USS Somerset ( 1862 ) USS " Somerset " was a wooden - hulled , side - wheel ferryboat built at Brooklyn , N . Y . , in 1862 , which was purchased by the Navy at Washington , D . C . , on 4 March 1862 and was commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 3 April 1862 , Lt . Earl English in command . Service history . Cuba . Assigned to the East Gulf Blockading Squadron , the ferryboat arrived at Key West , Florida , on 27 April , and after cooling , sailed on 1 May for waters off the coast of Cuba to seek blockade runners . On 4 May , she captured screw steamer " Circassian " flying British colors between Havana and Matanzas about 10 miles off the Cuban coast . Lt . English placed a prize crew on the steamer and towed her to Key West for adjudication . There she was condemned and sold to the Navy . Early War Service . After another cruise off the coast of Cuba , " Somerset " was ordered to cruise off Florida between Cedar Key and Apalachicola Bay . There she began a type of duty which characterized her service during her entire Navy career . In the next few months , she performed blockade duty ; made a reconnaissance expedition to Way Key where she engaged Confederate Army troops on 15 May ; shelled a Confederate fort near the lighthouse in St . Marks River , before landing a party of sailors who wrecked the battery on 15 June ; captured blockade running schooner " Curlew " off the Cedar Keys the next day ; and destroyed salt works at the end of the Fernandia Railroad at Depot Key on 4 and 6 October . The Apalachicola River . Because of the shoal waters she patrolled , " Somerset " often sent boat parties to serve the Union cause in areas which she could not reach herself . On 27 December , one of her boats capsized in a squall , and three petty officers and one seaman were drowned during operations in St . George ' s Sound to seal off the Apalachicola River . Up this strategic stream , which held " Somerset " s attention for much of the next two and one - half years , the Confederates were building screw gunboat CSS " Chattahoochee " and ironclad CSS " Muscogee " . These Confederate warships never got into action ; but , in May 1864 , a party of Confederate sailors from " Chattahoochee " , commanded by Lt . George W . Gift , attempted to capture Union side wheeler which was blockading the Apalachicola . Launches from Somerset discovered the Confederate expedition , drove them off , and captured their boats and supplies . Later service . " Somerset " spent most of the final year of the war guarding lest the Southern warships attempt to break the blockade . From time to time , an expedition to gain intelligence or a foray against Southern salt works would enliven her routine blockade duty . Her last excitement came in the closing weeks of the war when , on 30 March 1865 , she joined " Sunfewer " in destroying salt works on St . Joseph ' s Bayou . Decommissioned . After peace returned , the steamer - badly in need of repair and towed by " Isnomia " - headed for New York . She was sold at public auction there on 12 July 1865 to the Union Ferry Co . Documented on 14 February 1866 , the rejuvenated " Somerset " began a career as a New York ferryboat which lasted until she was retired in 1914 .