USS Augusta Dinsmore

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USS Augusta Dinsmore was a Union Navy steamer used as a gunboat and supply ship during the Civil War. Built in 1863 at Mystic, Connecticut, she was launched in 1863 and acquired by the Navy on July 17, 1863. She was commissioned around July 21, 1863. With a displacement of about 834 tons, she was 169 feet long, had a speed of 11 knots, and carried a crew of about 70. Her armament included two 12-pounder rifles.

At first, Augusta Dinsmore operated for the Adams Express Company along the Atlantic coast, carrying mail, passengers, and supplies to and from Union blockaders off Charleston. In late June 1863 she was chartered by the Navy and joined Rear Admiral Dahlgren’s squadron, arriving off Port Royal, South Carolina, on July 4. Dahlgren used her as his flagship for much of July and August as Union forces attacked Charleston and Fort Wagner. Fort Wagner fell on September 6, and soon afterward a larger ship relieved her as flagship.

The Augusta Dinsmore then sailed to the Gulf, where Dahlgren sent her to guard the area around Madgie at Saint Catherine Sound while continuing to blockades along the Texas coast. By December 1863 she was assigned to the West Gulf Blockading Squadron and operated mainly out of New Orleans as a dispatch and supply ship, delivering information and materiel to ships blockading the Texas coast. She also intercepted blockade runners on occasion.

Notable actions include seizing the British brig Scio in February 1864, though Army officers ordered her released after protest and negotiation. In September 1864 the ship John was captured in the Gulf, and in October 1864 the schooner Cora Smyser was stopped near San Luis Pass, Texas. Augusta Dinsmore continued her supply duties for the remainder of the war.

After the Confederate surrender, she returned north, being decommissioned at New York on August 28, 1865, and sold on September 5, 1865. She was re-documented as Gulf City on September 16, 1865, and continued in merchant service until she ran aground off Cape Lookout, North Carolina, on January 11, 1869, with the loss of 23 lives.