USS Fulton (1837)

USS Fulton was a steamer that served the U.S. Navy prior to the American Civil War, and was recommissioned in time to see service in that war. However, her participation was limited to being captured by Confederate forces in the port of Pensacola, Florida, at the outbreak of war.

The second ship to be named Fulton by the Navy, a side wheel steamer, was launched 18 May 1837 by New York Navy Yard; and commissioned 13 December 1837, Captain M. C. Perry in command. She was often called Fulton II.

Service in the North Atlantic
Fulton cruised the Atlantic coast, aiding ships in distress, conducting ordnance experiments, and training officers in gunnery. A major event of her early service came on 23 November 1838, when she bested the British steamer SS Great Western in a speed contest off New York. Decommissioned at New York 23 November 1842, Fulton lay in ordinary until 1851, when she was rebuilt and her machinery completely replaced.

1851 rebuild
Fulton was essentially a harbor defense ship and was unsuitable for the cruising missions then emphasized by Navy policy. Accordingly, the New York Navy Yard rebuilt her in 1851 as a much more conventional warship. Fulton was recommissioned 25 January 1852 for duty in the Home Squadron, and sailed from New York 22 February for the West Indies.

During the next six years, aside from necessary repair periods in the yards at Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts, Fulton ranged from the Caribbean to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, transporting Government officials, protecting merchantmen against search on the high seas, and joining in the search for USS Albany (1846) (January through May 1855) and the expedition to Nicaragua in 1857 to break up William Walker's filibustering activities. The next year Fulton's commanding officer obtained the release of five American merchant ships held at Tampico, Mexico, by revolutionary forces. From October 1858 to May 1859 Fulton joined in operations commanded by Commodore W. B. Shubrick during his negotiations to improve relations with Paraguay, sailing the La Plata and the Parana and Paraguay Rivers. After lying out of commission at Norfolk, Virginia, from 7 May 1859 to 30 July 1859, Fulton cruised off Cuba to suppress the slave trade until laid up at Pensacola, Florida, in mid-October 1859.

Civil War capture
Captured by the Confederates when they took the Pensacola yard on 12 January 1861, Fulton was considered for use in the Confederate States Navy, but was never fitted out. She was destroyed in the evacuation of the yard by the Confederates upon Federal reoccupation 10 May 1862.