The USS Roanoke was named after the Roanoke River in Virginia and North Carolina. She was laid down in Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia in May 1854 and launched in December 1855. It had an inauspicious start when it sank during the launching and had to be refloated.
She was commissioned on 4 May 1857 with Captain John B. Montgomery in command. One of her early duties was to transport William Walker and his fillibuster men back from Central America. After that, she returned to Central America to await the arrival of the first Japanese embassy to the United States.
At the start of the Civil War, the Roanoke was assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and made some captures of blockade runners off Lockwood Folly Inlet, N.C. and off Charleston, S.C.
It was at the Battle of Hampton Roads where her former sister ship, the USS Merrimack had been turned into the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia. But her deep draft prevented her from engaging. After the battle, she ferried survivors of the USS Congress and USS Cumberland to New York City.
Upon arrival, she was decommissioned and reconstruction began to convert her into a monitor.
--Old B-Runner
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