The plan was to build seaworthy warships near the industrial center of Columbus, and sail them downriver to Apalachicola Bay to challenge the US Navy ships on blockade duty there.

[2] In October 1861 the CS Navy contracted with David S. Johnston of Saffold, Georgia to build a gunboat.

The governors of Alabama, Florida and Georgia appealed to the Army to protect against such invasions by placing obstacles in the Apalachicola River and installing batteries along its banks.

By the time the Chattahoochee was commissioned, obstacles in the river blocked its access to Apalachicola Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

The "Narrows" was in the middle of a swamp, but artificial mounds were built on both sides of the river for gun batteries.

In late May the U.S. Navy learned that a blockade runner, the Fashion, was loading cotton at a landing north of the city of Apalachicola.

Nineteen people aboard the Chattahoochee were killed or died later from their wounds, including two or three who drowned while trying to swim to shore.

[10][11] David Johnston, who had built the Chattahoochee, raised the sunken ship, but left it sitting at his boatyard, where much of its gear was removed.

In early June Gift was ordered to return the Chattahoochee to the Columbus Navy Yard, and he and his crew were sent to Savannah, Georgia to man the CSS Waterwitch.

They later were raised and a portion of her hull and her original steam engines once more returned to her home in Columbus, where they were placed on display at the National Civil War Naval Museum.

[13] Because she was scuttled and lay submerged for a century, Chattahoochee is the only Confederate Navy gunboat that survived to the modern era.