USS California (1867)

During the American Civil War, the Confederate States used British-built privateers to hamper Union trade instead of directly challenging the Union Navy. One such privateer, CSS Alabama, was responsible for attacking or destroying 65 commercial vessels.^[1][2] The disruption of Union trade routes drove up domestic prices, damaged the economy, and forced the reassignment of ships from blockade duties against the South. The United States feared that the United Kingdom would directly intervene to support the Confederacy—a scenario that would have left the Union Navy outmatched by the Royal Navy. In response, the Union Navy began planning for a possible war. While the American fleet could not match the British in conventional battles, the plan called for employing tactics similar to those used by the Confederacy: commerce raiding. By using cruisers to launch hit-and-run attacks on British ports and merchant shipping, the Union hoped to make a war too costly for Britain to justify, ultimately forcing it back into neutrality.^[3][4]

For the new role, the Navy developed "commerce destroyers" that had the range and speed to intercept enemy ships at sea. Twenty-seven such ships were ordered by Congress in 1863, split into three classes varying in size, speed, and armament. The most heavily armed of these designs became known as the Java-class sloop.^[5][6] By 1864, the new ships were built according to a new doctrine of the Navy for the post-war era. Congress was only interested in a navy that could directly protect the United States, not one that could rival the Royal or French Navies. Instead of large, costly, ocean-going ironclads such as USS Dunderburg, the legislators wanted the Navy to only consist of coastal ironclads that would protect the shoreline and commerce destroyers to operate out at sea and deter aggression from foreign nations.^[7][8]

The Java or Guerriere-class were envisioned as large screw-sloops with spar decks.^[9] The design featured an overall length of 336 feet 6 inches (102.57 m), length between perpendiculars of 312 feet 6 inches (95.25 m), beam of 46 feet (14 m), draft of 21 feet 5 inches (6.53 m), displacement of 3,954 short tons (3,530 long tons), and a complement of 325.^[10] Minnetonka was equipped with four main boilers and two superheating boilers, which provided steam to two horizontal back action steam 36 in (91 cm) stroke engines that turned one propeller powered by 540 short tons (480 long tons) of coal. The ships had two funnels and wooden hulls reinforced by iron braces.^[11] She was ship-rigged and carried 23,820 square feet (2,213 m²) of sail, excluding top sails, on three masts.^[12] During her sea trials, she reached 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) under steam and 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) under steam and sail.^[13] Armament consisted of either sixteen or eighteen 9 in (23 cm) Dahlgren guns and two 100 lb (45 kg) Parrott rifles on the gun deck to form the broadside while a 60 lb (27 kg) rifle was mounted on the spar deck.^[12]

In 1864, her keel was laid down at the Portsmouth Navy Yard,^[10] and she was launched on 3 July 1867.^[14] Like many other shipbuilding projects during the war, construction was rushed to get ships into service as soon as possible. A shortage of seasoned timber led to the class built out of heterogeneous green timber, which shortened the ships' service lives. As shortages continued after the war ended in 1865, ships were left half-built in the yards for years in an attempt to season the wood.^[15] Green, or undried, timber was undesirable as it had a tendency to shrink, rot, and leave a ship in need of financial unviable repair.^[16]

The sloop was initially named Minnetonka, after Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota.^[14] However, Adolph Borie, the Secretary of the Navy, disapproved of warships with Native American-sounding names and the unclear naming standards used across the fleet. As a result, he ordered a systematic renaming of vessels.^[17][18] The ship was renamed California—after the state—on 15 May 1869,^[19] and was finally commissioned on 12 December 1870.^[19] At some point, the ship was inspected by a post-war audit led by Admiral Louis Goldsborough. Her shallow hull and sharp ends were criticized, and the design was described as a, "poor specimen of an efficient vessel of war".^[12]

She was assigned to the Pacific Squadron, and left New York City on 13 March 1871 and arrived at San Francisco on 30 July.^[19] The 139-day voyage set a speed record for a warship on the route, although it was significantly slower than the 89-day record set by Flying Cloud.^[13] On her first cruise in the Pacific, she served as the flagship of Admiral John Winslow and visited ports in Hawaii, Chile, and Colombia. Her second cruise lasted between 30 December 1872 and 25 May 1873, when she served as Admiral Alexander Pennock's flagship of the North Pacific Station. Most of the voyage was spent protecting American interests in Honolulu.^[19] Due to her green wood, the ship was declared, "not worth the cost of repairs" following her return to the United States and the ship was decommissioned on 3 July 1873. After being laid up, California was sold off in May 1875.^[13][19]