[1][2] The vessel was built at the shipyard of Theodore Birely and Son in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia under the direction of Captain Richard F. Loper, a pioneer in the use of propeller technology.

[4] Star of the South was propelled by a coal-fired steam engine built by the Franklin Works of J. T. Sutton & Company.

[13] Her cargo was bound for California, taking advantage of the newly completed Panama Railroad to carry it to the Pacific.

They arrived at San Francisco 26 days after leaving New York, showing this to be, by far, the fastest transcontinental freight route at the time.

Between August 1855 and October 1856 Star of the South was one of several American vessels chartered by the French Government to support its troops in the Crimean War.

She reached New York under sail alone, her engine broken, partially dismasted, and with major rudder and hull damage from two gales encountered en route.

Damage to the engine and other machinery was more extensive than had been disclosed during the sale process resulting in a lawsuit against the Star Steamship Company.

[34] Her profitable service continued right to the outbreak of the American Civil War, but growing tensions were reflected in her cargoes.

In April 1861 the Quartermaster Corps of the Union Army chartered the ship as a transport to support its operations along the Confederate coast.

[39] She was an all-purpose transport, moving Union troops, Confederate prisoners, released Union prisoners of war, sick and wounded soldiers,[40] the bodies of fallen troops,[41] civilian refugees, cavalry horses, mules and carts, mail, money, dispatches, and supplies of all sorts.

On one trip in 1864 she sailed from Hilton Head, South Carolina with 300,000 pounds of unginned cotton aboard, the product of freed slaves paid wages by the Federal government.

[44] Her next assignment was to bring mules, carts, hay, straw, and other supplies to Fort Pickens at Pensacola Bay.

Star of the South joined with the rest of the invasion fleet at Hampton Roads, Virginia and carried her engineers to the battle.

During the bad weather, on November 2, 1861, a small steamer transporting cattle, Peerless, hoisted a distress signal and Star of the South came to her aid.

[48]In January 1862, the ship was sent back to Port Royal with the horses of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry Regiment, the men having been embarked on other transports.

[49] In March 1862 Star of the South, participated in the assault on Fernandina, Florida, carrying the 9th Maine Infantry Regiment to the battle.

In April 1872, Flag Officer Samuel DuPont, who commanded the Federal fleet, ordered Star of the South to carry to New York those refugees who chose to leave.

After her eventful early sorties as a part of invasion fleets, Star of the South settled down to routine sailings from New York to New Orleans, stopping at several Union controlled ports along the way.

[59][60] Later in that same month, Star of the South towed USS Alabama from New York to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where she was ordered to remain until a yellow fever outbreak was over.

[61] USS Lehigh had an unlucky December 1863 at Charleston and went aground in the harbor, at which point Confederate artillery batteries hit her several times.

Come June 1865, Star of the South supported Major General Weitzel's "Texas expedition" to eject the French who had occupied portions of Mexico.

The short gap suggests that there was no time for significant repairs to the ship after four years of continuous, hard, wartime usage.

[68] Mitchell put Star of the South on the auction block several times[69] before she was finally sold to Pendergast, Fenwick, and Company in May 1866.

Regrettably, the recruits were capable of creating disturbances of their own, so the ship stopped at Fortress Monroe en route to acquire weapons to maintain order aboard.

Her sailings were brought to a sudden end in early November 1866 when she broke her propeller shaft off Cape Henry while en route from Charleston to New York with 1,100 bales of cotton aboard.

While she proved that propeller-driven vessels could operate reliably and profitably, she could not compete with the more modern propeller steamers her success inspired.

[82] In October 1868 she was stripped of her machinery, towed up on Moon Island in Boston Harbor and burned so that her iron could be recovered from the ashes.