 she captured two Confederate ships, Minnie and A. J. Hodge; two British schooners, Surprise and Ascension; and Spanish steamer Union. In addition, she drove two others, Cuba and Eugenia, into the hands of other ships in the blockading fleet and was given partial credit in the capture of Last Trial, a Confederate sloop captured off Key West, Florida, harbor. Among the variety of cargo seized, Huntsville captured 523 bales of cotton, the most valuable commodity in the South; and she prevented a great quantity of supplies, mainly from Havana, Cuba, and Nassau, Bahamas, from reaching the beleaguered South.