USS Shokokon ( 1862 ) USS " Shokokon " ( 1862 ) was a large ( 709 - ton ) steamer with powerful 30 - pounder rifled guns , purchased by the Union Navy during the beginning of the American Civil War . With a crew of 112 sailors , she was employed by the Union Navy as a heavy gunship outfitted to pursue blockade runner s of the Confederate States of America , and to participate in river operations . When required , towards war ' s end , she acted as a minesweeper , removing Confederate naval mine s from Northern Virginia rivers . Commissioned in New York City in 1862 . " Shokokon " — a wooden - hulled ferry built as " Clifton " in 1862 at Greenpoint , New York — was purchased by the Navy at New York City on 3 April 1863 ; altered for naval service there by J . Simonson ; and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 18 May 1863 , Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Samuel Huse in command . Civil War service . Assigned to the North Atlantic blockade . The double - ender was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and arrived at Newport News , Virginia , on the morning of 24 May 1863 . " Shokokon " was first stationed in the outer blockade off New Inlet , North Carolina ; but , late in June , she was recalled to Hampton Roads , Virginia , and ordered up the York River to the Pamunkey River to threaten Richmond , Virginia , in the hope of diverting Southern reinforcements , munitions , and supplies from General Robert E . Lee ' s Army of Northern Virginia which had invaded the North and was endangering Washington , D . C . On 4 July , as battered Confederate troops retreated from Gettysburg , Pennsylvania , she ascended the Pamunkey from White House , Virginia , and destroyed an unidentified schooner which had run aground some five miles upstream . A week later , " Shokokon " was switched to the James River where , on the 14th , the former ferryboat joined seven other Union fighting ships in capturing Confederate stronghold , Fort Powhatan . The force destroyed two magazines and 20 gun platforms . Repaired at the Norfolk Navy Yard . On 10 August , after repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard , " Shokokon " returned to blockade duty off Wilmington , North Carolina , and was stationed off Smith ' s Island . On the 18th , she assisted in destroying steamer , " Hebe " , which " Niphon " had chased aground while that blockade runner was attempting to slip through the Union cordon of warships with drugs and provisions badly needed by the South . Four days later , two boats from " Shokokon " destroyed schooner , Alexander Cooper , in New Topsail Inlet , North Carolina , and demolished extensive salt works in the vicinity . Hurricane damage . Late in August 1863 , the ship was damaged in a hurricane and sent north for repairs which lasted through the end of the year . She returned to Newport News on the morning of 16 January 1864 and , for the remainder of the war , was active in supporting Union ground forces in the rivers of Virginia and North Carolina . On 9 March , she joined and in escorting a Union Army expedition up the York and Mattapony rivers ; covered the debarkation of troops at Sheppard ' s Landing ; and returned to Yorktown , Virginia , three days later . Supporting General Grant ’ s operations . On 5 May , she was one of the warships which swept the river to clear away Confederate torpedoes ( naval mines ) and then supported the crossing of the landings at Bermuda Hundred and City Point , Virginia , which established a Union bridgehead on the southern shore of the James . During the ensuing months , she continued to shuttle between the York and James rivers to assist ground operations in General Ulysses S . Grant ' s ever tightening stranglehold on Richmond . In the autumn , " Shokokon " returned to North Carolina waters and spent the remainder of the war supporting Army efforts in that theatre . Post - war deactivation and subsequent career . When peace finally was restored , the double - ender returned north and was decommissioned at the New York Navy Yard . She was sold at public auction at New York City on 25 October 1865 and redocumented as " Lone Star " on 15 December 1865 . She served for more than two decades before being abandoned in 1886 .