Probably built in Philadelphia and first owned in Troy, N.Y., Gunnison became the Confederate privateer A. C. Gunnison [See Annex I], commissioned at Mobile, Ala., on 25 May 1861 and commanded by Capt. P. G. Cook, a part owner. Sometime in 1862 she was acquired by the Confederate Navy and fitted out as a dispatch and torpedo boat, carrying 150 pounds of powder on a spar over her bow. Her upperworks were protected by boiler iron sheathing.
Gunnison was commanded first by Acting Master's Mate F. M. Tucker, CSN, and after 9 November 1863 by Midshipman E. A. Swain, CSN. Plans for her to attack Colorado, one of the Mobile Bay blockade ships, fell through. She was turned over to the United States Navy in April, 1865 and kept in naval rather than army service as a good example, in Rear Adm. H. K. Thatcher's phrase, "of the heavier class of vessels."
