Johnson and his partners all having learned a lesson from their previous failed attempts ascending the Colorado, and with the example of the earlier steamboat Uncle Sam, brought the parts of a more powerful side-wheel steamboat, the General Jesup, with them to the mouth of the Colorado from San Francisco.
There it was reassembled and launched at a landing in the upper tidewater of the river and reached Fort Yuma, January 18, 1854.
[1]: 11–12, 162 Another reason for the speed of the new steamboat beside its powerful engine was the establishment of the wood-yards along the river between the delta and Fort Yuma.
Steamboats did not travel at night, due to the danger of running onto sandbars or into snags on the ever-changing river.
It was replaced by the larger more powerful Cocopah, a stern-wheel steamboat drawing only 19 inches of water, which was better suited to navigating the hazards of the upper Colorado route.