USS Choctaw (1856)
USS Choctaw off Vicksburg
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Laid down: | 1853, at New Albany, Indiana |
| Launched: | 1856 |
| Commissioned: | 23 March 1863, at St. Louis, Missouri |
| Decommissioned: | 22 July 1865, at Algiers, Louisiana |
| Struck: | 1866 (est.) |
| Fate: | sold, 28 March 1866 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1,004 long tons (1,020 t) |
| Length: | 260 ft (79 m) |
| Beam: | 45 ft (14 m) |
| Draft: | 8 ft (2.4 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 2 knots (4 km/h) upstream |
| Complement: | 106 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: | ironclad |
USS Choctaw (1856) was a large (1,004-ton) steamer built for the merchant service, but acquired by the Union Navy during the second year of the American Civil War.
Choctaw, with her crew of 106, was outfitted by the Navy as a ram with heavy rifled guns and was used both as a gunboat and as a ram on the rivers of the Confederate States of America.
Choctaw, a sidewheel steamer, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Choctaw Indian tribe, formerly of Alabama and Mississippi, now resident in Oklahoma.
She was built for the merchant service; her keel was laid down at New Albany, Indiana, in 1853. She was launched in 1856. She was purchased by the United States Army on 27 September 1862 and converted into an ironclad ram, then transferred to commissioned into the United States Navy at St. Louis, Missouri on 23 March 1863 with Lieutenant Commander Francis M. Ramsay in command.
From 23 April 1863, until the end of the war, Choctaw operated in the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Between 29 April and 1 May 1863, she stood up the Yazoo River for a feigned attack on Haynes' Bluff, Mississippi, designed to prevent the Confederates from reinforcing Grand Gulf. During this action, she was struck 53 times.
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