Deck view of the U.S. Steamship “K…

Very rare colonial lithograph of  the U.S.S. Kearsarge, in Sydney Harbour in September 1869. U.S.S. Kearsarge was a 1550-ton Mohican class steam sloop of war, built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, Kittery, Maine, under the 1861 Civil War emergency ship building program.

She was commissioned in January 1862 and almost immediately deployed to European waters, where she spent nearly three years searching for Confederate raiders. In June 1864, while under the command of Captain John Winslow, Kearsarge found CSS Alabama at Cherbourg, France, where she had gone for repairs after a devastating cruise at the expense of the United States’ merchant marine. On 19 June, the two ships, nearly equals in size and power, fought a battle off Cherbourg that became one of the Civil War’s most memorable naval actions. In about an hour, Kearsarge’s superior gunnery completely defeated her opponent, which soon sank. After searching off Europe for the Confederate cruiser Florida, Kearsarge went to the Caribbean, then to Boston, where she received repairs before returning to Europe in April 1865 to try to intercept the ironclad CSS Stonewall. With the end of the Civil War, she remained in the area until mid-1866, when she was placed out of commission. Kearsarge was recommissioned on 16 January 1868 and sailed on 12 February to serve in the South Pacific operating out of Valparaiso, Chile. On 22 August, she landed provisions for destitute earthquake victims in Peru. She continued to watch over American commercial interests along the coast of South America until 17 April 1869. Then she sailed to watch over American interests among the Marquesas, Society Islands, Navigators Islands, and Fiji Islands.

She also called at Sydney in September, 1869 before returning to Callao, Peru on 31 October. She resumed duties on the South Pacific Station until 21 July 1870, then cruised to the Hawaiian Islands before being decommissioned in the Mare Island Navy Yard on 11 October 1870.

From the original edition of The Illustrated Sydney News.