USS St. Clair (1862)
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | 1862 |
| Acquired: | 13 August 1862 |
| Commissioned: | 24 September 1862 |
| Decommissioned: | 12 July 1865 |
| Struck: | 1865 (est.) |
| Homeport: | Mound City, Illinois |
| Fate: | sold, 17 August 1865 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 203 tons |
| Length: | 156 ft (48 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft (9.8 m) |
| Draught: | 2 ft 4 in (0.71 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | not known |
| Complement: | not known |
| Armament: |
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USS St. Clair (1862) was a steamer purchased by the Union Navy during the American Civil War.
She was used by the Union Navy as a gunboat assigned to patrol Confederate waterways.
St. Clair, a wooden, stern-wheel, river steamer built in 1862 at Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania, was purchased on 13 August that year by the Navy Department from R. D. Cochran et al., at St. Louis, Missouri. She was fitted out and commissioned on 24 September 1862 at Carondelet, Missouri, Act. Vol. Lt. J. S. Hurd in command.
The next day, she sailed in company with Brilliant for Cairo, Illinois. For many months previous, Flag Officer Foote and Commodore C. H. Davis had commanded the victorious Western Flotilla for the U.S. War Department, gaining control of the Mississippi River from Cairo, Illinois, to Memphis, Tennessee.
On 1 October 1862, the Western Flotilla was transferred to the Navy Department, as the Mississippi Squadron, and was placed under the command of Acting Rear Admiral David D. Porter on the 15th. Davis, who had relieved Foote when the latter was incapacitated by wounds, was now appointed Chief of the Bureau of Navigation.
Admiral Porter began to augment the gunboat squadron with many shallow-draft vessels, including St. Clair, and to expand Union operations on the western rivers. The squadron assembled at Cairo, from which they were dispatched to and stationed along the Mississippi, Cumberland, Tennessee, and upper Ohio Rivers.
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